Chapter 220: Chapter 220: Deception
Chapter 220: Deception
Was it some kind of sisterly instinct?
Liora kept one hand over her chest, feeling the strange pressure there refuse to fade.
Then the thought stalled.
That sort of shared ache was supposed to belong to sisters with the same blood, wasn’t it?
She and Serena were sisters by family, by history, by household, by the Blackwood name. They had been raised under the same roof and sharpened by many of the same rooms. Blood, however, had never been part of the arrangement.
So if this feeling was not sisterhood, then...
Liora’s expression stiffened for a fraction of a second.
Before she could follow the thought further, a staff member hurried back, face strained with panic. "Ms. Voss, Ms. Blackwood, she..."
Liora’s eyes narrowed. "What happened to her?"
The staffer swallowed. "She took him to the storage room."
Liora paused.
Then she turned at once. "Security room. Now."
A residence as large as the Blackwood estate naturally had cameras, but the family did not treat surveillance like a common apartment building. The public-facing ones were obvious: the front drive, the gate, the garage approach. They were less for thieves and more for warning people that the house saw what entered.
Inside, cameras were rare. The Blackwoods valued privacy when privacy served them.
The garage had coverage. So did the storage wing, where art crates, old event furniture, seasonal installations, sealed wine cases, and other expensive things were kept out of daily sight. No one spent time there unless work required it, so the family had never treated that surveillance as invasive.
In the security room, Liora stood beneath a wall of monitors and let her gaze move across the divided screens.
Her attention stopped on the storage room feed.
Serena had just dragged Elias inside.
The image was slightly grainy, but clear enough. Serena pushed him hard, and Elias hit the floor. Pain crossed his face, quick and visible even through the camera angle.
Serena stepped forward immediately. She crouched, likely asking if he was hurt.
Elias shoved her away.
Serena stumbled, nearly falling, then steadied herself and rose again.
The next time, she pulled him into her arms and held him there. No matter how he struggled, she did not let go.
Then she kissed him.
Liora turned slowly.
The security guard and the staff member who had brought her here had both lowered their heads with trained self-preservation. Neither dared look at the monitor.
Liora’s mouth curved faintly.
For some reason, she could not laugh.
The tightness in her chest worsened instead, as if the image on the screen had pressed directly against the place she had been trying to ignore.
"Leave," she said lightly. "Both of you."
They hurried out at once.
When the door closed, Liora looked back at the screen.
So that was it.
Jealousy.
She had a secret with Elias that belonged only to the two of them. She had a position different from Serena, different from Giselle. She had heard what she should not have heard, stayed where she should have been ashamed to stay, and had been rewarded for her obedience.
She already had something special.
Still, when those muffled sounds from Serena and Elias reached her through the earbud earlier, heat had moved under her skin first. Then that heat became this dull weight she could not push away.
She had so much, and yet she wanted more.
How greedy.
Liora smiled again, this time with more ease.
There was nothing shameful about greed.
The result in front of her was her own choice. From beginning to end, she had watched, listened, yielded, and accepted the role Elias gave her.
She did not regret it.
Inside the storage room, Serena threw Elias to the floor again as if discarding a toy she had grown tired of.
She turned to leave.
Behind her came a faint rustle.
Serena stopped and looked back.
Elias was slowly climbing up from the floor.
Something in Serena rose with foolish expectation. Perhaps he had thought it through already. Perhaps he had reached the limit of that blank stubbornness. Perhaps he would admit defeat, accept the situation, say something, anything.
He said nothing.
He only stood there and looked at her.
His eyes were calm.
Too calm.
They held no anger, no panic, no plea. He looked at Serena the way one looked at a stranger passing on the street, someone whose existence had no claim.
Serena’s clenched hands loosened.
Strength seemed to drain out of her all at once. A heavy helplessness rolled through her, covering every sharp edge she had forced upright.
Elias really did not love her anymore.
The pain struck and vanished.
Serena straightened herself before it could show.
"When you’ve thought it through," she said, "stand under the camera and wave. I’ll come let you out."
She left without waiting.
The door closed.
Outside the storage room, Serena finally stood alone.
Elias was not beside her. Liora was not watching from the same hallway. No staff member hovered close enough to be useful or annoying.
This kind of silence invited a person to let the ugly feelings out.
Serena only stood there, drew in a deep breath, and forced every bit of weakness back down.
She had not lost.
Why should she look like someone defeated?
Her eyes regained their edge.
She wanted to see how long Elias could keep that mouth hard.
When Serena reached the security room, the staff member and the security guard were both standing outside. She understood at once, pushed the door open, and saw Liora inside.
Liora turned at the sound, her gaze landing first on Serena’s body.
"I suggest you change clothes."
Serena looked down.
Her suit was wrinkled beyond saving. Dust from the storage room clung to the fabric. Her stockings had several runs in them, thin black threads pulled and tangled along her legs. There was blood on the material too, though whether it was hers or Elias’s was hard to tell.
Together, it made her look violently disheveled.
Serena hated the thought, but it rose anyway.
Right now, she looked like a dog that had lost its home.
Her eyes turned cold. "Shut up. Do you always have to talk?"
Liora only smiled and did not argue.
She saw the truth of it clearly enough. With one sentence, she had made Serena look at her own defeat. For a woman who had never tolerated defeat in business, the image was unacceptable.
Serena turned her attention to the monitor.
Elias remained where she had left him, standing in the storage room like a young pine that refused to bend.
Serena let out a cold laugh. "Let’s see how long he lasts."
They watched for a while.
Then Serena seemed to remember something. She turned slowly toward Liora, her eyes narrowing. "Why are you here?"
She had already proven Liora’s innocence, though at a miserable cost. Even so, Liora’s current behavior stirred suspicion again.
Her interest in Elias was too close.
And when Serena and Elias tore each other open, Liora’s expression had not looked like simple teasing. It had looked almost like satisfaction.
Serena knew she was sensitive right now. She also knew there was too much rage inside her with nowhere to go. If she became a powder keg, she did not mind waiting for someone to be foolish enough to bring the spark.
Liora saw that clearly.
The smile on her face softened by a degree. "I didn’t want to come. But I thought it was safer to make sure my sister didn’t lose her mind completely and stage a live-action scandal in front of the security staff."
The answer explained everything.
No flaw. No gap.
Even Serena could not pick it apart.
"They wouldn’t dare," she said darkly.
Liora gave a quiet laugh.
That laugh answered better than any sentence.
Serena felt as if she had been slapped again, this time by Elias through Liora’s mouth. She was just about to use the excuse to explode when something on the monitor caught her eye.
She turned sharply. "What is he doing?"
On the screen, Elias had walked to the camera.
He lifted one hand and waved.
The signal was obvious.
He had thought it through.
Serena froze for a second.
Then joy rose before she could stop it. The corners of her mouth lifted. She remembered Liora was still there and forced the expression down.
The storage room was cold. Elias must not have been able to tolerate the temperature. That was why he surrendered so quickly.
It was enough.
"Hard mouth," Serena said with a cold smile, though the pleasure in her voice betrayed her. "Honest body."
Whether she was happy because she had won, or because Elias was coming back to her, even Serena did not try to separate.
She left the security room and headed straight for the storage wing.
Liora did not move.
She remained in front of the monitors.
A faint worry appeared in her flirtatious eyes, making her look almost fragile in the blue-white glow of the screens.
Had Elias really surrendered that fast?
It should not have happened.
It did not fit him. It did not fit the reckless, wandering boy who moved between women as if none of them could ever truly own him.
That was exactly why Liora had fallen so deeply.
She knew he belonged to no one.
Never would.
Her restraint, her ability to accept the most primitive possessiveness and keep it locked down, depended on the special place she had in front of him. Unique. Unrepeatable.
She could not have him.
She could not fully own him.
Yet in one sense, he belonged only to her.
If Elias truly accepted Serena, then the relationship Liora had built with him would become ridiculous.
Her special position would turn into a joke.
No matter how much she thought, she could not change what was happening on the screen.
Serena appeared in the storage room feed quickly, moving with an impatience she did not bother hiding. Liora’s attention fixed on the monitor.
At first, Serena looked cold.
Then her expression paused.
Surprise showed clearly.
After that came fury.
The look of someone who had been deceived.
Serena slammed the storage room door shut behind her, vanishing from the camera’s view.
Liora did not understand for one breath.
Then Elias turned under the camera.
He slowly lifted his face as if he knew exactly where Liora was watching from. A trace of lazy charm touched the corners of his eyes. He raised one finger and placed it lightly against his full lips.
Then he smiled.
Liora understood at once.
He had tricked Serena.
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