Chapter 484

"I told you to stay back! Damn it, you're bleeding. Don't move!" Her cry was a hoarse whisper, pleading with him in desperation.

Pain wracked Lawrence's heart, but he managed a slight smirk. "Will you come to me then?"

She wouldn't go to him; it was like leaping into an abyss. She couldn't forget Ishara's phone call, about her and him in the hotel...

He was getting closer.

He couldn't hold on much longer; crawling was the only thing he could do, his only thought was to save her.

Winnie's eyes were rimmed with tears. Her lip was bitten raw as she tried to pull away from him even more.

But she couldn't get up; her body felt limp, overwhelmed by a feverish heat that drenched her to the core...

His large hand touched her ankle.

The injured ankle, bleeding, her toes small and delicate, pink and tender like pearls.

Looking at them, he felt an unexpected pang of heartache, with no other thought but concern.

"Lawrence, no, please don't..." She clung to the corner of the wall, her voice as soft and vulnerable as if she were being pleasured, a mix of resistance and longing to succumb.

Lawrence's hand moved up from the torn edge of her dress, wrapping around her waist as she trembled at his touch.

His expression was stern, his features intense, using his last bit of strength to sit up beside her against the wall.

Looking at her tender, flushed cheeks, his gaze held no frivolity. He reached for his belt, his slacks outlining the perfect contours of his physique.

He breathed lightly, "Come a little closer..."

"I can't," Winnie muffled her words with her hand, her voice hoarse, her reason teetering on the edge of collapse. " If we don't stop the bleeding... you'll die."

"I'm more afraid of you dying," Lawrence whispered, gently caressing her small ankle.

Winnie's heart shattered, tears streaming down her face.

Uncontrollably, she crawled closer, grasping his attractive Adam's apple, entwining herself around his neck, curling into his embrace like a soft, fiery cloud.

Her eyes, wet with tears, spilled over like a spring.

Stirred by the sight, and certainly moved, Lawrence wrapped his arms around her slender frame.

He didn't kiss her. One, he had no strength; two, he feared she might mind.

He only dared to steal in the warmth of her scent, "Winnie, if I die, I'd rather die in your arms. It's better than watching you die."

"I don't want this," Winnie sobbed, still resisting, her pride and sorrow painfully entwined. "You and Ishara..."

"I'm not unclean," he didn't know how to explain, his relationship with Ishara had never been like that.

His smile was tinged with bitterness.

But in the end, he welcomed her approach... In the darkness, their breaths-one strong, one weak-grew erratic like wildfire. Lawrence managed to hold her hand, fingers interlocking. Each thread of pleasure suppressed under the crushing weight of pain and despair. He murmured hoarsely, "Don't fear my death. Even if I die, I'm content at this moment."

Winnie cried too hard to speak. Why did fate have to torment her like this, to be intimate with him under such circumstances?

Why? His tender words always managed to break her heart, despite her agony!

Yet her heart couldn't help but quiver for him, just like her body.

She reminded herself that this intervention was necessary, that she needed to stay strong and not let her compassion weaken her resolve. He had been ready to lay down his life for her...

Just like three years ago, when she was pregnant and faced with revenge at the construction site, he had stepped in without a second thought to protect her.

Tonight, he had taken a stab and more for her with the same fearless determination, ensuring she would get through this safely, even at this very moment.

Nothing seemed to have changed, yet everything was different!

Winnie held him in anguish, tears streaming down her face as she clung tighter, her mind overwhelmed by a torrent of emotions.

"Lawrence!"

Finally, a voice came from above the basement.

It jolted Winnie back to reality. Being interrupted in their unconventional intimate moment, her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, she stiffened awkwardly.

Lawrence, half-conscious, took a breath and calmed her. "Don't be scared."

His hoarse voice reassured her, "Feeling better? Take my jacket and put it on."

He had saved her, and the suffocating fear she felt was abating.

Hastily, Winnie gathered herself as Jeremy burst in, "Mr. Rodriguez! Winnie?"

"We're here..." her voice was unusually low, as if suppressed.

A swarm of police officers had arrived at the entrance of the basement, and after about ten minutes, they finally cut through the chains.

"We need medical assistance!" Winnie cried out.

Jeremy ran in and saw Mr. Rodriguez critically injured, unconscious, with blood spreading across the floor, even staining Winnie's dress and coat.

"What happened?!"

"He's been stabbed; we need to get him to the hospital quickly." Winnie's voice trembled as she supported Lawrence.

An ambulance had already accompanied the police.

Jeremy quickly hoisted Lawrence onto his back, carrying him to the ambulance, with Winnie right behind.

As they neared the hospital, the cell phone in Lawrence's pocket began to ring. Winnie was about to switch it off, but Lawrence suddenly came to for a few seconds, grasping for the phone as if it was a matter of life or death, clinging to the last bit of conscious strength to answer the call.

The ambulance siren wailed, making it impossible for Winnie to hear who was on the other end.

But his expression darkened, his pupils fixed for a brief moment, and his face turned ashen.

"What's wrong?" Winnie asked, confused. Could it have been Ishara calling? Her thoughts were a chaotic whirlpool, sinking fast.

The next second, his eyes closed, and he passed out on the ambulance stretcher, the phone falling to the floor.

"Doctors!" Winnie shouted.

"We're at the hospital! Get the patient out. He needs emergency surgery!" shouted the medics as they rushed to open the ambulance doors.

In the midst of the commotion, Winnie barely had time to think as she jumped out of the ambulance, even forgetting to pick up the dropped phone.

At the emergency surgery room door...

The surgeon furrowed his brow as he glanced at Lawrence. "Blood pressure and heart rate are way too low. With stab wound that deep, who let him exert himself like that? It's reckless, absolutely reckless! If he dies, it won't be on the hospital's hands."

"No way. Winnie? Mr. Rodriguez, how could he..." Jeremy turned, his confusion and gravity etched on his face.

Winnie's cheeks turned a bright red, her face the very picture of helplessness and embarrassment, biting her lip so hard it was nearly bleeding.

"Miss, do you need to get checked and receive some IV fluids?" a female doctor noticed Winnie's distress. "You're shaking all over, and your pupils can't focus. Has someone hurt you? Was that your husband earlier? No wonder, I can't blame you."

Winnie's embarrassment deepened.

Jeremy, catching on a bit, suddenly had the chance to notice Winnie's tattered clothes, hidden only by Mr. Rodriguez 's coat.

He cleared his throat awkwardly, "Winnie, maybe I should stay here while you go for the IV."

Looking down, he noticed she was barefooted, her ankles smeared with blood after a night on the brink and having escorted Mr. Rodriguez here barefoot.

Jeremy couldn't articulate the complex relationship between Lawrence and Winnie.

He sighed softly, "You can't have any more accidents. Go on, Mr. Rodriguez will make it."

Winnie's face was ghastly pale; she glanced at the operating room door, and then followed the female doctor out.

It was past midnight.

After receiving a slow-acting injection and finishing her IV, Winnie's state, both mental and physical, steadied.

Melanie hurried in with new shoes and clothes for her, and she had even managed to secure her a hospital room.

Winnie was surprised, "Melanie, how did you know to come here?"