The Seductive Pretty Boy of the Matriarchal World-Chapter 83: Playing with Fire

Chapter 83: Playing with Fire

No matter how weak Elias looked or how little upper-body strength he had, a knee was still one of the hardest points on the human body, and a stomach was still one of the softest. When the two collided at close range, the outcome had never been in doubt.

Serena Blackwood folded on the spot.

The blow was not enough to black her out, but the pain that detonated through her abdomen was sharp enough to clear her head. It told her, with humiliating clarity, that she had pushed too hard. Even a rabbit would bare its teeth if you cornered it long enough, and Elias was already frayed to the point of snapping. If she had not driven him there, he would never have done this.

"You little whore," she hissed.

Her hand left his jaw. A second later she had both his wrists and one ankle under control instead, pinning him with brute fury rather than finesse. Her voice dropped into a ragged bark.

"Get out of the car."

Whatever she intended to do next, she was not going to do it with Liora still sitting in the front seat.

Up in the driver’s seat, Liora Voss heard the order clearly. She had heard enough of the struggle behind her that she did not need to look back to picture what had happened, and she certainly did not need anyone to explain what Serena planned to do now.

So he had actually forced Serena this far.

The thought curved her lips.

She knew her sister’s temper better than anyone. Earlier, over the phone, that ugly little slur had already seemed like the outer edge of Serena’s self-control. But Elias had turned out to be gasoline. It did not take much of him at all. A few drops were enough, and the flame roared higher.

"Come on," Liora said lightly, tipping her head back against the seat. The line of her throat went taut with the movement, elegant and pale in the dim morning light. "It’s still raining outside."

She was doing it on purpose. If Serena was already burning, Liora saw no reason not to toss on another spark.

Right on cue, the roar came again from the back.

"Get the hell out."

Liora showed no sign of feeling chastened. Her eyes narrowed into crescent moons as she smiled to herself, all lazy amusement and bright malice.

Then she opened the door and stepped out.

She was happy to feed the fire, but she had no intention of letting it spread to her.

Let Elias take the heat instead.

Once she was outside, Liora glanced up and paused.

The rain had stopped.

The clouds were still low and heavy, and the pavement still shone with water, but no more drops were falling. Even so, she moved at an unhurried pace toward a tree a short distance away.

It was not really about staying dry.

A spectator needed taste. Some scenes were meant to be watched up close. Others were better appreciated from far enough away that the smoke could not cling too visibly to your clothes.

She slid a cigarette pack from her pocket, tapped one loose, and set it between her lips. Her fingers were still searching for her lighter when a muffled sound carried from the car. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

A low impact. A sharper one after that. The rustle of leather, the strained protest of the seat, something breathless and stifled behind the tinted glass.

Liora smiled without making a sound.

Then she found the lighter, flicked the flame to life, and drew smoke deep into her lungs.

A moment later, a soft thud hit the window.

She looked over and saw a pale hand flattening against the glass from the inside.

Liora exhaled a thin stream of smoke, slow and thoughtful. The sight reminded her absurdly of a horror movie, the kind where someone was dragged off by something inhuman and managed to get one hand up at the last second, fingers spread against a dark surface, begging for rescue that never came.

And in those movies, it always ended the same way.

The hand disappeared.

Her smile deepened. In the space of one morning, she had smiled more than she had in the past month combined.

Was this what it meant to play with fire until it turned and burned you back?

The hand hit the window again, weaker this time, and Liora watched as another hand, a woman’s hand with a watch at the wrist, closed over those five fingers and peeled them away one by one before dragging them back into the dark interior.

The cigarette trembled once at the edge of her mouth. She took it out, let the ash fall, then dropped the butt to the wet pavement. Both hands slipped into her trouser pockets as she lifted one long leg clad in sheer black stockings and brought the pointed toe of her heel down over the ember, grinding it out with slow, deliberate pressure.

"Some fires," she murmured to no one, "become disasters if you don’t put them out in time."

It sounded like she was talking about the cigarette.

It did not sound only like that.

The car stayed still. The windows stayed fogged. The world beyond it remained polished and cold, all damp asphalt and gray light and the hush that followed rain. Inside the vehicle, the shape of the struggle changed again and again, never fully visible, only suggested by the movement of shadows and the occasional dull shift of weight.

Liora leaned against the tree and smoked.

One cigarette became two. Then three. Then four.

By the time she finished the fifth, the air around her smelled sharp and expensive and dirty all at once. Her hair carried smoke. So did the sleeves of her coat. The scent had worked its way into the lining like it belonged there.

She raised her wrist and checked the time.

"One hour."

Amusement lifted the corner of her mouth.

Her sister, apparently, was not all that efficient.

She pushed herself away from the tree and walked back to the car at the same measured pace she had used when leaving it.

The moment she opened the door, a dense wave of heat and smell rolled out.

Liora’s brows drew together.

It was bad enough that even the cigarettes still clinging to her could not smother it completely. She had made the right call, then, by not bothering to air herself out before coming back.

She slid into the driver’s seat, and the smoke on her clothes gradually began to spread through the cabin, dulling the sharper scent into something less immediate.

Only then did she lift her eyes to the rearview mirror.

Serena sat in the back seat, chest rising and falling hard, her breathing rough and uneven. Her hair was disordered. Her face, usually composed down to the last detail, had the strained aftermath of someone who had gone too far to stop and not far enough to feel satisfied. Elias was nowhere in sight.

That lasted only until Liora noticed the angle of Serena’s knees and the way part of the back seat dipped oddly. He was down below the line of the mirror, hidden from direct view.

Serena sensed the look on her almost at once and snapped her gaze upward.

Their eyes met in the mirror.

Liora did not bother pretending embarrassment. There was no guilty startle in her expression, no effort to look away. The only thing in her face was a trace of amusement.

"So," she asked, voice easy, "are we going?"

The woman in the back exhaled hard through her teeth. When she spoke, her voice had gone hoarse.

"Drive. We’re going back to the office."

"Sure." Liora let out a small laugh after she said it.

Serena’s eyes went colder.

"You think this is funny?"

The smile faded from Liora’s mouth, but her tone stayed mild. "Sis, I stood outside for an hour."

The message beneath it was obvious enough. After being left out there that long, wasn’t she entitled to laugh a little?

Serena looked away first.

"Do whatever you want."

She had no energy left to discipline Liora.

Not after this.

Never before had it gotten this ugly.

A thought seemed to strike her then. She lifted a hand to her face and brushed her fingertips over one cheek. The second she touched it, pain flared hot and immediate.

She sucked in a breath.

When she drew her hand back, there was a thin smear of blood on her palm.

Elias had done that in the middle of it. He had clawed her face hard enough to break skin.

"Seriously," Serena muttered, half annoyed and half incredulous. "Just like a cat."

The words left her mouth, and she froze.

For no reason she could immediately explain, another phrase surfaced in her mind right after it.

Little kitten.

Her eyes rose on instinct to the mirror.

Liora’s expression remained composed, almost lazily so. There was no visible crack in it at all. When she noticed Serena looking, she even arched one brow and smiled.

"Works out nicely," she said. "Looks like both of us have a cat now."

Serena gave a soft, contemptuous laugh, and the suspicion that had flared up in that instant was shoved back down just as quickly.

For one irrational second, she had wondered whether Elias might be the same little kitten from Liora’s phone.

Ridiculous.

And besides, Liora had never had any real interest in men.

Serena dismissed the thought and shifted in her seat. Only then did she notice that Elias’s leg was taking up part of the cushion beside her, draped across the leather at an angle that made the entire back seat feel cluttered with him.

Her expression darkened.

Without a trace of care, she grabbed him by the ankle and yanked his leg off the seat, dropping it onto the floor.

That left him sprawled crookedly across the back, his upper body still on the seat while the rest of him slumped down into the footwell, twisted and ungainly like discarded luggage.

Serena looked at him and let out a cold laugh.

"What do you think you are?" she said, every word stripped clean of the sweetness she wore in public. "You actually dared to throw attitude at me?"

Her mouth curled.

"You ungrateful little slut."