Chapter 235: The Exit
"Eli, listen to me. Let me explain."
Serena came back to herself far too quickly.
Elias had to give her that. Between the shock of Giselle exposing the truth, the ringing that had driven her to her knees, and the slap Serena had dealt herself in an effort to stay conscious, he had expected her to be out of commission for longer. Long enough to wake later in a hospital bed, with private doctors speaking in low voices and an executive crisis team pretending nothing had happened.
Instead, she was already looking at him again.
Love was an impressive stimulant.
It was also apparently good for recovery time. Elias had not expected devotion to function like a medical-grade shock paddle, but Streetlight Serena had always found new ways to make basic human behavior look ridiculous.
Which meant her body could probably endure a little more pressure.
Elias let a shaky smile cross his wet face. Tears slipped down without sound, catching on his jaw before falling from his chin.
"Explain what?" he asked, his voice trembling. "How you set up my foster parents? How you used them to force me into being your lover?"
He drew a breath that seemed to hurt.
"I really was blind. I actually loved someone like you."
Liora stopped in the corridor.
She had come with the executive aide, intending to see why Serena had summoned her from the office. Now disbelief flickered through her eyes. Serena’s plan had been exposed?
Serena, who had only just dragged herself clear of the ringing in her skull, took the words like another blow.
Her face emptied.
The noise returned to her all at once, too loud for the corridor, too close to escape. The muscles in her shoulders locked. Her breath caught somewhere behind her ribs, and for a moment she stood in the middle of the hall as if the floor had shifted under her feet. Her eyes had found Elias, yet they could not settle on him. They kept losing focus, as though the corridor between them had become too long to cross.
Elias watched the effect and gave an inward nod.
Better.
Streetlight Serena had no sense of timing. At a moment like this, she was supposed to be temporarily offline. Otherwise, how was he supposed to stage the next part with Giselle?
He leaned his back against the wall and dragged himself upright, moving slowly enough for every inch to look difficult. He took one step.
His knees gave out.
Liora startled. Her body moved before her thoughts did, and she lunged toward him.
Giselle was closer.
Elias fell into Giselle’s arms.
The scent of her was familiar, cool and clean, the kind of presence that never pressed too hard until it was already around him. He raised his face from against her shoulder and looked into her eyes.
Worry met him there.
Giselle’s voice was quiet, but it did not waver. "Don’t be afraid. I’m here."
She had already come to Blackwood Group alone, confronted Serena without calling for anyone to rescue her, and dug through the parts of Elias’s life that most people would have dismissed as private misery. Her actions had already answered the question of whether she would stand beside him.
Still, she said it aloud.
She did not want him to wonder whether he was alone with the truth now that it had been dragged into the open.
You are not alone.
I am here.
The message landed exactly where it needed to.
Elias’s tears spilled harder. They no longer looked like the tears of someone crushed by despair. They looked like relief, raw and overwhelming, the tears of a boy who had found someone safe after believing no one would come.
He wrapped both arms around Giselle’s neck and held tight. Then he lifted himself just enough to put his mouth near her ear.
"Go," he whispered.
It was the last thought he could supposedly hold together at the edge of collapse.
Go.
Get him away from the person who had ruined his life.
Giselle lowered her gaze toward Serena, who stood several yards away looking lost inside her own body.
Then Giselle nodded.
"Okay," she said, firmer this time. "I’m taking you out of here."
[Giselle Frost’s favorability has increased. Current value: 60%.]
Liora watched Giselle tighten her hold around Elias and start toward her. The silver-haired girl moved with the hard, forward force of a knight carrying someone she had decided to protect.
No one could have said what Liora was thinking.
Giselle did not bother to find out.
"Move."
The single word cut through the corridor.
Liora stayed where she was. Her attention was fixed on the boy hiding his face against Giselle’s shoulder.
Elias could not have known all of it.
He could not have known the entire structure Serena built around Arthur and Marlene. Every move he made had the feel of something impossible, as though he had spent too long studying people and learned to pull their strings. Still, even Elias could not plausibly know that Serena’s arrangement had been a calculated trap from the beginning.
Now that he knew, his devastation could be real.
Or it could be another performance.
Liora’s eyes narrowed slightly.
There was no clean answer in the way Elias clung to Giselle. His shoulders shook. His face was buried where neither Serena nor Liora could see it clearly. He might be breaking apart. He might be giving Giselle exactly the scene she had needed to decide she would never let him go.
Giselle’s hand had curled into a fist at her side.
She hated violence. Liora had understood that much about her sister’s friend. But some situations made violence feel like the only answer, and Giselle was ready to use it if Liora forced her.
Then, hidden in the angle behind Giselle’s back, Elias lifted his right foot and drew a small lazy circle through the air.
A ridiculous little signal.
Liora saw it.
She stepped aside under Giselle’s cold, guarded stare.
It did not matter.
Whether Elias was truly shattered or still acting, it made no difference. He was the same boy who took pleasure in playing with people’s hearts. He was still himself.
That was enough.
[Liora Voss’s favorability has increased. Current value: 85%.]
A brief flicker of confusion crossed Giselle’s face, but she did not slow down. She carried Elias past Liora and down the corridor.
Only after they vanished around the corner did Liora turn back.
"Serena," she said, hurrying forward. "Are you okay?"
The executive aide had stayed close, worried but unwilling to shake Serena or touch her more than necessary. Liora had no such restraint.
She caught Serena by the shoulders and shook her.
Serena jerked awake as though someone had dragged her out of a nightmare.
Her eyes were wide and bloodshot. Her skin had gone colorless, almost waxy against the dark fabric of her clothes. Yet she was conscious.
Her lips parted.
"Where’s Elias?"
Liora’s answer was blunt. "Gone."
Anger flashed across Serena’s face with terrifying speed.
"You let them leave?"
Liora did not indulge her. "Tell me what you wanted me to do. Fight Giselle while Elias was in her arms?"
Serena went silent.
From Serena’s point of view, Liora’s judgment made sense. Starting a fight would have put Elias at risk. It would have turned the hallway into a scene, and any mistake would have landed on him first.
What Serena did not know was that Liora had another reason to let them go.
She did not want Elias hurt either.
Serena was quiet only for a breath before the next question broke out of her.
"Where did Giselle take him?"
"Cars can’t wait at the front entrance," Liora said. "She’s probably heading to the underground garage."
Serena’s body shuddered.
Then the disorientation burned off her face. She pulled free from the aide’s supporting hands and stood straight.
"Call Security," she ordered. Her voice came out hard enough to make the aide flinch. "Seal every exit from the garage. Do not let them leave."
The aide hesitated for only a fraction of a second. "Yes, Ms. Blackwood."
She hurried away to relay the order. In Blackwood Group, a command from Serena could turn a routine security desk into a locked perimeter before anyone had time to ask whether the order was reasonable. The garage exits would be watched. The elevators would be tracked. Every guard on duty would know that a silver-haired girl leaving with a shaken young man was not to get past the gate.
Serena did not care how it looked.
She cared that Giselle had not reached the street yet.
Serena turned to Liora, breathing too fast.
"Come with me. We’ll use the stairwell and cut them off."
She did not wait for an answer.
Serena ran.
Liora remained where she was for one brief beat, watching her sister disappear toward the emergency stairwell. Then she followed.
As Serena ran, only one thought remained clear in her mind.
Giselle could not take Elias away.
Elias leaving on his own would be unbearable. He might never love Serena again, but as long as he stayed near her, Serena could keep searching for some way to make him look at her without hatred.
Giselle taking him was different.
Giselle would give him a place to recover. She would stand beside him with that steady, glacial patience. She would become the person who arrived when he was ruined, and Elias would learn to love someone else.
The possibility sent another tremor through Serena’s body.
She would not allow it.
The stairwell filled with the hard, rapid strike of heels against concrete steps.
They reached the second basement level in less than ten seconds.