Larissa's Game of Thrones (Larissa) novel Chapter 141

“Valeria, Mr. Haskell crippled both his legs saving you,” Crispin said, his voice dangerously low. “But instead of gratitude, you saw a cripple. You figured he’d never be the Palmer family heir, so you flipped a switch. You started mocking him, taunting him. How could you be so naive? He’s not dead. Did you and Draven really think you could just walk all over him?”

Without another word, Crispin snatched a champagne bottle from the nearby wine cabinet. His expression was flat, his eyes unblinking as he swung the heavy bottle with brutal force, smashing it squarely against Valeria’s knee.

A sickening thud echoed through the room, followed instantly by Valeria’s terrified, blood-curdling scream.

“Aaargh!”

The shriek tore through the silence of the villa.

Her face a mask of agony, Valeria curled into a ball on the floor, clutching her shattered knee. She writhed on the cold, hard ground, her mouth open in a continuous, pathetic wail.

Standing off to the side, Larissa watched with detached interest, raising a single eyebrow. “Well, then,” she murmured under her breath.

She turned to Haskell as he slowly wheeled himself closer, her tone laced with dry amusement. “Your man Crispin doesn’t pull his punches, does he? Not exactly a soft touch with the ladies.”

A faint smile touched Haskell’s lips. “That depends on whether the lady is worth being soft with,” he replied coolly. “When you’re dealing with worthless trash, you treat it like trash.”

Larissa nodded in agreement. “Fair point.”

Summoning the last of her strength, Valeria pleaded, “Please… let me go… I was wrong… Haskell…”

Her pleas vanished into thin air, met with stony silence.

Larissa glanced nonchalantly at the handsome man beside her. Haskell’s expression remained impassive, as if the brutal scene unfolding before him was of no consequence.

A cruel smile spread across Larissa’s face. “This is how it should be,” she said softly. “Betrayal from those closest to you… that deserves no mercy. It has to be far more vicious than anything you’d do to a normal enemy. After all, it’s the knife in the back you never see coming.”

Haskell’s gaze on Valeria was tinged with a faint, lingering sorrow. “Yes. I spent years navigating the business world, cautious, meticulous, never making a mistake. And in the end, I was nearly destroyed by the two people I cared about most—my own brother and the adopted sister I’d treated as my own flesh and blood.”