NATHAN CROSS STRIKE BACK..

Chapter 14

She paused, letting the weight of the words settle between them.

"Those hands of yours?" she continued, her tone almost conversational now, which made it somehow more chilling. "I am going to cut them off. So that you will not be able to do this kind of work again. So that you will not be able to hurt someone else the way you are about to hurt her."

Another pause.

"Those legs of yours?" Claire's eyes did not leave Nathan's face. "I am going to cut them off. So that you will not be able to walk again. So that you will not be able to go meet anybody else to destroy their life the way you have destroyed your own."

Her voice grew even quieter.

"And that sweet tongue of yours?" Claire's lips curved into something that was not quite a smile. "I am going to cut it out. So that you will not have the tongue to deceive anybody anymore. So that you will not be able to lie your way into someone else's trust the way you are trying to lie your way into hers."

She held Nathan's gaze, her expression cold and utterly serious.

"Do you understand me?" Claire asked quietly.

Silence.

The bodyguards had gone completely still, their eyes fixed on Nathan, clearly waiting to see how he would respond.

Vivienne's breathing was the only sound — shallow, uneven, desperate.

Nathan looked at Claire for a long moment.

Then he nodded once.

"Well," Nathan said calmly, his voice steady and unbothered, "if that is all you want to cut... if I fail, there is no problem with it."

Claire froze.

She stared at him, her mind momentarily blank.

What?

Nathan had just agreed.Just like that.No hesitation. No negotiation. No attempt to argue or talk his way out of the threat she had just made.

He had just... agreed.

Claire felt something shift in her chest — a flicker of uncertainty, a crack in the armor of her absolute conviction that Nathan Cross was nothing more than a con artist looking for an opportunity.

Because normally, in a situation like this, if somebody was not confident — if somebody was faking their way through, if somebody was a fraud trying to bluff their way into a situation they had no business being in — they would have reacted.

They would have hesitated.They would have thought twice.They would have tried to negotiate, or deflect, or talk their way out of the consequences she had just laid out in brutal, graphic detail.

But Nathan had not done any of those things.He had not flinched.He had not hesitated.He had not tried to talk his way out of anything.

He had just... agreed.Like cutting off his hands and legs and tongue if he failed was a perfectly reasonable consequence, and he was confident enough in his ability to help Vivienne that he was willing to accept those terms without a second thought.

Claire stared at him, her mind racing. Who agrees to something like that?*

*Who hears a threat like that and just... nods?*

She felt the ground shift slightly beneath her certainty.Not because she suddenly trusted Nathan.Not because she suddenly believed he was anything other than what the file said he was.But because his reaction — that calm, unwavering acceptance of consequences that would destroy most people's lives — did not match the profile of a con artist.

Con artists talked, they negotiated, they deflected.

They tried to charm their way out of corners.They did not just agree to have their hands and legs and tongue cut off if they failed.Claire opened her mouth to say something — she was not sure what — but the words would not come.She just stood there, staring at Nathan Cross, feeling the first real flicker of doubt creep into her mind.

Nathan looked at her calmly, waiting.

Claire's jaw tightened, she hated this, she hated the uncertainty.

She hated the way he had just taken her threat — a threat she had meant with every fiber of her being — and turned it into something that somehow made *her* feel off-balance instead of him.

But she had said what she said.

And he had agreed, and Vivienne was dying behind her, Claire took a slow, shaky breath, then she stepped aside.

"Okay," she said quietly, her voice tight. "You can go. Give it a try."