Twisted Ties of Love
Chapter 440

Izabella quietly circled around Nathaniel, crouched down, and held his hand.

Nathaniel's hand was bony, with a thin layer of callus on his fingertips. Izabella looked at his ten fingers as if she was carefully picking food. In the end, she fixed her eyes on Nathaniel's left index finger. "Now I give you two options. First, you open the elevator and let me go, and I'll spare you. Second, I promise you'll wish you were dead today."

Nathaniel closed his eyes and kept silent.

Izabella had expected that outcome, but she still chuckled, "Looks like you don't want to let me go."

With that, Izabella pointed the needle of the syringe at his index fingernail.

That kind of pain would be enough for him to remember for a lifetime. Izabella's hand was shaking a bit, but she still injected the drug into his body as she was determined.

Nathaniel only groaned, his hand began to struggle and shake unconsciously.

"Did you ever think that one day these drugs would be used on you when you were researching them?"

The original Izabella was in much more pain than what he was suffering at that moment. Twenty-eight small steel needles, just thinking about it gave one the creeps.

The stimulating drug spread throughout his body from his fingers. Nathaniel could bear the pain, but he couldn't control his body's reactions. He was sweating like a pig and tears overflowed from the corners of his eyes.

Izabella wasn't Nathaniel. She didn't take pleasure in that process, nor did she feel joy after taking revenge. Time had already blunted the sharpness of hatred. Only when she thought of Ryker Dempsey, the fiery feeling would reignite.

"Does it hurt?" Izabella teasingly asked.

Nathaniel lifted his head, his throat moving up and down. After a while, he gritted his teeth and said venomously, "Don't talk to me in Bell's voice." Nathaniel kept his eyes closed. Even knowing that the person in front of him was Izabella, he didn't want to see the hatred for him on Bell's face.

"Is that all the pain tolerance you have?" Izabella's tone at that moment was very similar to Nathaniel's when he was torturing her.

"You should know that Bell endured your mental abuse for two years. After leaving you, she faced the world's slander. You probably don't know, but Bell was already severely depressed when she was with you."

"She was depressed?" His voice was weak and feeble. Nathaniel's eyelashes trembled, then he finally opened his eyes. His pupils contracted slightly, and his tears shone under the light.

The drug Izabella had injected into his body was already taking effect. His body felt like it was being torn apart, but no physical pain could compare to the pain in his heart.

"You said Bell was depressed when she was with me?"

Strictly speaking, Bell's depression was only diagnosed after she had left Nathaniel.

The mental pressure Nathaniel put on her was huge. After leaving him, she had to face the pressure from the company and the insults on the internet. All of those were the reasons that killed her.

But Nathaniel didn't believe Izabella's words as he retorted, "Impossible. There were no signs of depression when she was with me. If she was depressed, why didn't she tell me?"

"You treated her like a substitute. You humiliated her. Did you care about whether she was depressed; did you care about her feelings? People like you, who treat others as toys and play with them at will, don't need to talk about self-esteem and feelings, right?"

Izabella thought of Bell's depression medical report in the closet, and she felt extremely sad.

Bell only had an examination. After being diagnosed with severe depression, she never went to the hospital again.

Bell didn't have any personal savings. Depression was a hassle to treat, and she also didn't have any money to treat it. That was a disease that poor people couldn't afford to have. Rather than living in pain, it was better to die peacefully, which eventually was her choice.

Nathaniel's nerves were somewhat confused under the effect of the drug.

Izabella pushed the chair to the elevator door, tried the distance and position, and could unlock the person's pupils, then lifted Nathaniel's head.

Nathaniel was aware of that and closed his eyes.

"You still don't want me to go, even at this point."

"I was just thinking, would Bell come back if you died?"

"What difference would it make if she came back?"

"I'm sorry."

Izabella didn't expect to hear that from Nathaniel. She always thought that people like him were too proud to apologize for their mistakes.

"What Bell lacked was not your 'I'm sorry', and besides, how much is your apology worth? You are a person who doesn't even believe in sincerity. How sincere can an 'I'm sorry' from you be?" Izabella's expression slowly hardened. She didn't want to waste more time on Nathaniel.

It was already getting dark outside, and it would not be good for her to leave too late.

Izabella clenched the syringe in her hand and aimed it at Nathaniel's neck, "Now all I have to do is apply a little force, and this needle can pierce your carotid artery. You should know how painful that would be. wonder if it would be worse than the five drugs you used on me."

Nathaniel glanced at the drug in Izabella's hand, the eerie green color. This drug was an upgraded version and hadn't been tested yet.

But looking at the dosage, he figured out that it could easily cause brain death.

"There's a communicator in the room. You can call my people," Nathaniel's voice was weak, "I can't see clearly now, my pupils can't focus, so the elevator door can't be opened by them."

"Where is it?"

"It's in the room where these drugs are stored, in the drawer under the lab table."

Izabella let go of him, turned around, went back, found the communicator in that drawer, and then returned to the elevator entrance.

She contacted Nathaniel's people.

"Nathaniel is now my hostage. If you want him to be safe, open the elevator door and prepare a car," Izabella pushed Nathaniel to the floor-to-ceiling window. After saying that, she indeed saw people looking up in her direction.

Whether they could see them or not, Izabella kept the syringe aimed at Nathaniel's neck.

She had got balls that Bell could never muster up in a million years. In fact, looking at them at that point, they were nothing alike. Even their looks didn't seem similar after a while. Why on earth did he want Bel to replace Izabella in the first place?

Just then, a loud noise suddenly came from outside. Izabella saw the leaves on the trees shaking. She looked up and saw a helicopter slowly approaching the building.