A few weeks later...
The nanny's abuse and crappy attitude had stopped at some point.
In fact, she even started to take care of them much better by cooking them good food, preparing their school meals...etc
Noah knew that it was due to a man entering her life as she always talked about him to her friends in the phone.
She was at age of thirty-nine and still unmarried...Noah might be young, but he recognized that his nanny was seeking a husband to complete her life.
Now that it looked like she found him, she wasn't as miserable in her life and venting her frustration on them.
Alas...His happiness was short-lived.
One day, she returned late in night and dragged him out of the bed while he was asleep, scaring him out of his wits.
Before he could react, she threw him on the floor of the living room and started whipping him as hard as she could with a thick black leather belt.
"Because of you! He broke up with me because of you, little sh*ts!" The nanny kept yelling akin to a deranged woman with her mascara smeared on her cheeks from crying.
At the moment, her eyes were consumed with nothing but rage and indignation at her miserable life.
The man she loved and believed as her future husband didn't hesitate to break up with her after she confessed about her current situation.
He emphasized that he didn't want his own kids, don't even mention other's people kids.
Unfortunately for the nanny, she couldn't just run away with him and leave Noah and Grace even if she wanted.
God knows she wanted it badly...
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇtAlas, Noah's father might have been a kind soul and naive enough to be fooled by her, but not to the point of trusting that she wouldn't run off after receiving his property and selling it.
He made her sign a contract that made it her obligation by law to care for Noah and Grace until their adulthood.
If she decided to break it and run off, the service middle-aged woman wouldn't hesitate to hunt her down...The bribe she received wasn't small, making the nanny part of her responsibility.
So, the nanny could only return to the house with her heart broken for the millionth time.
When she signed the contract, all she had in mind was the free property, believing that spending a few years babysitting two kids was worth the trade of.
But now? She finally realized that they tied her down and made every man she met understand that she was a package of three.
Neither her fading beauty nor age was of any assistance as well.
"I am already thirty-nine! How the hell am I supposed to find a good man after ten years?! How!" She screamed as she kept whipping Noah in the back, making him squirm every time the belt landed on his flesh.
Knowing that she was far gone, Noah could only curl into a ball and bit his lips as hard as he could to keep himself from wailing in pain.
'Please don't wake up...Please don't wake up...Please don't wake up.' Noah kept begging in his mind for the noise to not wake up his little sister.
He understood that if she saw him getting beaten like this, she will start crying and try to help him.
With how the nanny's mind had snapped and was burning with fury, she wouldn't hesitate to whip her too.
"Because of you!! You ruined my life!! You ruined my life!"
Alas...The nanny didn't hold her voice down at all...In this late hour, her voice was short of traveling out of the house's perimeter and wake up the neighbors.
There was no way Grace could sleep through it.
"Big Brother..." She mumured with widened panicky eyes after seeing him getting whipped from the staircase.
"Big Brother!!!" She yelled with high-pitched trembling voice and rushed down the stairs, heading towards them.
When Noah heard her voice, he felt like soul left his body, making him get stiffened in his place.
Grace was still four years old and had never gotten even slapped once, making her unable to comprehend the current danger she was in.
She rushed past the nanny and sat next to Noah with her tears rushing down her cheeks.
"Big brother! Wake up! Wake up!" She kept shaking him, not knowing that she kept aggravating Felix's bruised wounds.
'Arghhh!' Noah wanted to scream to vent off some pain, but he didn't want to scare off Grace.
"Don..on't wor..ry abou..t me...Go Ups..tairs and lo..cough, lock your room."
Noah raised his bruised arm with great difficultly and patted her in the head, trying to comfort her and most importantly get her away from the demon behind him.
Alas, Grace refused to leave him and kept hugging him tightly while shouting at the nanny, "You bad person...Bad person! You hit my brother! You bad person..."
"You too you little demon...You too ruined my life and have the audacity to call me a bad person!" The nanny glared at Grace with a hideous expression.
"You need to be taught a lesson as well!"
She tightened the belt around her hand, making the leather create that chilling squeezing noise.
'No..no..no..no!!'
The moment Noah heard it, he gathered every last bit of his strength to stand on his knees and hold his sister tightly...Then, he protected her head and fell on top of her!
Smack!
The whip came falling down hard on his back, making his toes curl up in pain.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏm"Get out of the way!"
Smack! Smack! Smack!
The nanny refused to stop striking him down, trying to get his grip loose on his little sister. Alas, the more she hit him, the tighter Noah's grip had gotten.
As for Grace? She felt the whip tremors course from Noah's back to her skin, making her cry louder and louder.
The nanny's furious screams on top and his sister's crying on the bottom...Yet, Noah was hearing only his father's firm but gentle voice in his mind, "Your sister's protection is your number one priority...You are all she has left."
'Protect your sister...Protect your sister.' Noah kept repeating in his mind over and over again to keep himself from passing out cold.
He could feel his consciousness slipping into the nothingness, but his father's voice and sister's crying kept bringing him back to the harsh and painful reality.
This kept on going for more than five minutes until the nanny finally got exhausted and couldn't lift her arm any longer.
When she saw Noah's ripped out clothes and bloody back, she finally snapped back to reality.
'What have I done...If he died in my hands, I will get killed by the Maxwell family!' Scared out of her wits, the nanny threw the stained red belt into the floor and rushed to Noah.
She knew that the Maxwell family might not pay attention to Noah and Grace, but if they were killed or something, a full on investigate would be carried out...After all, they also carry the Maxwell bloodline.
The nanny tried to pull him away from his sister, wanting to tend his injuries before it's too late. However, no matter how hard she pulled, Noah's arms were locked solid around Grace.
"F*cking let go, you sh*tty brat!" She cursed while pulling his head from his hair, wanting to slap him in the face to regain some sense.
"You..."
But, when his face aligned with hers, she couldn't help but feel stunned.
Noah's eyes were closed shut while his head had no support, wobbling around.
She knew immediately that he had already lost consciousness...Yet, his arms were still locked around his sister harder than steel.
Until the final moment, Noah hadn't let go of his sister or let her get tainted by a single blood drop...