Your First Love is Pregnant? I'm Done Being Mrs. Hawthorne!

###Chapter 50: His Hand Was Ruined

"What you’re doing is illegal," Adrian Pemberton said, his voice hoarse.

The man chuckled. "You’re just a doctor. Even if you died a quiet death, no one would ever know. Just tell us if Nina Wainwright is pregnant, and we’ll let you go."

"What do you have against Nina Wainwright? Who sent you?!" Adrian Pemberton demanded, then clenched his jaw.

The words had barely left his mouth when a slap struck him across the face.

His ears rang from the blow, and blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.

The man with the voice changer, a smile spreading across his round face, toyed with a scalpel in his hand. He then crouched down and lightly dragged the blade across Adrian Pemberton’s wrist. "I hear you’re a surgeon. These hands must be pretty important to you, right?"

Adrian Pemberton didn’t speak, just pressed his lips tightly together.

"If I destroyed the nerves in your hand, then locked you in here for a week or two and let the wound heal on its own, would you still be able to hold a scalpel?" As the man finished speaking, the scalpel was already piercing his flesh.

Adrian Pemberton’s face went deathly pale from the pain, and his whole body trembled uncontrollably. Gasping for breath, he asked, "Are you Zachary Hawthorne’s men?"

"Bullshit! We’re Zachary Hawthorne’s enemies. You hid his wife, so you’re on his side, aren’t you?!" the round-faced man said, feigning fierceness.

"I won’t tell you... If you’re so capable, go find out yourselves." The moment Adrian Pemberton finished speaking, he felt the scalpel pierce through his wrist.

The pain made his vision go black, and with a shrill scream, he passed out.

The round-faced man stood up and said to the person beside him, "Wake him up. I damn well will find out if that bitch is pregnant today!"

Adrian Pemberton was slapped awake again.

His face was completely swollen.

The round-faced man took a photo, then picked a few frequently contacted numbers from Adrian’s phone and sent it to them all.

He sat down on a nearby chair, patiently holding the phone.

A moment later, an unsaved number called.

"Adrian, this photo... is that you?"

Nina Wainwright wasn’t sure. The face of the person in the photo was completely swollen, covered in bruises and cuts.

"Your dear Adrian is right here with me. What’s your name?" the round-faced man asked, a smirk on his lips as he toyed with the blood-stained scalpel.

Just as Nina Wainwright was about to answer, Adrian Pemberton thrashed violently and yelled, "Don’t answer... Don’t answer! Protect yourself! I’m fine... I—URGH!"

Before he could finish, someone punched him in the stomach.

He collapsed to the ground, nearly unconscious, but still managed to murmur, "I called the police... They’ll find... you..."

Hearing this, the round-faced man immediately hung up the phone.

He hurried away with his men and made a call. When it connected, he lowered his voice. "Sis, I couldn’t get it out of him. This doctor is a tough one. He secretly called the cops, so we had to pull back."

「In the dilapidated house.」

Adrian Pemberton didn’t know how many days he’d been unconscious. When he woke up, his wounds were severely inflamed, swollen, and oozing pus.

’I was just bluffing them...’ He couldn’t believe they were bold enough to kidnap him, yet so afraid of the police.

He tried to get up but had no strength at all. His whole body was burning with fever.

After a couple of soft coughs, he reached out, his hand grabbing at the dirt floor.

He crawled for a while, wanting to find his phone, but realized his captors hadn’t left him any means of communication.

In the evening, a light rain began to fall.

Adrian Pemberton’s situation became even more miserable. He crawled under a patch of grass to shelter from the rain but could hold on no longer and passed out again.

When Silas Sinclair arrived with his men, he saw Adrian lying in the grass, covered in injuries. His breath hitched, and he immediately ordered the bodyguards beside him, "Quick, get him to the hospital!"

On the phone, Nina Wainwright’s voice was frantic. "Did you find him?! How is he?!"

"He’s alive, just passed out from exhaustion. I’ll contact you in a couple of days." Silas Sinclair said before quickly hanging up.

Adrian Pemberton was taken to the hospital.

Silas Sinclair returned to Zachary Hawthorne’s hospital room to report the situation.

"One of his wrists was pierced by a sharp object... I looked into his family. They’re a very ordinary working-class family. His parents work out of town, and his grandparents run a resort here locally. His grandmother was also a doctor once, but she lost her license after a medical dispute," Silas Sinclair said in a low voice.

Zachary Hawthorne held the photos Silas had taken, his expression cold. "If this isn’t investigated thoroughly, I’m afraid Nina Wainwright will think I did it."

He had threatened Nina Wainwright using Adrian Pemberton many times before.

’Now that one of Adrian Pemberton’s hands is ruined and his career as a doctor is over, she’ll definitely think I was behind it. She’ll hate me for it.’

Silas Sinclair frowned but said nothing.

Zachary Hawthorne put down the photos and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "He sent Nina Wainwright to his grandparents’ resort. Nina will think he was deliberately hiding her whereabouts, and that’s why I went after him."

He had already formed a perfect, closed loop for this whole affair.

’The person hiding in the shadows is using Adrian Pemberton to get to me.’

"Could it be Caleb Ford?" Silas Sinclair asked in a low voice.

Zachary Hawthorne immediately looked up at him. "You need evidence before you ask that! Besides, Caleb Ford may hate her, but he wouldn’t be so vicious to someone she knows just because of some simple dislike." 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦

Whoever did this was clearly trying to cripple Adrian Pemberton for life.

Silas Sinclair couldn’t figure it out either.

Nina Wainwright and Zachary Hawthorne were secretly married, so very few people knew about their relationship. And if the perpetrator’s goal was simply to ruin his relationship with Nina, harming Adrian Pemberton like this didn’t add up.

"Just investigate it thoroughly. We’ll talk again if you can’t find anything," Zachary Hawthorne said, leaning back against the bed. In any case, what happened to Adrian Pemberton had nothing to do with him.

’I didn’t do it. Even if Nina Wainwright misunderstands, I don’t care.’

"Understood," Silas Sinclair replied immediately.

"I’ve been feeling much better these past few days. Go ahead and arrange for me to stay at Adrian Pemberton’s grandparents’ resort for a while," Zachary Hawthorne added with a nonchalant expression.

Silas Sinclair glanced at him subconsciously.

"What are you looking at?" Zachary Hawthorne frowned, displeased.

Silas Sinclair took two steps back. "Nothing."

’Didn’t he say he didn’t care about her? So why is he so eager to follow her there the moment he finds out where she is?’

「Late at night.」

Catherine Grant found out which room Adrian Pemberton was in and snuck inside. When she saw him on the bed, wrapped in gauze, she instinctively covered her mouth.

Just then, a doctor pushed the door open and entered.

Seeing Catherine Grant, she asked, "Are you a friend of his?"

"Uh, his... girlfriend," Catherine Grant lied. "What happened to him?"

The doctor looked at Catherine Grant with a solemn expression, her voice grave. "You should prepare yourself. One of his hands is very seriously injured. It’s still inflamed, and he won’t be able to perform surgery ever again. His career as a doctor is ruined."

Catherine Grant stared at the doctor, her eyes wide with shock and disbelief.*****