Too Late, Mr. Cooper: Your Bride Ran with Your Baby novel Chapter 295

Forcibly propelled by Linton's vicious threat, the man stumbled forward.

He wanted to fight back, but Linton's grip was astonishingly strong, as if he was ready to execute him on the spot.

The sheer pressure from the man holding him was suffocating, an overwhelming aura of authority that stole the air from his lungs. The hooded man trembled, his teeth chattering. "Hey... hey, we can talk about this. I was just doing a job, for money..."

Linton sneered. He dragged the man around the corner of the street, vanishing from Liliana's line of sight.

From where she stood, Liliana thought she saw a fleeting, familiar silhouette in the bustling crowd. But it was gone in an instant, too fast for her to register. She blinked, shaking her head.

*Impossible,* she thought. *I must be imagining things. He wouldn't be here. I never even told him I had an appointment today.*

Her expression settled back into a calm mask, but a flicker of unease remained. She frowned slightly, that strange feeling in her gut returning.

After a moment's thought, she placed a hand on her lower back and slowly made her way over to Gabriel.

"Gabriel," she said softly. "How's it going? Is everything handled?"

...

Linton looked as if he'd just heard the world's greatest joke. A cold smile spread across his face, and his deep-set eyes turned dangerously sharp. He spoke slowly, savoring each word, his voice a low, gravelly rasp. "Leave family out of this? So, you're familiar with that concept."

Linton's gaze was piercing. "Then why didn't that thought cross your mind when you were about to attack my wife and my child? I have a daughter, too. She hasn't even been born yet. She's only eight months along."

He paused, his expression turning terrifyingly grim, his voice dropping to a glacial, horrifying whisper. "If that knife had connected, would I have had to watch them both die? One body, two lives?"

Linton was fear. Just imagining that scene made it hard for him to breathe, and his face turned deathly pale. It was like a form of PTSD. After living through that recurring nightmare that had felt so real, the phrase "one body, two lives" had become a trigger, a taboo that threatened to drive him mad, to make him want to smash his head against a wall until everything went black.