Shattered Then Healed By His Love (by Haley Blanton) novel Chapter 76

Chapter 76 The Interrogation

Quinton stammered, his voice breaking apart. “I…I…”

“Who told you to do it?”

Marcus’s brows knit tighter, his hand still clutching Quinton’s collar without the slightest intention of letting go.

“I’ll ask you one last time. Who sent you?”

The air around him dropped like a storm cloud, cold and suffocating.

Natalie couldn’t tear her eyes from Marcus’s face. It was the first time she’d seen that expression on him–ice and fire, wrath held on a razor’s edge. He was furious. Truly furious.

She forced her own voice steady, though her jaw tightened. “This doesn’t just ruin my clinic’s reputation. It’s an attack on my integrity as a doctor. Tell me the truth, and I’ll let it don’t, I’ll hand you to the police myself.”

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“There’s no one behind me!” Quinton clung stubbornly to his lie. “You want to call the police? Go ahead!”

Marcus’s lips curved into a smile so cold it sent a ripple through the room. “So you’d rather drink the hard wine than the soft?”

Just then James strode in, fresh from dropping Lily at school. He leaned close, lowering his voice. “Mr. Collins.”

Marcus’s eyes flicked toward him. “Clear the place. I want a private word.”

“Yes, sir.”

James turned at once, ushering the onlookers out with iron authority. Even Quinton’s mother and Marilyn were pushed to the street.

Within moments the clinic was stripped down to its core–Natalie, Lucy, Atlas, Marcus, and the trembling Quinton.

He was a broad, heavyset man, but standing beneath Marcus’s shadow, his bulk shrank to nothing.

“First day of business, and you come to stir trouble?” Marcus’s hand shifted, gripping Quinton’s hair and yanking his head back hard. His voice was a low snarl. “You expect me to

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17:21 Mon, Sep 29

Chapter 76 The Interrogation

believe no one sent you?”

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Natalie froze. She had never seen Marcus strike someone. Cold as he was in daily life, right now he radiated something else entirely–predatory force, the raw menace of a panther ready to tear out a throat.

“No one sent me!” Quinton shook his head wildly, voice cracking.

Atlas slammed a finger against the laptop screen, his eyes dark with fury. “Then explain this. Why were you grinning like that, huh?”

“I…I…” Quinton’s tongue tripped over excuses that would not come.

Lucy snapped, her chest heaving with anger. “Natalie doesn’t even know you! What grudge do you have against her, to set her up like this? Her skill is respected across Brookvale–you dare smear her in public?”

Quinton clamped his mouth shut, refusing to answer.

Marcus released him suddenly, his eyes sliding toward James. “If he won’t speak, what do you think we should do?”

James’s answer was instant. “Leave it to me.”

Before Natalie could grasp his intent, James seized Quinton’s arm and dragged him bodily toward the treatment room. “Ms. Foster, I’ll borrow your clinic for a moment.”

The door slammed shut behind them with a resounding bang.

The sound echoed through the building, sharp as a gunshot.

Natalie and the others stared at the closed door, unease pricking their skin.

Then it came–the howl. Quinton’s scream, raw and strangled, spilling from inside the

treatment room.

Natalie jolted, her face blanching. “Mr. Collins, please–let’s just call the police! His body’s already weak from the allergy, he only just survived the shock. If he gets hurt now, it could kill him!”

Lucy chimed in quickly, “Exactly! It’s safer to hand him over!”

Marcus sat down slowly at the consultation chair, one arm resting on the desk, his long fingers -adorned with a dark ring–tapping against the wood in a slow, rhythmic beat.

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Once. Twice. Three times.

Each strike like a clock tolling doom, filling the clinic with such tension that even breathing seemed forbidden.

At last he raised his eyes, voice cool and merciless. “Mercy to an enemy is cruelty to yourself.”

His gaze locked on Natalie’s, the faintest smirk tugging at his lips as he added, almost casually, “Besides, didn’t Ms. Lucy say Ms. Foster’s medical skill ranks among the best in Brookvale? Even if my man breaks him, surely Ms. Foster can drag him back from hell itself.”

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