Chapter 208: Chapter 208: Fickle
Chapter 208: Fickle
After Elias finished speaking, the lounge fell quiet.
Victoria Frost did not answer at once. She only looked at him, face stripped of expression, her gaze deep enough to make the room feel smaller. Anyone else might have felt their knees weaken under that look. It carried the plain suggestion that she could make a boy disappear from the world before the night ended.
Elias smiled back at her with a soft, bright, almost bashful expression.
He looked like a pure young man meeting his girlfriend’s mother for the first time, not the same boy who had just threatened her daughter’s future with a sweet face and a filthy mouth.
At last, Victoria smiled too.
"It’s late," she said. "I’ll send you back."
That sentence was enough.
The game had ended for tonight.
Elias did not bother hiding his relief. He exhaled, lifted one hand, and patted his chest with a little flourish, pretty enough to look cute if someone had missed the blade he had been holding a minute ago.
Victoria watched him with interest. "You were scared?"
"Of course." Elias answered without shame. "You’ve been in boardrooms longer than I’ve been alive. There probably aren’t many people who wouldn’t be scared in front of you, ma’am."
The title had shifted again. The intimate edge of Mrs. Frost disappeared, replaced by the harmless politeness of ma’am, as if the confrontation between them had never happened.
If anything, the air between them seemed easier than before.
They got into the car.
Victoria sat beside him in the rear seat, relaxed after training, while the bodyguard started the engine. The windows sealed them away from the street. Outside, the city lights moved like reflections under black water.
Victoria looked at him. "Where to, little boy?"
Elias thought for a moment. "Longhaven Hospital."
Victoria’s eyes narrowed slightly.
Elias showed his teeth in a bright grin. He knew she understood exactly why he wanted to go there.
"See, ma’am? I’m very fickle. Giselle isn’t special to me." His smile stayed open, almost honest. "And she’s so cute. Why would you worry that I’d do anything terrible to her?"
Victoria did not interrupt.
Elias leaned back, speaking with the calm of someone confessing only what he wanted heard. "Besides, if I truly hurt Giselle, you would come after me for your precious daughter. I’m not stupid. I told you before, our goals match. We both want Giselle to grow into a mature woman."
Victoria laughed softly and shook her head. "Sometimes I wonder whether an old soul is hiding under that pretty skin. Where did you learn all of this?"
Elias smiled without answering.
Inside, his heart gave a hard little jump.
People close to these trash women really did come with cheats. No wonder she was Giselle’s mother. She had nearly looked straight through him.
Still, he was not truly afraid. This was a modern world. Even if he told Victoria about the Trash Trope Intervention Division, about worlds, missions, systems, deaths, and all the women he had ruined or survived, she would not believe it. To normal people, his life would sound like delusion with better production value.
The bodyguard spoke from the front. "We’re here."
The car had stopped outside Longhaven Hospital.
"Go on," Victoria said gently. "Don’t play too hard. Remember to go home early."
Her tone was warm enough to pass for elder concern.
Elias nodded, then paused with his hand on the door.
He turned back to her. "Ma’am, please don’t send people to watch me anymore. Trust me. I won’t hurt Giselle’s body."
Of course, damage done by other people did not count.
And he had only promised the body.
The heart was his responsibility.
He got out, shut the door, and left with a lightness in his steps that looked almost boyish.
Off to find Dr. Quinn.
After he disappeared into the hospital entrance, Victoria’s warmth vanished.
"Send more people to watch him," she told the bodyguard.
She had never trusted him.
She did not trust anyone.
[System Theta: Host, Victoria Frost is sending more people to monitor you.]
Elias walked through Longhaven’s night lobby without slowing. The lights were lower at this hour, the marble floors clean enough to reflect the ceiling strips, the front desk staffed by people trained not to stare at late arrivals who came through private access. No one stopped him.
"Let her," Elias said. "The more cameras, the better. Maybe they’ll catch me with other women from a few more angles and send me the footage."
[System Theta: ...]
The system went quiet for a while, then tried again.
[System Theta: You threatened Victoria Frost that openly. Why didn’t she act against you?]
Elias knew what it wanted to ask.
He smiled faintly. "Because she refuses to lose."
[System Theta: Refuses to lose?]
"Victoria’s need for control is obvious. When someone slips out of her control, what do you think she wants to do first?"
[System Theta: Control them again?]
"Good." Elias sounded pleased. "To a woman like her, killing someone she can’t control is not victory. It is admitting she failed. She will let me move for now. Watch me. Wait for the right opening. Then, when she believes the board is set, she’ll strike where it kills."
The prettier a woman was, the more careful her traps tended to be. That rule worked in every universe Elias had visited.
And Victoria Frost was one of the beautiful ones.
A snake with good posture and patient teeth.
For once, Elias was grateful she was not a target. If the mission had asked him to conquer her too, he did not know how much time the Bureau expected him to waste.
He reached Yvonne Quinn’s floor with the ease of someone who had already learned the hospital’s private routes.
Near the corridor, he ran straight into Mira Perry.
Mira stopped. Her tired eyes widened. "Did you cut your hair?"
Elias brushed his hair back with his fingers and smiled at her. "How does it look?"
Mira looked him over.
The boy in front of her was not dazzling in the way people would stop traffic for. With his glasses and easy smile, he looked clean, warm, and ordinary enough to trust. Yet the sudden brightness he brought into the sterile hallway eased something in her chest. After hours of meetings, messages, and hospital tension, even his simple grin made her feel less worn out.
"It suits you," she said.
Elias smiled wider. "Thank you."
Mira let out a breath. "It’s late. Why are you at the hospital?"
"To see my father," Elias said without blinking.
A total lie.
He was here to find Dr. Quinn and make the night useful again.
Then he tilted his head. "What about you? Where are you going?"
"I’m getting coffee," Mira said.
Elias’s eyes curved at once.
At this hour, who needed coffee?
The answer was obvious.
"I’ll come with you."
Mira hesitated. "Is that all right? Weren’t you going to see..."
"It’s fine," Elias cut in, cheerful and smooth. "Really."
Several floors up, inside a conference room, Yvonne sat straight at the long table.
The meeting should have happened earlier. Because she had spent the afternoon handling certain private matters, everything had been delayed until far too late. Around the table sat a dozen senior physicians, all of them tired, all of them still talking in the careful, dense language of specialists who refused to leave an unresolved problem behind.
Yvonne listened without visible impatience.
Only once, when no one was looking directly at her, did she lift her perfect fingers and press them lightly to her temple. Behind her gold-rimmed glasses, fatigue surfaced for a second and disappeared before anyone could use it.
Then the door opened.
Mira stepped in with an apologetic smile. "Sorry to interrupt. Coffee is here."
The doctors finally paused. Longhaven’s senior specialists had spent the night arguing over scans, treatment windows, and risk models. Coffee was enough to make even them stop for a minute.
Yvonne planned to use the interruption to rest her eyes.
Then a familiar, lovely voice floated in from behind Mira.
"Hot coffee, everyone."
The last word rose slightly, sweet and playful, like a tiny hook slipped into the ear.
Most of the doctors in the room were old enough, senior enough, and tired enough not to hear anything strange in it. They only glanced at the boy who had followed Mira in, saw an unremarkable student with glasses, and quickly looked away.
Yvonne heard it clearly.
That sweetness. That little curl at the end. The bright, shameless tone that sounded as if it belonged between lovers.
Like Elias and Giselle.
