Chapter 244: The Transaction
"Liora. Sweetheart. Please say yes."
The plea came out soft enough to melt anyone who heard it.
Elias had tilted his head, lowered his voice, and arranged every part of himself into something shamelessly adorable. The request itself was another matter. He was asking for a private room, a locked door, and the last little step that would take Liora from ninety-nine percent to completion.
The contrast was deliberate.
A sweet boy asking for something that charged could make almost any woman lose her judgment.
Liora did not.
Liora had not missed the careful setup. Elias had waited outside the house with the sealed packet in his palm. He had wrapped his arms around her first, asked whether she missed him, and offered a promise that the packet was only for her. Every part of it had been arranged to make her feel selected.
He wanted something from her.
That fact should have made the sweetness less effective.
Instead, it made her want to reward him and frustrate him at the same time. Elias was not a boy who could be guided by ordinary affection. Give him exactly what he asked for, and he would put it aside once it had served its purpose. Keep one thing just beyond his reach, and he would stare at it with those offended green eyes until the whole game became interesting.
Liora liked him best when he forgot to pretend he was above wanting something.
She saw the goal behind the sweetness. Her smile remained easy as she reached into the inner pocket of her coat and took out a slim leather wallet. She opened it, drew out several crisp hundred-dollar bills, and held them beneath Elias’s eyes.
"Those little ’big sister’ pleas sounded lovely," she said. "Say it a few more times."
For a second, Elias only looked at the money.
The scent of fresh bills was faint but unmistakable. He could see the clean edges, the soft red and blue security threads, the neat stack pinched between Liora’s fingers. His mouth opened, then closed again.
"Don’t want it?" Liora asked.
Her eyes curved as she used the squared edge of the bills to stroke lightly over his cheek.
Elias could not tolerate that kind of humiliation.
He snatched the cash from her hand, counted it with a practiced glance, and shoved it into his pocket.
"That’s all?" he demanded. "You’re so stingy."
Liora’s eyes warmed with quiet amusement. "A few sweet calls of ’big sister’ for a few hundred dollars is not a bad deal. At the private clubs you know so well, it would count as generous."
"It counts here," Elias said coldly.
"Does it?"
Liora opened the wallet again.
This time she removed a thicker stack.
The hundred-dollar bills filled her hand. She fanned them once beneath the streetlight, and Elias’s attention betrayed him so completely that he did not even bother denying it.
"Is this enough?" Liora asked.
Elias reached for the money.
Liora moved faster. She pulled it back before his fingers could close around it, her gaze turning faintly stern.
"What kind of child reaches for money without manners?"
Elias stared at her.
Was she actually turning this into role-play?
He had several far better role-play ideas, all of which belonged behind a bedroom door instead of on the cracked sidewalk outside the house where he grew up. Doctor and patient. Judge and prisoner. A dozen other arrangements that would be much more interesting than being made to beg for cash under a streetlamp.
Still, the bills were right there.
His throat moved once.
Then Liora said, "If ’big sister’ is too hard, you can call me Mommy."
Elias looked at her as if she had finally revealed a serious defect.
So this was what Liora liked in private.
Her expression did not change. She held the money between her thumb and middle finger, then snapped the stack once, letting the sound carry between them.
The temptation won.
"Big sister," Elias said.
It came out reluctant.
Liora did not hand over the money.
Her face settled into the cool indifference of a wealthy client assessing a newly hired companion. "You sound unhappy. Do you not want it?"
She started to tuck the cash away.
Elias’s eyes widened.
He had already said it. If he did not get the money after that, then he had been used for free.
"Big sister," he said quickly. "Liora."
The second attempt was clean and decisive.
He reached for the stack again.
Liora shook her head.
"Meow once."
"I’ll meow at your head," Elias snapped. "Liora Voss, do not think having money lets you get away with everything. Keep this up and you will never touch me again."
Liora finally laughed.
She placed the money in his hand. "Try a different threat. You already used that one."
Elias did not bother replying. He was too busy checking the amount.
The stack looked far thicker in her hand than it did once he held it. He counted fast, then checked again.
Five thousand dollars.
Only five thousand.
He had humiliated himself for five thousand dollars.
What an outrageous scam.
Elias held the money tighter.
The cold air around the aging house had gone unnoticed. His attention stayed on the cash, calculating how much food it could buy, how much it could be stretched, and how much more satisfying it would be to spend it simply because it was his. The amount was small compared with Liora’s wealth, almost laughable beside the cost of the car waiting at the curb or the hospital suite Serena had arranged for Arthur.
That did not make it worthless.
Money given openly was still money.
And money taken from someone who knew he wanted it was better.
[System Theta: This is normal. Cash affects human judgment differently from a number on a screen.]
The system sounded determined to be helpful.
[System Theta: Ten thousand dollars written as digits is only 10,000. Five thousand dollars in physical bills looks substantial. Visual and tactile stimulation can distort your estimate.]
That explanation only made Elias feel more cheated.
He was about to make a mental note to charge Liora double next time when a black card appeared in front of him.
His gaze froze.
He knew that card.
It was not merely expensive. It was an object that made wealth feel physical, a small matte-black statement that doors, staff, rooms, cars, and problems could all rearrange themselves around the person holding it.
Elias lifted his eyes.
Liora’s expression had gentled.
"Take it."
It was almost ridiculous.
It had the shape of a familiar romance scene: an heiress offering a card to the poor boy she wanted, pretending money was not part of the intimacy while using money to say everything she could not say directly.
Elias had no reason to refuse.
He accepted the card from her hand.
The blankness on his face lasted only a moment. Then a slow smile spread across it.
He stepped forward.
Liora expected a kiss. His arms slid around her neck, and his body pressed close enough that her breath caught. Yet Elias only bent near her ear and exhaled softly against it.
Then he let out a warm little sound.
"Meow."
It went straight through her.
Elias pulled away before Liora could recover. His hands folded behind his back, and he took several unhurried steps backward. He looked down at the black card again, his face bright with badly hidden delight.
Liora’s pulse gradually steadied.
Liora watched him hold it as though the card had personally solved every problem in his life.
There was no resentment in her over that. Money was one of the few things Elias never bothered lying about. He could cry, flirt, sulk, or make someone believe his heart was breaking. His face could become an entire carefully staged disaster. But place cash in front of him, and his happiness always arrived without disguise.
It was almost comforting.
At least that part of him was honest.
She did not ask whether he was this happy because of the card.
That would have been a foolish question.
Of course he was.
Long before Elias became important to her, Liora had occasionally imagined what it would be like if he were still working at one of her private clubs, nothing more than a beautiful young companion paid to sit beside wealthy women and keep them entertained over drinks.
She could have had him easily then.
A card. A private room. A number high enough to make the offer insulting.
But it had only ever been a passing fantasy.
At the time, she had not wanted men. More importantly, even if Elias had been a paid companion, he would never have become something a woman truly owned. The women who thought they had bought him would only have purchased a performance, not the person behind it.
He had always been that clean.
Untouchable in the one way that mattered.
Liora’s smile returned as she lifted the small sealed packet he had bought.
"I’m not using this."
Elias blinked.
Then he remembered why he had bought it in the first place.
His plan had been to take Liora upstairs, end the route, and collect the last percentage. Somewhere between the cash, the card, and the humiliating sound he had just breathed into her ear, the transaction had drifted far from its original purpose.
He understood what Liora meant.
She was not saying she would never sleep with him.
She was saying that when she did, she would not allow anything between them.
The possessiveness she had kept muted for so long had returned in full.
Elias smiled without much warmth.
"Really? Then you should know you upset me today. Money does not fix that."
Liora watched him.
Elias held up the packet.
"You’re going to put this on me," he said. "You don’t get a choice."