Chapter 135: Suspicion Has Claws

Serena Blackwood’s brows drew together.

The laziness in her expression vanished as soon as the words reached her.

"Do you understand what you’re saying?" she asked.

Who would need an entire residential building?

Major corporations bought whole towers when they needed headquarters. Even then, they usually bought land first and had the place built to fit them. They did not walk into a private residential development and take an entire building as if they were picking up a spare coat.

More importantly, no one had bought it yesterday.

Yet today, at the exact moment Serena decided to buy one unit, someone had stepped in and taken the whole building.

Serena did not believe in coincidences that convenient. Her mind moved at once toward the colder possibility.

Someone was targeting her.

She had made plenty of enemies in business. That came with owning more than other people thought she deserved and taking even more without apologizing for it. Still, very few people would be willing to buy an entire building just to disgust her. The move was too expensive for ordinary spite and too pointed for ordinary investment.

Was it the Frost family?

Serena was already sorting through names when the sales manager’s voice came through again, strained enough to tremble.

"Ms. Blackwood, that really is the situation. There’s nothing we can do on our end."

"Who?" Serena asked.

Only one word, spoken flatly.

The sales manager hesitated. "We can’t disclose client information."

Serena’s tone remained calm. "Are you sure?"

The silence on the other end collapsed.

"Liora Voss," the sales manager whispered. "Ms. Voss purchased it."

"What did you say?"

For once, Serena sounded genuinely disbelieving.

She could not understand why Liora would deliberately move against her like this. Her adopted sister could be cold, difficult, and amused by things normal people would avoid, but she had never been stupid. Buying an entire building just to irritate Serena seemed too crude for her.

Unless that was not the purpose.

Maybe Liora had guessed what Serena wanted. Maybe she had remembered which building Serena had studied yesterday and bought the whole thing in advance so no one else could touch the unit before Serena made up her mind. It was wasteful, extreme, and almost offensively efficient.

That did sound like Liora.

It could even be called thoughtful, in a warped way.

Serena tried to accept that explanation.

Her instincts did not let her.

Suspicion struck her hard and sudden, like a fist driven straight between her brows. The thoughts that followed had been there for a while, buried under restraint, irritation, pleasure, and denial. Now they broke loose all at once.

She had suspected something once before.

Elias had been pressed tightly against her then, close enough that his attention should have had nowhere else to go. Yet he had smiled toward another direction, bright and soft in a way that had nothing to do with Serena.

She had known that smile was not meant for her.

Now more pieces surfaced.

The empty half of the bed when she woke in the middle of the night.

Liora suddenly becoming well-behaved, no longer flirting around the edges of everything as if touching danger amused her.

Elias slipping away after Serena fell asleep.

The faint wrongness between them at breakfast, hidden under ordinary plates and ordinary voices.

Kitten.

The word appeared in Serena’s mind without warning.

Last night, Elias had been exactly like a disobedient little kitten.

And kittens who slipped out for forbidden treats were hardly rare creatures.

Liora answered the phone.

Serena’s voice came through gently, almost warmly. "Why did you buy an entire building?"

So she had noticed.

Liora smiled.

"I forgot which floor and which unit you liked," she said, sounding perfectly natural. "I didn’t want someone else to buy it first, so I bought the building."

"Are you insane?"

It was a reprimand, but Serena’s voice carried more helpless irritation than anger. "What am I supposed to do, let Elias live alone in a whole building? He would be terrified."

He would not be terrified.

He would be delighted.

Liora thought it, then said aloud, "Which unit do you want? Once you pick it, I’ll tell them I’m not taking the building after all. I’ll just pay the penalty."

A soft laugh came from Serena’s end. "How did you know I would still buy him a place?"

When the subject was Serena, Liora’s voice gained a little more feeling.

"Do you think I don’t know you?" she said with a smile. "You looked happy this morning. When you’re happy, buying your little lover an apartment is perfectly reasonable."

The answer made sense.

Serena knew it fit her own habits.

That was why it made the suspicion worse.

Once doubt had taken shape, every word Liora said seemed to carry a second edge. Even the easy explanation sounded like provocation. Even the light teasing felt like a hand brushing deliberately over a bruise.

There was no proof.

For Serena, proof had never been required before action.

Before ending the call, she asked one final question. "How have you been getting along with your little kitten lately?"

Then she hung up.

Liora looked at the darkened screen.

Her fingers brushed over her lips, and she lowered her head with a soft laugh.

"Except for the final step, we’ve done everything," she murmured. "Probably."

The call was already disconnected.

Liora kept smiling.

She knew Serena had started suspecting her the moment that phone call came in. That was fine. Liora could admit, at least to herself, that Elias’s little gift last night had left a thorn under her skin.

So this was a return gift.

And, if she was being honest, revenge.

She hoped her kitten survived it safely.

Serena opened the door.

The room was quiet because the person inside was studying, and studying required the kind of silence where every small sound felt like an offense. Elias sat at the desk with his attention fixed on the materials in front of him. Books, notes, and a laptop were arranged around him in neat disorder, enough to show he had been there for a while.

He was focused enough that he did not notice her enter.

Serena came to stand behind him.

From above, she looked first at the soft black of his hair, then at the small swirl at his crown. It was an oddly harmless detail on someone so skilled at causing trouble. That was probably why it annoyed her.

She watched him for a long time.

At last, Elias seemed to realize someone was behind him. His whole body jolted, and the color drained from his face.

"Are you insane?" he snapped, twisting around. "Why would you come in without knocking? You move around like a ghost."

Serena accepted the attack with a faint smile.

A cat would not have been so dull to its surroundings.

She kept the thought to herself.

Besides, could a person really be frightened to that degree?

Serena studied him. His pale face was pretty, shaken, and convincing. Too convincing, perhaps. The performance clung to him, too skillful to dismiss and too deliberate to trust.

Still, even a professional actor could not control the blood in his face so freely.

Could he?

"I saw you studying," Serena said gently. "I didn’t want to disturb you."

She lifted a hand toward his hair.

Elias’s brows tightened. He let her touch him once, barely, then turned his head away.

Serena reached out again.

This time, he would not dodge.

The thought passed through her with calm certainty.

Elias’s expression struggled for a second. He looked as if he wanted to turn away again, and the beginning of refusal had already moved through his body. Then he stiffened slightly and stayed where he was.

Serena’s eyes darkened.

Look at him.

He was like something running on a program.

He measured her mood, calculated the relationship between them, and chose the action most likely to fit the moment. Such obedience could look soft if a person did not know how carefully it had been produced.

Serena’s fingers moved through his hair as she said, "I bought you an apartment."

Elias looked up.

Shock spread across his face.

Serena looked through the lenses of his glasses and into the clean eyes beneath them. They looked like clear spring water, transparent enough to make a person believe there was nothing hidden at the bottom.

No adult’s eyes were that pure.

Especially not the eyes of someone who had worked in nightclubs and survived there.

If Elias had truly been that simple, those places would have eaten him clean and left nothing behind.

So the disguise was full of flaws.

She should have understood much earlier. Why had she assumed she was the only one capable of wearing a mask? Why had she assumed Elias did not know how to build one better?

"You don’t want to live in the dorm anymore," Serena continued. "So I bought you a place near campus. Do you like it?"

Awkwardness, stubbornness, and embarrassment crossed his face in a careful sequence.

A faint red rose in Elias’s cheeks, but his mouth stayed hard. "I don’t need it. I can rent somewhere off campus myself."

Serena sighed inwardly.

She had guessed correctly again.