Chapter 130: The Apartment She Did Not Buy

Inside the residential sales gallery, two women stood beside the projection table and drew nearly every glance in the room.

The display itself should have been the attraction. The developer had clearly spent obscene money on the most advanced virtual modeling system available. Every tower, walkway, private garden, and street tree appeared in layered projection, sharp enough that the leaves along the roads seemed to shift when the angle changed. A person could enlarge a building, shrink the full complex, open a unit, and see the furniture layout down to the closet depth and kitchen fixtures. It looked less like a sales tool than a company showing off how much technology it could afford.

Even so, the two women standing beside it stole attention from the entire room.

Both were tall, slim, and built with the clean lines of runway models, but they gave off completely different kinds of pressure. Serena Blackwood was already beautiful in a way that made strangers look twice. Her eyes carried that naturally flirtatious curve, the kind that made even a calm expression seem faintly amused, as if she were always one breath away from smiling at someone she had already decided to ruin. She looked like the kind of woman men were warned about after it was too late to avoid her.

Liora Voss stood beside her with a different kind of presence. Her features had a refined, almost old-portrait delicacy, the kind that could have seemed fragile or distant under softer circumstances. On her, that delicacy became something colder. When she lowered her eyes in thought, she did not look meek or gentle. She looked like a queen studying a map before deciding which province to take.

Serena lifted one hand without turning around. "You can go. We’ll look around ourselves."

The sales manager hurried to smile. "Of course, but I’d be happy to introduce the floor plans and amenities for you both."

From the way these two women carried themselves, the manager could tell they were serious buyers, the kind sales staff dreamed about and feared losing. She had seen wealthy clients buy units for daughters, assistants, lovers, and private households, and once, a woman had bought an entire building because she needed somewhere to place several kept men without overlap. Today looked like the kind of day that could make a quarterly target disappear in one transaction.

Then Serena slowly turned her head.

"Did you not understand me?"

The manager froze.

Serena’s voice stayed flat. "Or did no one teach you the most basic way to treat a client, and now you need to be sent back for retraining?"

One look was enough to drain the color from the manager’s face. Sweat broke out along her back beneath her blazer. She forced out an apology, smiled with difficulty, and retreated before her presence could become another offense.

Only after the manager left did Liora speak. "Why did you call me here for apartment shopping?"

Serena’s eyes lifted slightly. "Are you busy?"

"No," Liora said. "That doesn’t mean I’m bored enough to do anything."

Serena did not bother responding. She lowered her attention back to the projection table.

The model was new enough that ordinary visitors did not even dare touch it, probably afraid one wrong movement would break a machine they could not afford to repair. Serena had no such concern. Buying every building represented on the table would not be difficult for her, much less touching the display. She raised her hand, selected one of the towers, and drew it up into the air.

The building separated cleanly from the rest of the complex, hovering in front of her in glassy blue-white light.

She had not come here because the sales gallery had a virtual model.

She had come because this development was close to Westbridge University.

Close to Elias’s school.

Liora watched Serena’s face and said nothing.

Elias had said he would not come back, and he had truly not come back. During that time, he had not called, had not texted, and had not left even a token message. He had cut himself off thoroughly enough that anyone else might have started to panic.

Liora was not anxious.

For one thing, Elias had to be at Westbridge. For another, she could more or less guess what he was doing. He was pulling away to make himself harder to catch. A simple trick, and not a fresh one. Anyone who knew how he worked could see through it at a glance.

Serena, however, did not seem to see through it.

That made sense. Her sister still did not know that Elias was a professional when it came to playing with people’s heads. She had fallen into the irritation of missing him while refusing to be the one to reach out first.

And if Serena herself was not going to reach, then Liora, as an outsider to this particular mess, had even less reason to interfere.

Elias had probably counted on that. He had been too free these past few days. God knew what he had done outside their sight, or whether he had already taken Giselle apart piece by piece while pretending this was all innocent campus life.

A transparent unit appeared in front of Liora, pulling her attention back from her thoughts.

Serena opened and closed her fingers. The apartment enlarged at once, expanding into a full four-bedroom layout with two living areas, the walls glowing in clean projection lines.

Someone nearby gasped, startled by the display.

Serena did not react to the technology at all. She only asked, "What do you think of this one?"

Liora understood the true art of answering questions like that.

Say it was good.

That was all.

When women asked for opinions on things they had already half chosen, the safest way to reduce unnecessary trouble was to agree. Whether they bought it or not, the decision would remain theirs anyway. Liora had summarized that lesson from too many dates with too many women who insisted they wanted honesty until honesty became inconvenient.

She had never expected that one day Serena would become one of those women, hesitating over a decision and requiring someone else’s opinion.

"It’s good," Liora said.

Serena glanced at her once and immediately saw the perfunctory answer for what it was. She did not call Liora out. Instead, she lifted a hand and summoned a sales associate.

Liora’s eyes shifted slightly.

Serena was really going to buy Elias an apartment?

Liora remembered clearly that Serena had previously told her to rent a place.

For anyone else, the difference between renting and buying might be price. For Serena Blackwood, money was not the meaningful dividing line. The difference was sentiment.

Renting meant temporary placement.

Buying meant something else entirely.

Liora was not surprised that Serena had fallen this far. She was only interested in watching how long Serena would pretend she had not.

Just as Liora thought Serena was about to have a card run, Serena casually flicked her fingers and sent the enlarged model back into place.

"Let’s go."

Liora looked at her. "You’re not buying it?"

Serena’s expression did not change. "When did I say I was buying anything?"

The corner of Liora’s mouth seemed to lift.

Some people could be cremated and still leave behind a mouth stubborn enough to deny the fire.

When they returned to the Blackwood residence, several drops of blood had fallen near the entrance.

Serena’s face cooled at once. Her mood had not been good to begin with, and the blood offered a convenient target. Anyone watching her would have understood that someone was about to suffer for the state of her floor.

Then the door opened.

Beside the shoe cabinet sat a pair of unmistakably male shoes.

Serena stilled for half a second, then looked up.

Elias stood in the living room, covered in mud and looking thoroughly wrecked. He held a wad of tissue in one hand and was trying to wipe dirt from his clothes with the limited success of someone who had already lost the argument against the ground.

From the entrance to the living room, droplets of blood marked the clean floor in broken intervals.

The owner of the blood outside the door no longer required guessing.

"What happened?"

Serena’s voice cut across the room.

The household staff gathered around Elias all startled at once. Elias himself remained oddly calm. He only shifted one hand behind his back, trying to hide it.

"Nothing."

That small movement had no chance of escaping Serena’s eyes.

She walked straight to him, reached behind him, and caught the hand he was hiding. When she turned it palm-up, the damage was obvious. Scrapes covered his palm. The skin along the side of his hand had been rubbed raw, and one patch had lost enough skin to show fresh pink flesh beneath the blood.

"This is what you call nothing?" Serena’s voice went cold.

The coldness carried blame more than mockery.

Elias tried to pull his hand away, but he was nowhere near strong enough to beat her grip. The attempt failed almost before it began.

Serena noticed the faint evasion in his expression. It seemed directed at her.

"You didn’t want me to know you were hurt?" she asked, catching the thought almost immediately. "Were you afraid I would scold you?"

Elias gave a small snort. "You think I’m afraid of you?"

Serena did not argue.

His behavior a moment ago had looked exactly like a child who had caused trouble and did not dare let the adult in the house find out. Seeing that posture on Elias, who was usually stubborn enough to bite even when cornered, created a contrast that almost made her smile.

The curve had barely begun to reach her mouth before she forced it down.

Her face sharpened again. She gripped his injured hand and pulled him toward the stairs. "You’re filthy. Go wash up."