Saintess's Worthless Husband Turned Dragon Commander novel Chapter 214

CHAPTER 158 PART 2

Atlas’s carefully maintained composure cracked slightly. “Watch your mouth. You don’t know what you’re-”

“I know exactly what I’m talking about,” Ives shot back. “Everyone in this room knows. You’re a coward. A bully. And worse-you’re pathetic.”

The insult landed like a physical blow. Several people actually gasped. Nobody spoke to Atlas Lancaster like that. Nobody.

Atlas’s face flushed dark red, but he forced himself to breathe, to regain control. Ives Abbott was protected by her family name. Hurting her would create complications he didn’t need tonight.

Instead, he turned his full attention to Elize.

“You,” he said quietly, advancing on her corner. “Do you have any idea what you’ve cost me? The embarrassment? The humiliation? The damage to my family’s reputation?”

Elize pressed herself further into the corner, terror written across her features. “Atlas, please—”

“Please?” Atlas’s laugh was ugly. “Now you say please? Not when you were making a fool of me in front of the entire province. Not when you were breaking bottles over my head. Not when you were spreading your legs for Marcus Steel to hurt me.”

“I didn’t-” Elize’s voice was barely a whisper.

“You didn’t what?” Atlas loomed over her now, his shadow engulfing her. “Didn’t sleep with him? Didn’t humiliate me deliberately? Didn’t destroy everything between our families?” His hand rose, trembling with rage. You’re going to learn what happens when you cross the Lancaster Family. You’re going to-”

The beer bottle caught him perfectly on the back of the skull.

The crack was sickeningly familiar-almost identical to the sound Elize’s bottle had made days earlier. Atlas stumbled forward, his vision exploding into stars and pain, his carefully styled hair suddenly matted with beer

and blood.

He spun around, disbelief warring with agony, and found Nathan standing there-beer bottle in hand, expression twisted with something between fear and resignation.

“Nathan?” Atlas’s voice came out strangled. “What… what are you…”

Curtis moved instantly, professional training overriding shock. He grabbed Nathan by the throat and slammed him against the wall hard enough to crack plaster. “You just signed your death warrant, you piece of —”

“Wait!” Nathan gasped, hands clawing at Curtis’s grip. “Wait, I can explain! I was forced! They made me

“Forced?” Curtis’s voice was lethal. “Forced to betray the Lancaster Family? There’s no explanation that saves you from that.”

Atlas pressed a hand to the back of his bleeding head, his pristine suit now stained and ruined, his perfect appearance shattered. “Let him talk,” he said coldly. “I want to hear this. I want to know why he thinks betraying me was worth whatever’s coming next.”

Nathan’s eyes darted around the room desperately, searching for salvation, for escape, for anything that might save him from the catastrophic mistake he’d just committed.

But there was nothing. No help. No mercy.

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He’d crossed a line from which there was no return.

“Young Master Lancaster,” Nathan choked out, Curtis’s grip still tight on his throat. “They… they threatened to kill me if I didn’t-”

“Who?” Atlas demanded. “Who threatened you?”

Nathan’s mouth opened to answer, but before he could speak, the private room door exploded inward.

It didn’t swing open. It was kicked-hard enough to tear it partially off its hinges, hard enough to send it crashing into the wall with a bang that made everyone jump.

Allen Mitchell stood in the doorway, flanked by a dozen armed men in tactical gear. Behind them, more Abbott security forces filled the hallway, creating an impenetrable wall of professional violence.

And in the center of it all, walking forward with the calm confidence of someone who’d orchestrated this entire evening down to the second, came Marcus Steel.

His dragon eyes swept the room once-cataloging Atlas’s bleeding head, Nathan pinned against the wall, Ives standing defiant, Elize cowering in the corner-and a small, cold smile touched his lips.

“Atlas Lancaster,” Marcus said quietly. “We need to talk about the concept of consequences.”

Atlas stared, his mind struggling to process what was happening. Nathan’s betrayal. The Abbott security forces. Marcus Steel walking in like he owned the room.

This wasn’t how tonight was supposed to go.

This was supposed to be his victory.

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