Chapter 233: The Cause of It All
Even Elias thought Serena ought to be angry.
The executive dining room was full enough to make the point obvious. He had flicked a stripped chicken bone straight into the face of Blackwood Group’s chief executive, and the bone had landed against the dark fabric over Serena’s thigh. It was petty, childish, and public enough to count as a deliberate humiliation. The employees around them clearly understood that. Low conversations cut off. Forks paused above plates. People who had been pretending not to watch found sudden reasons to study their lunches.
Serena did not move right away.
Her face had gone blank, which was usually more alarming than anger. When Serena Blackwood truly lost her temper, she did not raise her voice or make a spectacle of herself. Her expression simply disappeared, leaving everyone else to guess what damage would follow.
Elias watched her with real curiosity. Had he finally pushed her too far?
His private verdict was cruder.
Cuckqueen.
Another woman had been rubbing the hand of the man Serena claimed right beneath her eyes, and Serena had accepted it with a smile. Liora ought to give up her spectator seat and let Serena have it.
Before he could find out whether Serena would explode, an executive aide in a tailored suit hurried across the dining room, her heels striking the floor too quickly to sound casual.
"Ms. Blackwood."
Serena picked up the bone from her lap. "You’re getting more and more mischievous," she said to Elias, her tone even. "Don’t do that again."
Only then did she turn to the staffer. "What is it?"
The aide leaned down and spoke softly at Serena’s ear.
Elias did not need to hear the details. Giselle had arrived.
What surprised him was Serena’s control. She listened without the slightest visible change. Her mouth did not tighten. Her gaze did not turn. One name had just walked into the center of every problem in her life, yet she gave the aide nothing to read.
She only nodded, rose from the table, and looked at Elias. "Stay here and finish your lunch. When you’re done, go back to my office. I need to handle something."
Elias did not answer. He did not need to. He stayed where she had placed him, fork in hand, letting the silence serve as the only answer she would get. Serena left with the aide, moving through the dining room before anyone could catch another scrap of gossip from her face. The employees returned to their meals only after she was gone, though the room’s attention followed her long after the sound of her heels had faded.
The elevator carried her down to the lobby at the fastest speed the building allowed. By the time the doors opened, Serena had every trace of public composure back in place.
Giselle Frost stood waiting outside.
Her silver hair fell to her shoulders in a pale, luminous sweep, catching the filtered light from the lobby windows. Her face still carried the clean severity of youth, yet nothing about it was easily forgotten. She was the sort of girl people noticed before they decided they had any reason to look. The silver hair only made it worse, bright enough to give her the distant, untouchable air people mistook for certainty.
Serena had never liked Giselle’s looks. The irritation had existed since the first time she realized Elias’s attention shifted around the Frost girl, becoming gentler in ways Serena had never been able to ask for without turning the request into a demand.
Her objection was colder than envy. In Serena’s mind, that face had bought Giselle a piece of Elias’s affection. She had shown up with those pale eyes, that softness wrapped in frost, and Elias had offered her gentleness Serena could no longer command.
It did not matter.
With Serena here, Giselle would not get another chance to see him.
They had already torn away the polite layer between them. There was no friendship to preserve and no misunderstanding left to clear up. Still, they were standing in the lobby of Blackwood Group, surrounded by reception desks, glass walls, security cameras, and employees who could recognize a scandal before it acquired a name.
Serena put on the smile she used for investors, hostile partners, and people she meant to outlast.
"Ms. Frost," she said. "What brings you to my company? This isn’t the place for a conversation. Whatever you came for, we should speak somewhere more appropriate."
The words were courteous. The meaning was not.
Giselle saw it at once. Serena wanted the discussion away from the lobby, where raised voices could be overheard and anything ugly might damage Blackwood Group’s image. That was a weak point Giselle could use if she wanted to press hard enough.
She had another plan.
"Come with me."
Giselle turned and started walking before Serena agreed.
The gesture seized the first position in the conversation. She chose the place, the direction, and the rhythm. Serena’s eyes narrowed as she watched her go.
Victoria Frost had taught her well. Giselle had learned how to take control of a conversation before the argument had even started, how to make the other person follow and then make that following look like consent.
It was a useful trick. Serena could even appreciate the calculation, if the calculation had not been aimed at taking something Serena had already decided to keep.
It would not decide the outcome. A conversation could begin with Giselle’s chosen corridor, but neither the location nor the first command mattered as much as the person at the center of their conflict.
Whoever held Elias would hold the advantage.
Serena followed.
The executive aide beside her made as if to come too. Serena stopped her with a glance. "You don’t need to come."
The woman halted.
Serena added, "Call Liora. Tell her to come to my office."
She was not willing to assume Giselle had come only to argue. Giselle might be planning something reckless, something designed to pull Elias out of the building while Serena was occupied downstairs. With Liora in the office, Serena would at least have another pair of eyes on him. It was not a solution she liked. Liora was too interested in Elias herself, too willing to watch a dangerous situation develop before deciding whether it pleased her. But leaving Elias alone while Giselle stood downstairs was a worse choice.
Giselle led her through the lobby and down a side corridor lined with closed conference-room doors. The traffic from the main floor faded behind them. Here, the building’s climate control hummed softly, and the glass along one wall reflected the two women walking ahead of themselves.
Giselle stopped where no one else could hear.
She turned around and met Serena’s eyes directly.
"Let him go."
Serena gave a small laugh. "Let who go? Why would I let anyone go?"
"Don’t play word games with me," Giselle said. "I mean Elias."
Serena folded her arms. "Your language is inaccurate. I didn’t arrest him. I didn’t put him in a cell. What exactly am I supposed to ’let go’?"
Giselle released a quiet breath. Disappointment crossed her face, though it did not soften her.
"I expected more from the woman running Blackwood Group," she said. "You’re arguing semantics like a child who thinks changing the word changes what she did."
The insult landed cleanly.
Serena did not react. "If you came to my company only to say strange things, this conversation is over. My time is valuable. Your mother knows that better than anyone."
She held Giselle’s gaze for one more beat.
"Take your guessing games to someone your own age."
Then Serena turned to leave.
Her language had been careful. Even if Giselle had a recorder hidden on her, there was nothing useful in Serena’s words. No admission. No threat. No mention of Elias beyond the name Giselle had supplied. She had given Giselle no clean opening, which was why walking away seemed safer than allowing the Frost girl another minute to build one.
Behind her, Giselle spoke.
"Elias’s foster parents."
Serena stopped.
"That was you, wasn’t it?"
The corridor seemed to tighten around the question.
Serena did not look back. She did not need to. The brief halt had already told Giselle that she had found the correct door.
"I suppose these are the tactics that helped you take half the business world," Giselle continued. "You practiced them until they became natural. You learned how to trap people without leaving proof behind."
For the first time, Giselle addressed her as Ms. Blackwood.
The title held no respect. It carried only anger.
"I don’t care how many people you used those methods on. But you should never have used them on Elias. He was a good kid. You pulled him into the mud with your own hands and gave him something he may carry for the rest of his life."
Her voice remained low, yet every word reached Serena clearly. Giselle had no need to raise it. The accusation did not need volume when it was built from the pieces of Elias’s life that Serena had tried to keep buried beneath contracts, hospital arrangements, and the private machinery of Blackwood power.
"If you feel anything for him at all, then you should let him get as far away from you as possible."
Giselle’s eyes did not leave her.
"Because you are where all of his suffering began."
The accusation struck with the cold force of ice driven under the skin. Serena felt every word find the places that were already sore, the things she had refused to examine because looking at them would mean accepting too much.
She turned around.
"What are you talking about?" Serena asked. "You know the rule for accusations. The person making one has to bring proof."
"Is that so?"
Giselle reached into her bag and drew out a slim document folder.
"Is this enough proof?"
Serena’s face did not change. "Open it."
Giselle did not move to hand it over.
Instead, she began to read the pieces aloud.
"Arthur Hale has no life-threatening diagnosis, yet he has been staying in one of Longhaven Hospital’s most expensive private suites. Marlene Bennet never took part in games with stakes above a few thousand dollars, but over the course of one night, she somehow ended up with debts in the millions."
As Giselle continued, Serena’s eyes finally shifted.