Chapter 227: Chapter 227: Sisters at Night
Chapter 227: Sisters at Night
The kitchen stayed silent for more than ten seconds.
Then Serena said, slowly, "Don’t curse."
Liora answered with a cold little laugh.
"What about you?" She took a sip of wine and lifted her chin toward Serena. "Why did you come down here?"
"Because this is the kitchen," Serena said, voice cool. "I was hungry. I wanted to come here. Is that a problem?"
Liora did not argue.
They had both answered the question.
They also both felt a quiet relief.
She probably did not notice.
Obviously, both of them were lying. Neither wanted to admit the real reason she had come to the kitchen in the middle of the night and ended up using wine to swallow emotions she refused to name.
The strange part was that neither doubted the other’s lie.
So the two sisters stood at the kitchen entrance without turning on the living room lights. They drank in the thin glow spilling from the kitchen, one sip after another, the house around them asleep and the air between them full of things neither would say.
Serena finished another glass.
Her second.
She started to pour a third, but Liora lifted one leg and blocked her path with the lazy precision of someone who knew exactly how much she could get away with.
Serena looked down at Liora’s long pale leg.
"If you keep showing that off," Serena said flatly, "I don’t mind helping it get longer."
Meaning she would break it.
Liora immediately lowered her leg. The corner of her mouth curved with mild sarcasm. "Stop drinking. You have a meeting at the office tomorrow."
One sentence made Serena pause.
Then her expression darkened.
If she went to Blackwood Group tomorrow, what would stop Elias from running?
Have the staff watch him?
Impossible.
With Elias’s current position in the house, none of the staff would dare handle him roughly. His existence alone carried more weight than her order. If he decided to walk out, a housekeeper at the door would only become another witness Serena did not want.
Have Liora watch him?
Serena rejected that thought even faster.
It was not because she suspected her sister.
Fine. It was because she suspected her sister.
Even after proving Liora’s innocence at a painful cost, Serena did not mind keeping one thread of caution around her when Elias was involved.
Liora watched the difficulty pass across Serena’s face and guessed the problem quickly. "Worried he’ll run?"
Serena looked at her.
After a moment, she nodded.
"That’s easy." Liora drank again. She had already had more than a little before Serena arrived, and a faint flush sat high on her cheeks now. Even the corners of her eyes carried a light red sheen, making her gaze look far too inviting for someone leaning in a kitchen doorway at this hour.
Unfortunately, the person across from her was her sister and entirely unmoved.
Liora continued, "Either take him to the office with you, or cancel tomorrow’s meeting and hold it online."
"No."
Serena refused at once.
Liora smiled. "Why?"
Serena’s eyes turned cold, cutting straight to her. "Do not try to read my mind."
Liora did not look afraid. "Is it because once you do that, it means admitting you’ve completely fallen for him?"
Serena walked toward her.
The distance between them vanished quickly. Serena’s gaze was icy as she stopped in front of Liora. "You’ve been getting a little too pleased with yourself lately."
Liora was forced to lean back until her shoulders met the wall, but she still smiled. "Serena, I’m not pleased with myself. You’re just being incredibly stubborn."
Serena’s face did not change.
Liora’s smile finally faded. She met Serena’s eyes calmly.
For a while, the kitchen was still.
Then Serena stepped back, putting space between them again. "You’re wrong. I simply don’t want private matters interfering with business."
Liora nodded lightly. "I understand. You really never used to do that."
Serena’s eyes narrowed.
Used to.
That one phrase was far too sharp.
Was Liora saying she had never let private matters interfere before, but would start doing it from now on?
As if she knew what Serena was thinking, Liora immediately raised both hands in surrender. "I didn’t mean anything by that. Don’t overthink it and then blame me."
She tilted the wineglass slightly. "But I also don’t think this counts as sacrificing business for private feelings. In your current state, I doubt you can make major decisions properly. What if your brain glitches during the meeting, you approve something insane, and the entire ship becomes the Titanic?"
Serena smiled.
It was a cold smile.
"Keep talking like that and I’ll sew your mouth shut."
Liora lifted a hand and made a zipper motion over her lips.
Serena exhaled silently.
Apart from Elias, there was another person she had no real way to handle, and that person was Liora.
She had spoiled Liora too much.
Perhaps not less than she had spoiled Elias.
That was why, at this moment, Serena felt a rare regret.
She really should have dealt with Liora properly years ago. That mouth of hers was becoming more and more irritating.
Serena shook her head lightly and said, "The meeting happens as scheduled. I don’t believe there is anything wrong with my condition. Even if I do make a mistake, do you think the people I pay are decorative? They will correct me."
"With your personality, even if they corrected you, you would probably..."
Serena glanced at her.
Dangerously.
Liora fell silent at once.
Morning came.
Elias slept in the bedroom with remarkable satisfaction.
The torment of the women around him never left much trace on him when there was a good bed involved. Scum targets could spend the night drinking, regretting, pacing, or arguing in kitchens. Elias slept as if the whole expensive disaster had only been a slightly tiring work shift.
Then his mind jolted.
[System Theta: Host, host, wake up!]
Elias opened his eyes at once. "What happened?"
[System Theta: As expected of your passive skill...]
"What?"
[System Theta: Yvonne Quinn is here!]
Elias became fully awake.
"Why would she be here?"
[System Theta: I don’t know.]
Elias thought about it and accepted that. If he did not know why Yvonne had come to the Blackwood residence, there was no point expecting System Theta to understand.
"All right," he said. "Good work."
[System Theta: I’m happy if I helped. Hehe...]
At that moment, someone knocked on the bedroom door.
A housekeeper’s voice came from outside, careful and respectful. "Mr. Kane, are you awake? Please get dressed."
"I know," Elias answered.
He already had a guess.
A physical exam?
What kind of exam?
It could not be an HIV test, right?
If Serena had dragged Yvonne all the way here for that, Elias would bite Serena to death.
Then again, that did not quite make sense. If she had truly been worried about that kind of screening, why had she touched him last night?
For once, Elias did not know what Serena was planning.
It did not matter.
He only needed to know that one of his strategy targets had arrived.
A physical exam, was it?
In that case...
Elias calmly reached down and picked up the clothes that had been kicked under the bed during last night’s chaos.
Then he threw them even farther away.
Sorry.
Gender: male.
Hobby:
Sleeping naked.
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