Chapter 217: Chapter 217: Biting Deep
Chapter 217: Biting Deep
Elias watched Serena’s eyes.
The red threads spreading through them were clear now, too sharp to be part of any performance. Serena Blackwood could act gentle. She could act reasonable. She could make cruelty sound like a favor and possession sound like care.
She could not fake this.
So she really was close to panic.
Still, it was not enough.
[System Theta: She’s already like this, and you’re still not satisfied?]
"Of course not," Elias replied.
If Giselle’s side had to speed up, then everyone else’s progress needed to keep pace.
More importantly, in the short time Serena had been holding him in the car, Elias had already arranged the next part of the plan in his head. Giselle’s hook was set. The sea trip would do its work later.
That left Serena.
He had to push her until she had no clean path left.
Otherwise, how was he supposed to make a cornered dog jump the wall?
Elias was kneeling in front of Serena in the back seat. The car was large, the kind built for private comfort and corporate secrecy, but even that space could not make this position look dignified. His wrist was still caught in Serena’s hand, his arm forced upward, his body half trapped between her knees and the front seat.
Slowly, he lifted his head again.
His face was blank.
His eyes were hollow.
Anyone watching would think he had fallen back into that night, dragged into a memory no man in this world would want pulled into daylight.
His voice came out calm enough to make the words worse.
"The night you threw me out, I had nowhere to go. So I went to a club and drank."
Serena’s grip tightened.
"I don’t know how much I drank. I only remember getting drunk. Then someone picked me up..."
He did not finish.
Serena hauled him upright.
Both of her hands seized his collar with enough force to twist the fabric. The back of his neck was pressed down, his breathing caught, and the space between them vanished.
Most of Serena’s eyes had gone red.
She had not lost all reason. Not yet. Her throat moved once as she swallowed blood and anger together.
"I said," she told him, every syllable low and forced, "shut up."
It was her last warning.
If he kept speaking, she could no longer promise what she would do. If he stopped here, if he let her pretend nothing had happened, she might keep the last thread of control in place.
Elias looked at her and smiled inside.
"Did you see that?"
[System Theta: See what?]
"Serena’s reaction."
[System Theta: What about it?]
"I told her a stranger took me, and the root cause is that she threw me out that night."
System Theta went quiet.
Elias continued, his inner voice almost lazy. "Pain, shock, regret. Those are all normal. They prove she loves me. But look at her carefully. Is she worried about me?"
This time, System Theta had no answer.
"That’s why the Bureau classifies women like her as scum targets," Elias said. "Every one of them has a defect that ordinary people don’t. Serena does love me, but her love leans toward possession. Exclusivity. Ownership. That’s why, after hearing that someone else touched me, she became like this."
This was not how normal people loved.
That was also why Elias never let himself fall for these women.
Once he understood what they were, the work became clean. He could dissect their personalities, find the damaged place, and apply pressure without a single unnecessary feeling getting in the way.
[System Theta: But Giselle...]
Elias’s tone softened with a trace of mockery. "Baby, guess what would have happened if someone else had been assigned to her."
System Theta went silent.
It understood.
Giselle’s tenderness toward Elias existed because Elias had already worked on her. Because he had given her the correct wounds to see, the correct softness to protect, the correct story to enter. It looked easy because Elias was the Bureau’s ace.
In the original plot, Giselle had been one of the coldest to him.
Maybe the coldest.
"Her feelings only come in one portion," Elias said. "Friendship, love, family. All of them draw from the same place. You think that isn’t a defect?"
[System Theta: ...]
It sounded close to crying.
Elias smiled faintly. "Don’t cry, baby. Watch me work."
One sentence was enough to calm the system down.
Serena was stretched to her limit now.
She was like a balloon swollen past reason. She did not even need a needle anymore. One more breath would be enough to burst her open.
So Elias lifted the corner of his mouth.
Right in front of Serena, under her confused and faintly stunned gaze, he parted his bloodstained lips and smiled.
"It wasn’t... just one."
The result was immediate.
Serena’s mind had been empty before. Now it went black.
It was as if something detonated inside her skull, not with noise, but with a force that drove all the blood in her body upward at once. Thought disappeared. Control disappeared. For one terrible instant, even her grip on Elias loosened because her body forgot what it had been doing.
Elias saw the life leave her eyes for that split second.
Only then did he smile for real.
He shoved Serena away and bolted out of the car.
Time to go.
The door opened. Afternoon air hit his face. He stepped down fast, almost light with relief, and immediately spotted the two figures standing nearby.
One was the driver.
The other was Liora Voss.
Elias looked straight at Liora, not caring that the driver stood close enough to see. He pressed two fingers to his lips, smiled, and flicked the kiss toward her.
Then he turned and ran toward campus like a butterfly escaping a glass box.
Liora watched him go.
Her gaze lowered briefly to the red polish visible through the straps of her heels. Then her mouth curved.
Surrender was not such a bad thing.
If she was the first one to bow properly, then she should be the first one to receive special treatment.
At the very least, she was not like her dear sister, currently driven half unconscious by fury inside the car.
Liora lifted her chin toward the vehicle. "Go wake Ms. Blackwood."
The driver blinked. "Wake her?"
Hadn’t Ms. Blackwood been talking to Mr. Kane?
How did someone suddenly need waking up in the middle of a conversation?
She did not understand, but she knew better than to ask Liora Voss for clarification. She hurried to the car and opened the rear door.
Serena was slumped against the seat.
Not resting.
Collapsed.
Her head tipped back against the leather, eyes closed, brows locked in pain. Her lips were parted slightly, and her face had lost enough color to make the blood on her mouth stand out.
The driver panicked at once. "Ms. Blackwood? Ms. Blackwood, what’s wrong? Are you all right?"
The noise dragged Serena back.
Her mind was still full of static. The world in front of her doubled, blurred, then slid out of place. She blinked hard. Nothing fixed. She shook her head once, then again, forcing her vision into a single shape.
At last, the driver’s face became recognizable.
Serena looked at the hands reaching to help her.
She pushed them away.
Firmly.
Then she stepped out of the car.
For one breath, the street tilted.
The sky, the car, the sidewalk, the driver, Liora standing at the curb, all of it swung around her. Serena nearly fell. She steadied herself by force, standing straight before anyone could mistake weakness for permission.
"Ms. Blackwood..."
"I’m fine."
Serena looked down.
Her legs, wrapped in sheer black tights, were steady now.
After a few seconds, she raised her head.
Ahead, Elias was almost out of sight, a bright figure slipping back toward Westbridge’s gates, toward students, witnesses, and the one place where Serena could not easily drag him into a room without turning the entire mess into a public disaster.
Her jaw tightened.
Then she started after him, long legs moving fast.
She could not let him leave like this.
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