Chapter 96: Money Talks, Liora Listens

Back in the car, Elias sat with his head lowered, quietly wiping his glasses as he replayed the entire encounter with Victoria Frost from beginning to end.

Nothing about it bothered him.

[Are you sure there’s no problem?]

System Theta sounded far more shaken than he was, almost as though Victoria had looked through the system too.

Elias laughed under his breath. Sweetheart, there’s nothing frightening about this. She knows what I’ve been doing because I was never especially careful to hide it. If someone wants to investigate, they’ll find things. That’s all.

Liora knew even more than Victoria did.

Giselle, by contrast, had not bothered to investigate him properly because disdain came too naturally to her. And Serena... Serena trusted her sister too much. She had no idea Liora had already been slipping through her defenses in broad daylight.

Elias did not find any of this unusual.

In fact, it felt almost routine.

Worlds with modern rules could only do so much. At worst, someone planted a tracker on your phone, slipped a bug into your room, traced your movements, bought your call logs, cracked your messages. Annoying, sure, but limited.

Fantasy and Cultivation worlds were much worse.

Those places had entire systems of causality, fate-reading, heavenly calculation. If a person really wanted to uncover your secrets, they could probably divine what color underwear you wore as a child and in what mood you had thrown it away.

He had lived through more than one situation uglier than this.

The worst had been in a world where he needed to win over a favored daughter of heaven. Her master had divined him so thoroughly it was almost obscene. She figured out cleanly that he did not belong to that world at all.

And then?

Nothing.

Because knowing and solving were not the same thing.

He had never broken character. Not once. At the same time, he moved just far enough outside the original storyline to seize that girl’s emotions completely. Her master could see his goal, could see that he wanted her disciple’s love, and still could not act. The moment she laid a hand on him, even to imprison him briefly, the girl would blacken on the spot and fall straight into the demonic path.

So when people from outside the original plotline barged in, all they really did was muddy the water.

That was not always a bad thing.

Sometimes it made things easier.

If Victoria chose to help him, wonderful. If she ordered him to leave Giselle alone, he would still end up taking Giselle’s heart anyway, and the eventual wound would only go deeper for the detour.

Seen from that angle, Victoria really did care for her daughter to an almost excessive degree, no matter how ugly her methods looked from the outside.

Elias smiled faintly to himself.

Just then, a male servant reached through the car window and held out a black card.

Elias looked up. "Hm?"

The servant’s voice was quiet and flawless. "My lady said she was sorry for taking up your time. This is a small apology."

Elias knew perfectly well that whatever he said now would be repeated back to Victoria. Since she already knew enough of his real face, there was no reason to play meek.

"How much?"

"Ten million."

Elias sat up straight immediately.

His expression turned grave with the seriousness of a priest receiving revelation. He took the black card from the servant with both elegance and speed, then tucked it into the inner pocket of his jacket.

"Please tell Mrs. Frost," he said solemnly, "that I will make my future wife flawless."

The servant did not blink. "Of course."

The moment he withdrew, Elias touched the inside of his jacket once, just enough to feel the card still there, and the corner of his mouth lifted.

[Are you seriously going to marry Giselle Frost?]

Why wouldn’t I? Elias replied. That’s ten million dollars. If she had offered me that kind of money earlier and asked me to sleep with her, I could have considered it.

System Theta fell silent for a beat.

It kept forgetting that out of all the emotions Elias possessed, the most sincere and stable one was the feeling he had toward money. Give him enough of it and his flexibility became truly inspiring.

Elias added, Of course, she wouldn’t have handled it that way. Victoria actually does care about Giselle.

[Really?]

System Theta was plainly unconvinced.

[Then why does she talk about her like that? She keeps calling her stupid and worthless. That doesn’t sound caring.]

Elias leaned back in the seat. That kind of woman was widowed too early and had too much power for too long. Mothers like that don’t know how to raise daughters gently. Their methods turn harsh. The affection underneath doesn’t disappear just because the delivery is ugly.

He turned his glasses in his hand and inspected the lenses again before putting them back on.

If Victoria had truly given up on Giselle, she wouldn’t have bothered investigating me at all. Indifference is what abandonment actually looks like. The moment someone stops caring, they stop checking.

Victoria would never admit that herself, obviously. It did not matter. Elias had seen through her anyway.

Since she paid me ten million, he went on, amused now, I’ll be a little gentler with little Giselle.

He was escorted back to campus in excellent condition and walked into class carrying what amounted to ten million dollars’ worth of net value. Even with his glasses on, he drew attention.

Elias lifted his chin in private satisfaction. This, he thought, is what ten million dollars of confidence feels like.

System Theta offered no commentary.

Morning classes passed without incident. Once they were over, Elias had every intention of dragging Lila Morgan out of hiding and rewarding her by making her buy him lunch.

Before he could do that, his phone rang.

Liora.

Elias glanced at the screen, then answered without greeting. "Back gate."

He hung up and headed there at a near skip.

She was already waiting for him when he arrived, tall and elegant and dangerous in exactly the way she always was, those peach-blossom eyes carrying enough sensual shape to get half the city in trouble without effort.

She had come to pick him up again.

The sight pleased him more than it should have.

Elias jogged the rest of the distance, then bounced up in front of her with open delight. "Give me a hug."

Liora stepped cleanly aside.

He landed on empty air and had to catch his balance himself.

She frowned. "What is wrong with you?"

"I’m in a good mood." Elias grinned at her. Ten million dollars was enough to keep him happy for an entire day. At that price, if Serena had asked him to moan nicely for her in bed, he might even have considered negotiating.

Money had tremendous charm.

Liora’s mouth curved into something colder than a smile. "Ten million?"

Elias’s grin stalled for the smallest fraction of a second. Then a different amusement appeared in his eyes.

"Serena’s impressive," he said.

Now it was Liora’s turn to pause.

She understood at once what he had deduced. Lila could track him around campus or on the street, but there was no way she had made it into the Frost residence itself. If Liora knew he had taken ten million from Victoria, then the information had not come from Lila. It came from Serena’s people.

Which meant Serena had planted eyes inside Victoria’s house.

Liora gave him a sidelong look. "You’re not exactly lacking, yourself."

They both knew what had just been said without saying any of it directly.

Elias got into the passenger seat. As he fastened his belt, he said, "Have either of you considered that Victoria probably planted people in your house too?"

Liora started the car and pulled away from the curb. "I already found them."

That made Elias turn and look at her properly.

"How?" 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

She lifted one brow without taking her eyes off the road. "What do you think?"

He stared for half a second, then cursed inwardly.

Naturally.

Liora’s real talent, at bottom, was seduction. If Victoria had placed someone close enough to matter, Liora had almost certainly gotten to them the oldest way possible and peeled the loyalty out of them through attraction.

Player.

The thought only made him more curious.

"So when it’s women," he said lazily, "which one of you tends to be in control?"

"Me." Liora turned the wheel with one hand, perfectly at ease discussing her own preferences as if they were boardroom logistics. "There is no such thing as someone stronger than me in that situation."

Elias almost snorted.

In Serena’s bed, Liora would absolutely be the one getting folded in half first. Not that such a scenario belonged anywhere except the deepest levels of taboo absurdity.

His curiosity sharpened instead of easing. "And the first time, what did that feel like for you..."

The car lurched.

Liora slammed on the brakes so hard Elias nearly bit his tongue.

She turned to look at him, eyes dark and direct. "There hasn’t been one."

He blinked.

So her first time was still intact.

Interesting.

A faint, crooked smile appeared at Elias’s mouth. He looked away from her and out the window as though the subject had already ceased to matter.

"I was only asking casually," he said, soft with amusement. "Why are you volunteering that to me?"