Chapter 224: Chapter 224: Because It Hurts
Chapter 224: Because It Hurts
Once Elias confirmed Serena could no longer bear to see him hurt, he pushed harder.
He looked at her and smiled again, pale from blood loss and cold, lips still marked by the wound he had used against himself.
"You think if we don’t talk about it," he said, "then it never happened?"
Serena shook her head slowly.
"I’ll find them."
Her voice was low.
"Every person who touched you, even if it was only one finger, I’ll make them die..."
She stopped.
The word had slipped out too naturally.
Serena changed it, as if a gentler phrase would make the meaning less monstrous in front of him.
"I’ll make them pay."
Even after she corrected herself, the killing intent in the sentence remained. It moved through the bedroom like a cold current, enough to make the private doctor lower her eyes and pretend her hearing had failed.
Elias was not frightened.
He only blinked at Serena, almost puzzled.
Was this really Serena Blackwood?
Why did she sound a little like Liora?
Someone else touched him, and Serena’s first thought was not to discard him, punish him, or scrub the contamination off him. It was to destroy the people who had done the touching.
Elias clicked his tongue inwardly.
"The power of love," he muttered.
[System Theta: ...]
The doctor clearly did not want to stay in the room any longer than necessary. She checked Elias’s wrist with professional speed, careful not to look at his face more than required.
"Ms. Blackwood, Mr. Kane’s injury is not severe. The cut needs to be cleaned and dressed. Keep it medicated and change the bandage on schedule. It should heal in a few days."
Serena finally relaxed.
Not completely, but enough that the tension in her shoulders loosened by a fraction.
The doctor prepared antiseptic, ointment, and gauze. After a short round of treatment, Elias’s wrist was wrapped neatly in clean white bandages.
Serena looked down. "Wrap it more securely. In case he..."
She paused.
Her voice lowered when she finished.
"In case he hurts himself again."
"No need." Elias stared at her coldly. "If you hadn’t tried to lock me up, I wouldn’t have needed to hurt myself for no reason."
The doctor’s pupils tightened.
Her head lowered even further.
Serena looked at her once and waved a hand. "You can go."
She trusted the doctor not to talk.
More importantly, the doctor would not dare.
"Yes, Ms. Blackwood."
The doctor escaped as if she had been pardoned. In her panic, she did not even close the bedroom door behind her.
Serena had to go over and shut it herself.
When she turned back, Elias had already fought free of the blanket. He was sitting up on the bed, body angled toward the edge, ready to bolt the second she gave him an opening.
Serena’s eyes sharpened.
She crossed the room at once, caught his ankle, and stopped him before he could stand. With one clean movement, she pressed him back onto the bed.
After being restrained, Elias did not thrash the way he had before.
He simply went still.
That stillness felt worse than resistance.
"You can’t watch me forever," he said.
Serena’s chest sank.
He was right.
After losing the contest in the storage room, she could no longer rely on force alone. If she pushed too hard, he would hurt himself again. His body would break, and the pain would land in her.
It was absurd.
Something from a melodramatic romance she would once have mocked.
But after tasting that pain for herself, Serena understood the ugly truth. When a person truly loved someone, watching that person bleed hurt.
Hard methods no longer worked.
Soft ones were no cleaner.
She could stare at him every hour, arrange staff outside the door, lock down the house, block every exit, and even if it worked for a while, she could not personally watch him every second. Blackwood Group still existed. Thousands of employees, negotiations, contracts, competitors, money, families, and shareholders still waited for her hand.
Looked at that way, there seemed to be nothing she could use against him anymore.
Then Serena said, very calmly, "I can have you sent to jail. Then officers can watch you around the clock."
Elias let out a dry laugh. "Serena Blackwood, you can’t do that. That contract has no legal force."
"Are we discussing the contract now?" Serena asked. "That so-called ownership agreement would not be recognized by a court. But did you ever read what you actually signed?"
Elias froze.
"Little cutie?"
[System Theta: That... the contract Serena Blackwood signed with you appears to be an employment contract. It is legal and enforceable.]
Elias understood.
In simple terms, it was a contract for private household employment, dressed up and used as a tool for her desire.
He bit down lightly on his teeth.
"Then send me in," he said.
Serena’s voice remained even. "You think it would only be jail?"
Elias looked at her.
"If it becomes a criminal matter, expulsion is one of the attached consequences." Serena slowed down on purpose. "By then, your classmates will all know what kind of good student you are."
Good student.
The words hit exactly where she wanted them to.
Elias stared at her, disbelief moving through his dark eyes. His face lost what little color it had regained.
For him, expulsion was clearly worse than jail.
It would erase years of effort. Every early morning, every exam, every scholarship application, every humiliation swallowed because education was supposed to be the way out. Twelve years of clawing forward would be reduced to a joke people could whisper about in hallways.
Serena saw the weakness she had finally caught.
She felt no victory.
Only the same pain Elias showed.
They both knew what this was.
Mutual harm.
Serena loved Elias. Elias knew that even more clearly than Serena did. Otherwise, he would not have hurt himself. He had used her love as a blade and cut her with it.
For one absurd instant, Serena wondered whether Elias would feel pain if she hurt herself.
The thought vanished almost as soon as it came.
Ridiculous.
Elias’s calm eyes had already told her the answer.
He no longer had that kind of feeling for her.
The exhaustion hit then.
It was so heavy Serena felt her mind blur, as if closing her eyes for one second might make her fall asleep where she stood. She released his ankle and rose from the bed.
"Sleep," she said. "Don’t think about running. I’ll have staff watching."
In truth, she was the one who needed to rest.
The whirlpool called emotion had dragged her under for only a few hours, yet the exhaustion felt worse than going three nights without sleep during a corporate crisis.
Serena turned to leave.
A hand caught her wrist.
She looked back.
Elias’s fingers circled her skin, holding her in place.
Serena’s mouth curved into a cold smile by reflex. "What? Now you can’t bear to let me go?"
Elias answered her.
"Yes."
Serena went still.
The answer struck her completely unprepared. It was like making a bitter joke and receiving the one gift she had not dared ask for. Surprise, sharp and dizzying, cut through the fatigue so fast she could not organize her face around it.
The cold mask she had prepared became useless.
Her hard attitude melted before she could stop it. The line of her brows softened, almost helplessly.
Then the blanket shifted.
The clothes she had forced on Elias loosened and fell aside in a careless spill of fabric. Under the bedroom light, his pale body flashed into view, smooth and luminous against the sheets, tempting in a way that felt less like invitation than danger.
His lips parted.
The voice that came out was sweet, low, and openly wicked.
"Aren’t you going to fuck me?"
Serena’s breath stopped.
Elias looked up at her through his lashes.
"At least once a day," he whispered. "Isn’t that what the contract says?"
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