Elias Kane's smile vanished in an instant, clean and abrupt, the easy curve of his mouth fttening into nothing as he turned on his heel and started walking away without another word.

  Liora Voss blinked, caught genuinely off guard by how swiftly the mask dropped—how the boy who had been all teasing invitation a moment ago simply erased the performance and left her standing there, the faint echo of his footsteps already retreating down the corridor of polished marble and muted lighting.

  She almost ughed.

  She, of all people, being given the cold shoulder.

  "Hey—wait." Her voice carried, calm but edged with the faintest trace of amusement, the kind that never quite reached her eyes. "I'm not waiting for anyone anymore. Where are you going?"

  Elias paused mid-stride, shoulders stiffening for the barest second before he gnced back over one shoulder, green eyes ft and unreadable. Only then did he pivot fully, cross to the passenger side of her sleek bck sedan, pull the door open, and slide inside without ceremony.

  "Hospital," he said, voice low, stripped of every yer of pyfulness he'd worn earlier.

  Liora turned her head just enough to study him, hazel eyes narrowing slightly as though searching for visible signs of illness on that too-pretty face—though of course she already knew the real reason, had known from the moment the word left his lips. The sudden shift unsettled her more than she cared to admit; the boy who had draped himself across her car hood like he owned the night should not look this composed when speaking of a foster father whose condition had reportedly worsened.

  Or perhaps he simply did not care.

  The Elias Kane in her files was supposed to be fiercely protective, quietly devoted beneath the cynicism. This version—light, almost flippant until the moment he wasn't—forced her to recalibrate.

  He said nothing more, simply stared straight ahead, both hands pressed tightly between his thighs, fingers rubbing restlessly against the fabric of his trousers in the small, unconscious rhythm of someone fighting to keep their nerves locked down.

  Liora's gaze lingered on those white-knuckled hands, and the corner of her mouth curved—just a fraction, private and satisfied.

  So the mask wasn't perfect after all.

  She started the engine, the low purr of it swallowing the silence between them, and pulled smoothly into traffic toward the private hospital where Arthur Hale was currently confined.

  When they arrived she killed the ignition, set the parking brake with a soft click, and was already reaching for her door when she felt his stare—sharp, accusing—fixed on the side of her face.

  "How did you know this was the hospital?"

  Liora did not flinch. She opened her door in the same unhurried motion, voice cool and matter-of-fact as she stepped out into the crisp evening air. "My sister intends to sponsor you. Naturally that means we investigate everything about you—thoroughly."

  No apology, no evasion, no attempt to pretty it up.

  Elias watched her for a long beat, expression unreadable. "Private investigation of personal information without consent is illegal."

  "Gambling is also illegal." She gave him the smallest, sharpest smile, the kind that acknowledged his point while simultaneously dismissing it. "Get out of the car."

  He did.

  They moved through the gleaming lobby in silence, Elias leading with long, tense strides while Liora followed a half-step behind, heels clicking softly against marble. He reached Arthur's room first, hand already rising to push the door open—only to be stopped by the nurse stationed there, young and polite, her face creased with professional regret.

  "I'm sorry," she said gently. "The patient's condition isn't stable yet. No visitors are allowed in or out at the moment."

  Elias's shes lowered. "Is that so."

  He didn't need to think; the lie was obvious. Serena Bckwood's hand was all over this—Arthur was almost certainly fine, stable enough that letting Elias see him would ruin the entire performance.

  A doctor emerged from the room just then, clipboard in hand, scanning them both. "You're the family?"

  Liora took one deliberate step backward, hands sliding into the pockets of her coat, signaling without words that she was not involved.

  The doctor's attention settled solely on Elias. "The patient's condition has deteriorated. We're recommending—"

  "Transfer, then," Elias cut in, voice ft. "Do it. I have the money."

  The doctor exhaled through her nose, a tired sound. "It's not about the money…" She trailed off, shook her head once, and gestured down the corridor. "Come with me. We'll handle the transfer paperwork."

  Elias knew better than to believe it would be that simple.

  Sure enough, as he started to follow, a figure appeared at the far end of the hallway—disheveled hair, rumpled clothes, wild eyes scanning frantically until they locked on him.

  The woman—his foster mother—lit up like someone drowning who had just spotted a rope. She hurried forward on unsteady feet, closing the distance in seconds, and seized his shoulder in a bruising grip.

  "Elias! What are you doing here? Perfect timing—you still have money on your phone, right? Transfer it to me now, I have an emergency!"

  He tried to shrug her off. She only tightened her hold.

  "Dad needs to be transferred," he said quietly.

  "Transferred? Then do it." She waved the concern away as though it were irrelevant. "Hurry up, send the money to Mom. I'll pay you back in a few days, I swear."

  Liora watched from two paces away, lips curling into a cold, silent scoff. She had seen the files—knew exactly how many times Bennet had fed Elias that identical promise, never once following through.

  The doctor frowned at the rising volume. "Please keep your voice down. This is a hospital—other patients are resting."

  Marlene Bennet immediately turned on the charm, bobbing her head at the doctor. "Yes, yes, sorry, I'll be quiet, I'll be quiet…" She dropped her voice to a harsh stage whisper, leaning closer to Elias. "Don't be difficult, sweetheart. Just send it. Be a good boy."

  The doctor's expression remained one of distaste, yet she made no move to intervene further—simply stood there, a silent partner in the pressure cooker they were building around him.

  Liora took it all in without blinking. Even knowing Serena's ruthlessness, the yered cruelty still impressed her: the fake transfer threat would have been enough to force compliance, but dragging the foster mother into it—publicly stripping away the st scraps of Elias's dignity—was surgical.

  The boy's slender frame seemed to sway under the woman's weight, knees threatening to buckle, cheeks flushed a thin, angry red as his breathing grew shallow and uneven.

  He finally wrenched free with a sharp jerk, shoulder burning where her nails had dug in, the pain blooming into something else entirely—sharp, electric, rolling down his spine in slow, tingling waves of unwelcome heat.

  He froze for half a second, stunned.

  He had used the pain-conversion skill once before, back in that other world where cultivation let him channel agony into power. Here, in this ordinary body, the same feedback loop twisted differently: the harder she gripped, the more the ache melted into prickling, syrupy pleasure that pooled low in his gut.

  For one absurd, horrifying moment he wondered whether he might actually die like this one day—fucked to death on silk sheets, high on his own rewritten nerves.

  He lifted a hand, rubbed at the throbbing spot on his shoulder, then looked back at Marlene Voss with slow, deliberate calm.

  "Give you money so you can lose it to someone else again?"

  Marlene Bennet blinked, stunned into momentary silence.

  Behind him, Liora's interest sharpened. So the eternally patient boy was finally pushing back.

  Too te, perhaps. Gamblers like this one did not fold easily.

  Marlene Bennet recovered quickly. The pleading-mother mask cracked and fell away, repced by something colder, uglier. "Who the hell do you think you're talking to?"

  She stepped forward, hand already rising—ready to sp the disobedience out of him and reassert the hierarchy that had kept him docile for years.

  Elias lifted his gaze, met hers, and smiled.

  A small, quiet smile—boyish on the surface, lethal underneath.

  "Touch me again," he said softly, "and see what happens. If there's even one mark on me afterward… ten fingers won't be enough to pay for it."

  —

  Elias Kane's voice drifted out light and even, the cadence almost polite—casual, as though he had merely remarked on the weather being pleasant rather than issued a threat that promised severed fingers. Compared to Marlene Voss's earlier bluster it carried no visible menace, no raised volume or clenched jaw, yet the words nded with such quiet precision that her snarling aggression folded in on itself in an instant, the fury draining from her face until she stood there subdued, almost meek.

  Marlene Bennet stared at him, eyes wide with a mix of shock and dawning uncertainty, as though the boy she had known for years had been repced by a stranger wearing his skin. Elias—her compliant, endlessly forgiving Elias—had just spoken like someone who ran with people who made problems disappear, and the confidence in his tone left no room for doubt that he meant every sylble.

  How could he dare? Where had that certainty come from?

  Liora Voss, standing a measured step away with hands still tucked into her coat pockets, felt a flicker of genuine surprise cross her features before understanding settled in, cool and clear. The source of his backbone was obvious.

  Serena Bckwood had set her sights on him.

  Fox borrowing the tiger's might—Elias knew exactly how to leverage what he had, the same way he had leveraged that devastating face of his to work host-boy shifts at high-end clubs, fully aware of the currency his beauty carried in rooms full of women who could buy anything they wanted.

  Marlene Bennet's expression twisted through a rapid cycle of embarrassment and wounded pride; the idea that a single sentence from this boy had cowed her stung too deeply. She shook it off—or tried to—raising her hand again, teeth gritted in renewed fury. "Let's see how you're going to chop my fingers off, you little—"

  Liora spoke then, voice low and devoid of the faint warmth she had occasionally shown Elias, ft as winter pavement. "He's not wrong. Touch him, leave even a bruise, and I promise you won't have fingers left to hold a card—ever."

  Marlene froze mid-motion, neck stiff as she turned to look at Liora properly for the first time. Years in dimly lit gambling dens had honed her instincts for reading people; one gnce at the composed posture, the unruffled hazel eyes, the effortless authority radiating from every line of Liora's body told her everything she needed to know. This woman was not someone a person like her crossed and walked away from whole. Offend her, and the end would come quietly—no noise, no witnesses, just absence.

  But how the hell did Elias know someone like that?

  Terror fshed across Marlene's face. Her raised hand dropped, trembling, and after several failed attempts to school her features she managed a sickly, ingratiating smile. "I—I was just so angry, you know? Heat of the moment, saying stupid things. I'd never actually hit him. He's my own son—I love him, I'd do anything for him!"

  The lie was transparent, grotesque in its brazenness; even the few words exchanged so far painted a clear enough picture of what kind of person Marlene Voss truly was, and how she had treated Elias behind closed doors for years.

  Liora knew, of course. She had no intention of intervening further, though. She simply turned her gaze back to Elias, a spark of amused curiosity flickering in her eyes—silent question hanging between them: How are you going to handle this mess?

  A clinging, money-hungry foster mother. A foster father desperate for funds and medical care. Either way, it was a trap no college kid could escape on his own; the only way out was to lean on someone with real power.

  And the only someone here was Liora Voss.

  The price for her help went without saying.

  Elias read the expectation in her look as clearly as if she had spoken it aloud. His lips parted, ready to accept—his objective had already been met, after all, and this was the logical next step.

  Click.

  The sharp, unmistakable sound of a stiletto heel meeting tile cut through the hospital's te-night hush, amplified by the empty corridors.

  Everyone turned.

  Liora's mouth parted slightly in genuine surprise.

  She had known Serena pced unusual value on Elias—enough to orchestrate this entire charade—but she had not expected the older woman to show up in person at this hour, unannounced.

  Elias fixed his gaze on Serena Bckwood as she approached, the reflexive disdain he had carried from the original plot's summary of her character thawing noticeably. If Liora was the effortlessly seductive type who wore her flirtations like perfume, Serena carried the aura of cssical refinement—ink paintings, guqin strings, quiet elegance that evoked schors and poets rather than boardrooms.

  In that first moment of seeing her, Elias's mind fshed involuntarily to a talented female cultivator he had once pursued in another world: features entirely different, yet the poised, cultured grace was eerily simir.

  It was almost impossible to reconcile that image with "domineering CEO," with words like controlling, possessive, ruthless.

  But Elias never judged by appearances alone.

  He studied her face for a long beat, then let his eyes travel downward—lingering briefly on the taut fabric stretched across her chest, then lower still, to the long, sleek lines of her legs sheathed in sheer bck stockings.

  High-denier silk.

  He gave a small, internal nod. Point in her favor. Serena Bckwood was officially no longer in the negatives.

  Serena came to a measured stop before them, voice soft but carrying effortlessly. "Liora, it's so te. Why aren't you home yet?"

  Elias's ears actually twitched at the sound—low, velvet-edged, dripping with unintended sensuality.

  Okay. Full marks. Serena Bckwood had just rocketed to the top of his mental scoreboard.

  Yet she did not gnce at him once. Her attention remained fixed on Liora, as though her sole reason for being here was to collect her wayward younger sister.

  A phone call could have handled that. Why come all the way to the hospital?

  The fresh interest Elias had felt dimmed by half. The "two-faced CEO" trope suddenly seemed less appealing when the performance involved unnecessary preamble instead of crisp efficiency.

  He stayed silent, watching her py out the scene.

  After a few more gently probing questions about Liora's te night, Serena finally lowered her gaze to Elias. Those beautiful eyes softened, brimming with concern that looked achingly genuine. "Having trouble? Do you need my help?"

  Elias had to give her credit for the shamelessness. Cssic scum-woman passive skill: orchestrate the crisis yourself, then arrive like a benevolent savior, feigning innocence.

  But wasn't that convenient? He had always enjoyed peeling masks off people exactly like her.

  He met her eyes steadily, voice cold enough to frost gss. "No need."

  Serena blinked, visibly startled by the ft rejection.

  Logically, it made sense. No matter how gentle her tone, she was still the woman pnning to buy him. Any boy in his position would resist on principle.

  And boys who resisted like that were usually fools—offer them the smallest crumb of kindness, and their flimsy defenses crumbled.

  Just look at how he had let his garbage foster mother walk all over him for years. That indulgence was stupidity, pin and simple. Marlene Voss had become what she was in no small part because Elias had never drawn the line.

  Enough. Thinking further would only make Serena feel more contempt for this counterfeit pretty boy.

  She said nothing aloud. She simply flicked a gnce toward Liora.

  Liora understood instantly. She turned to Marlene Voss with cool dismissal. "What are you still standing here for?"

  Marlene Bennet—ever the quick study of power dynamics—bobbed her head frantically. "Right, right—I'm going, I'm going!"

  And with that, she dropped to a crouch and literally rolled away down the corridor, scooting awkwardly on her backside until she disappeared around the corner.

  Serena watched her go, then turned back to Elias, voice softer than ever, almost tender. "Better now?"

  Elias looked down at the retreating figure, expression unreadable.

  Liora suspected a pang of something close to sorrow might be moving through him just then—no matter how disappointed he was in Marlene, she was still the woman who had raised him, and watching her reduced to a kicked dog at someone else's word had to carry at least a faint echo of shared humiliation.

  Before she could dwell on it, Elias lifted his head. While Serena's attention remained on the empty hallway, he turned to Liora and offered a small, clear smile—sharp little canines peeking just enough to catch the fluorescent light.

  Liora's heart stuttered once, hard and involuntary, the memory of his earlier words fshing through her without permission.

  "If we kiss, will my fangs hurt you?"

  Innocent on the surface, pure almost, yet threaded through with that bone-deep wantonness that seemed to live under his skin.

  [System Theta notification: Liora Voss favorability increased. Current: 2%.]