You Had Me, You Lost Me, You'll Never Find Me novel Chapter 141

After buying the ointment, he applied it to her skin. Sylvia struggled slightly, but his grip remained ironclad.

As Ashton lowered his head, a dark bruise on his forehead became starkly visible.

She did not know who had managed to hit him, though there were not many people capable of crossing him like that.

Watching him rub the cream into her skin, she suddenly broke the silence. "Ashton."

He paused his movements and gave a low, acknowledging hum.

Sylvia parted her lips, hesitating for a long moment before finally saying, "Stop targeting Julian."

Hearing this instantly stoked the repressed fury inside him, prompting a cruel smirk. The mocking words danced on his tongue, but he swallowed them back down.

"Stay out of what's between him and me."

Sylvia furrowed her brows, thinking of how Julian's hand was injured, nearly ruining his ability to perform surgery. "I don't want to get involved, but your methods are utterly despicable. You can't just destroy someone's life like this!"

Unfairly accused of such a thing, Ashton's gaze grew cold. He finished applying the medicine and tossed the tube into her lap.

"Everything I do is wrong to you. Keep taking his side."

His tone was detached, but it could not mask the faint, bitter jealousy bleeding through.

When Sylvia stepped out of the car to head into the hospital, she glanced back to see him leaning against the hood, his eyes dark and wildly intense.

—

Ashton never had any intention of letting Julian off the hook.

He started by manipulating equipment procurement funds, leveraging a massive discount to lock down capital. Simultaneously, he sent agents to approach several hospital shareholders, convincing one heavily indebted major stakeholder to sell off the majority of their shares.

At the end of the day, a private hospital was no different from any corporate enterprise.

Internal factional struggles already existed, and Ashton simply threw massive amounts of money to poach the core medical team. A brain drain of medical talent meant a massive loss of patients; once doctors relocated to other hospitals, their patients followed.

Ashton recognized immediately that top-tier medical talent was the rarest resource. Once a mass exodus occurred, entire departments would be paralyzed.

And the warning signs were already beginning to show.

Ashton had no interest in running a hospital, but he was more than willing to poach the staff and pay them to do nothing, even if it meant shelling out millions of dollars in breach-of-contract fees.

"You're about to lose your own nightclub. Why are you burning through so much cash just to back Julian into a corner?"

Ashton's chest tightened painfully. Hearing her advocate so fiercely for another man made him narrow his eyes in irritation. Hardening his heart, he replied, "Break up with him, and all of this ends today."

"I've been holding back, Sylv. Don't push me."

Sylvia's breath hitched. He couldn't even pretend to be the good guy for more than a few days.

"You're a selfish bastard who thrives on dragging everyone down with you!"

Ashton absorbed the insult effortlessly. "Yeah, I'm a bastard. Curse me out all you want, just don't get so angry it hurts you."

Sylvia choked on her rage. "You... ! Can't you ever have a normal conversation?"

Ashton raised a brow. "How else am I supposed to talk to you? Haven't I caved to everything you've asked?"

His response left Sylvia speechless. The man had evolved; his skin was far thicker than it used to be.

But regardless of his twisting logic, his ultimate message was crystal clear—he was never going to let Julian go.