Chapter 215: Chapter 215: Mutual Ruin
Chapter 215: Mutual Ruin
Serena saw the look on Elias’s face and knew there was no use explaining.
Whatever she said now, he would not believe her.
So she stopped.
The unfinished excuse died between them, and something colder took its place.
"Do you remember what I told you?" Serena asked slowly. "As long as you stayed by my side, I would handle your parents."
Elias did not answer.
Serena took one step closer.
"Now you’ve left me." Her voice stayed even. "So what obligation do I still have to take care of them?"
She lowered her head toward him until the tip of her nose almost brushed his face. Her scent touched his cheek first, faint and familiar, the same expensive softness that had clung to her clothes, her sheets, the rooms where she had once acted as if shelter and possession were the same thing.
"Eli," she murmured, "you know what I am. I’m a businesswoman. I don’t make deals where I’m the only one paying."
Elias bit down on his lower lip.
His small canine teeth sank in before he realized it. Two round beads of blood rose slowly against the broken skin.
He stared at Serena with helpless fury, eyes bright with anger and disbelief, but there was nothing he could do. No crowd here to protect him. No Giselle standing between them. No room full of witnesses to shame Serena into letting him go.
Only the black car, the quiet street, Liora standing nearby, and Serena in front of him.
Serena’s gaze dropped to his mouth.
Her fingers twitched.
She wanted to wipe the blood away.
She did not.
Instead, she pressed her lips together, forced the concern down, and smiled faintly. "Come back with me, and I’ll keep managing your parents. If you don’t, today it was your mother. Tomorrow, it may be your father."
Elias’s pupils trembled.
For a second, he looked as if he had not understood her.
Then he did.
Again.
She was using Arthur Hale against him again.
"Serena Blackwood," he breathed, voice shaking. "You bastard."
His hand rose fast, aiming for her face.
Serena caught his wrist before the slap could land.
The skin under her fingers was familiar. Smooth, delicate, warm from rage. Just touching him eased something in her chest, and the coldness in her eyes softened without permission.
"Eli," she said, almost gently, "you’re throwing a tantrum again."
Before he could answer, she pulled him into her arms.
It was not an embrace, no matter how much Serena wanted it to feel like one. Her arm locked around his waist. Her other hand controlled his wrist. She held him tightly enough that his body had no room to twist away.
Then she brought him into the back seat of the car.
From the outside, it looked less like persuasion and more like a kidnapping done by someone rich enough to call it logistics.
Elias fought her with everything he had.
It did not matter.
This world had never been fair to men in a physical fight, especially not against women like Serena Blackwood. No matter how desperately he struggled, he could not move her. He was dragged into place like a beautiful doll that had learned how to bite.
Serena held him against herself, restraining his wrists when she had to, pressing one knee carefully to keep him from kicking the door. All the while, her face lowered by fractions she pretended were accidental.
His hair smelled clean.
He must have showered.
The thought made her mouth curve before she forced her voice back into hardness.
"Who else can solve those two burdens for you?" she asked. "That Frost girl? She can’t even handle herself. What is she going to do for you?"
Elias twisted hard enough to make the seat creak.
"Let go of me!"
Serena’s arms tightened.
"You have no choice, Eli."
"We broke up!" he snapped. "Let me go. We already broke up!"
He fought with his hands, his feet, even his teeth. Anything he could use, he used. His nails scraped across Serena’s cheek. His knee hit her thigh. His teeth caught her wrist once and left a clear mark.
Serena did not strike back.
She only dodged when she could and endured what she could not avoid.
"Yes," she said through clenched teeth. "We did break up."
The words clearly cost her something.
Then her eyes cooled again.
"But you seem to have forgotten the agreement between us." Her hand caught his chin, forcing him to hear every word. "I’m not speaking to you as your girlfriend. I’m speaking as the woman who hired you."
Elias froze.
Serena’s voice lowered.
"Stop fighting."
His body went rigid in her arms.
The change was immediate enough that even Serena felt it. One second he had been all teeth and resistance. The next, he was still, as if the order had struck the root of him and shut the rest of his body down.
Even his breathing stopped.
Serena knew why.
She knew exactly what that contract meant to him. She knew what chains it had placed around his life, his father’s treatment, his choices, his pride. She had seen the way he reacted to the black card, to bills, to money offered with strings tied so tightly they left marks.
Her heart hurt.
But she had no other road.
Or maybe she did, and she was too afraid to take it.
For a long while, Elias said nothing.
Then he seemed to return from somewhere far away.
"You said..." His voice came out slowly, each word dragged through glass. "You said that contract was already..."
He could not finish.
It was as if a door he had believed was open had vanished in front of him. As if he had been waiting for dawn, only to lift his head and find the sky still black, not even stars left inside it.
His lips trembled.
So did his eyes.
The despair in them was so complete that, for one terrible moment, he looked around the car as if searching for anyone else who could help him. There was no one.
Only Serena.
So he looked at her.
The plea in his eyes asked her to say it was false.
Tell me you lied.
Tell me this part is not real.
Tell me you are not still holding the chain.
Serena felt something inside her tighten until pain spread through her chest. She had never understood that the body could hurt without being wounded.
But the path in front of her did not branch.
It was one straight line into darkness, and she had already started walking.
Serena exhaled.
When she looked at Elias again, her expression had gone colder.
The plea drained from his eyes.
So did the vulnerability.
It disappeared almost instantly, leaving him strangely calm in her arms.
Then his mouth twitched.
Slowly, painfully, it curved into a broken smile.
"I knew it," he whispered.
Serena’s fingers tightened against him.
"I knew it..."
His voice grew unsteady.
"How could anything you said be true?"
The smile shook on his face.
"You’re a woman. You’re a businesswoman. Every word is a lie. Every word you ever said to me was a lie."
"Eli..."
"All of it," he said.
His voice began to tear.
"All of it was fake."
The last word rose into a raw, desperate shout.
"Everything was a lie!"
He broke into a violent cough.
The sound ripped through the car. Elias bent forward as much as Serena’s hold allowed, coughing so hard his whole body shook. When he dragged in air again, there was a faint taste of blood in it.
Serena panicked.
The restraint she had forced around herself snapped.
"Eli, what’s wrong?" She reached for his face. "Are you hurt? You’re not..."
The slap cracked through the car.
Serena’s head turned with it.
For a second, she stayed that way, stunned. A bright red mark had appeared across her cheek, vivid against her pale skin.
Elias lowered his trembling hand.
His voice was ruined.
"Don’t call me Eli."
Serena slowly turned back to him.
For a moment, they looked exactly as they had when they separated: disheveled, wounded, and unable to stand in the same space without tearing each other open.
No matter how many times they met, they always seemed to end up like this.
Serena forced the darkness in her chest down. "We’re going back first."
She said it stubbornly, almost desperately.
As if returning to the apartment, the room, the bed, the private place she had once controlled, would let her find a way to repair this. As if walls could reset what she had broken.
"No." Elias shook his head, face bloodless. "Impossible. I won’t..."
Serena kissed him.
She cut off the words before he could finish them.
Elias reacted immediately, fighting with everything he had left. His hands pushed at her shoulders. His body twisted against her hold. His teeth closed hard, biting into her without hesitation.
Serena did not let go.
The taste of blood spread between them.
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