My First Love Died, Now My Step Uncle Wants Me-Chapter 62: Enforcing Family Discipline

Nina Wynn shut her eyes against the pain, her lips still pressed tightly together.

Her defiance infuriated Caleb Rhodes.

He knew full well how much this little thing could endure. Simply punishing her with pain wasn’t going to get him what he wanted.

He narrowed his eyes, the cold, dark hostility in their depths growing heavier. 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞

’This little thing not only dares to run all over the place, but she’s got quite a temper, too.’

’She has no concept of what places are safe and which are dangerous. That place today was full of shady characters. If she’d run into someone else, she would have been eaten alive, with not even a scrap left behind.’

’Does she have no sense of judgment at all?’

’On top of that, she dared to embarrass me in public, and now she’s being stubborn as a mule, refusing to admit she’s wrong.’

’Looks like I’ll have to resort to some proper discipline.’

He glanced at Nina Wynn’s tightly shut eyes and said coldly, "You brought this on yourself, Nina Wynn."

With that, he tightened his grip, hoisting her up like a quail and slinging her over his arm. In a few steps, he reached the door of the side room that was used for milk baths.

The butler followed behind him and said in a low voice, "Third Lord Master, Miss Wynn hasn’t had dinner. Perhaps you could punish her after she’s eaten."

Caleb Rhodes paused. Just as he was about to put Nina Wynn down, she suddenly tore free from his grasp, landed on her feet, and tried to bolt.

But she didn’t make it two steps before Caleb Rhodes snatched her by the collar.

The fury in Caleb Rhodes’s heart surged. He hauled her back like a disobedient cub.

His expression was as cold as if it had been carved from ice, his voice thick with rage. "Open the door!"

The butler glanced at the struggling pair, gave an imperceptible shake of his head, and took out a key to open the door.

Inside was a small hot spring room, a temporary addition built at Caleb Rhodes’s request. It was well-equipped but small, and the pool itself was empty.

Caleb Rhodes carried Nina Wynn into the room and dropped her onto a lounge chair. His voice was cold and merciless. "Stay here and think about what you did wrong. You can come out once you’ve figured it out!"

Nina Wynn looked up at him, her chest rising and falling. It wasn’t that she wasn’t angry.

But she knew she was no match for him. She quickly lowered her head, biting her lip so hard it hurt, her hands clenched into tight fists.

Caleb Rhodes knew she wouldn’t back down so easily. After watching her coldly for a moment, he turned and walked away.

Just as he reached the door, Nina Wynn’s deceptively soft voice sounded. "You can’t lock me in here."

It sounded gentle, but her words had a backbone of reinforced concrete. There wasn’t a hint of surrender in her tone.

The coldness in Caleb Rhodes’s eyes deepened. Without turning back, he walked straight out the door.

Then, with a heavy THUD, the door swung shut.

Although this room was also a hot spring room, it was only a temporary addition and couldn’t compare to the large, glass-walled one.

With the door shut, the room was plunged into darkness. There were no windows, only a sliver of light filtering in from an exhaust fan high on the wall. Nina Wynn curled up in the chair, staring blankly at the single beam of light.

’What good was anger? What good was resentment? What good was hatred? In the eyes of people like him, someone like me is just a plaything. An animal whose life or death is of no consequence.’

’Just like that girl who was thrown out, just like that man who was stomped half to death.’

’Who is Caleb Rhodes? He’s at the absolute pinnacle of the Capital Set’s elite. He gets whatever he wants. How could I possibly win against him?’

’Right now, he’s interested in me, so he treats me like his pet canary—tossing me a few scraps when he’s bored and feels like it. The moment he loses interest, he’ll just cast me aside somewhere out of sight, leaving me for anyone to torment.’

As she thought about everything that had happened in that other room, her long-numb heart felt like it was being violently ripped out, leaving a dull, suffocating ache.

Caleb Rhodes and she were from two different worlds. She shouldn’t harbor a single shred of hope for him.

She sat there, motionless. She didn’t know how much time had passed before she finally fell asleep, curled up in the chair.

However long Nina Wynn sat inside the room, Caleb Rhodes sat in a chair just outside of it.

He stared at the door for a long time. The weather took a sudden turn and the wind began to howl, but she never knocked, nor did she make a single sound of begging for mercy.

The wind picked up abruptly, making the trees RUSTLE and sway.

The butler approached Caleb Rhodes with the key. "Third Lord Master, should I open the door? It’s been three or four hours. She still hasn’t taken her medicine."

Caleb Rhodes stared at the dark door, feeling his patience wear completely thin. Malice slowly surfaced in his eyes. "Missing one dose won’t kill her. Let’s see just how stubborn she can be!"

The butler glanced at the door, then put the key away.

Just then, Caleb Rhodes’s phone rang. He glanced at the screen and answered.

A moment later, he ended the call. He stared at the door, his expression frigid. "I’m going out for a bit. You keep an eye on her. If she knocks and admits she was wrong, let her out. If she doesn’t, she can stay in there."

"Don’t you dare open that door without my permission. Otherwise, you can go in there and keep her company!"

With that, he turned and strode out of the hall.

The butler watched the main door close, shook his head with a blank expression, then went inside and picked up his phone.

"Ma’am, it looks like Young Master Caleb’s... condition is about to flare up again."

"You’ll be back soon?"

"Understood."

...

Before long, a gale suddenly kicked up, followed by flashes of lightning, claps of thunder, and a torrential downpour.

Curled in the chair, Nina Wynn couldn’t stop her body from trembling.

The weather had been just like this on the day Evan Chapman was buried.

Damp air, heavy with the metallic scent of rain, seeped through the gaps in the exhaust fan, filling the small space. Nina Wynn felt a daze come over her. The weather felt identical to that day—it was as if the sky itself was bleeding.

She had been afraid of thunder and lightning since she was a child. Whenever the weather turned like this, her father would drink. Once he was drunk, he would pin her mother to the floor and beat her half to death, cursing her for not giving him a son. When he was done with her mother, he would beat her.

She would hide wherever she could, but no one ever dared to take her in. Only Evan Chapman had opened his door to her, time and time again.

After Evan Chapman died, she had lost the right to be afraid.

In the darkness, she curled into a ball. She imagined Evan Chapman leading her to a safe space. She imagined him making her sweet osmanthus soup.

Evan Chapman was her light, her salvation, the only life raft she could cling to.

’And yet, a person as good as Evan Chapman... had been toyed with and brutally killed by such filthy means.’

’Evan Chapman... her Evan Chapman... he couldn’t have died for nothing!’

Suddenly, a blinding flash of lightning split the sky, followed by a deafening clap of thunder that made the entire room tremble.

Nina Wynn’s eyes flew open. She looked toward the exhaust fan on the wall.

Amid the thunder and lightning, she thought she heard someone knocking, someone calling her name.

A voice telling her to run. Run far, far away, and don’t let anyone catch her.

Her face pale, she dragged the chair beneath the exhaust fan and used a knife to pry open the two side-by-side fan units.

Slender and frail, she slipped through the opening with ease.

Outside, the storm raged. Trees thrashed wildly, and the light from the lampposts seemed to warp and bend in the fierce wind.

Dragging her soaking-wet clothes, she felt her way along the wall toward the other side of the building.

Just as she reached a corridor, the outermost door was flung open, and a powerful hand yanked her inside.