The Love I Begged For Was Never Real novel Chapter 416

The maid with the ponytail shivered, glancing around nervously before leaning close to her coworker's ear.

"Haven't you noticed? Mr. Hayes... he keeps talking to thin air lately."

"I was walking past his study and heard him talking inside. I thought he had a guest, but when I peeked through the gap in the door, he was totally alone..."

"He was holding some of the heiress's old clothes, asking her if she was cold, asking why she was ignoring him..."

Nora's footsteps froze right outside the storage room.

Her legs felt as though they had been filled with lead, refusing to move even a single inch forward.

That once proud and brilliant young man, the ruthless head of the Hayes family who had terrorized the corporate world of the city, the man who was always immaculately dressed in tailored suits, executing flawless strategies.

He was now a hollow shell sustained by prescription drugs, a walking corpse seeking solace in graveyards in the dead of night.

He had trapped himself in memories of the past, talking to a hallucination of his sister, desperately floundering on the edge of reality and madness.

She was the one who had pushed him down into this bottomless abyss.

The bodyguard trailing her stepped forward with a cold expression.

"Back to your room," the guard hurried her.

Nora lowered her eyes and dragged her heavy feet, continuing the agonizing walk back to her prison.

A few days later at noon.

Nora had just finished her four-hour kneeling punishment. Her knees were swollen and inflamed; every step shot a piercing ache up her legs.

The bodyguard escorted her across the sprawling second-floor atrium, heading back to her room.

On one side of the atrium was Gideon's study, where he handled all business affairs.

One of the heavy mahogany double doors was left half-open.

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