The Seductive Pretty Boy of the Matriarchal World-Chapter 57: Ticket to the Abyss

Chapter 57: Ticket to the Abyss

Even pressed this close by a breathtakingly beautiful young man, Lila Morgan could still catch the faint, clean scent drifting from Elias Kane—something warm and personal, maybe his natural skin. Under any other circumstances the moment would have felt like the most intimate kind of tease, the kind that left a woman’s pulse racing for all the right reasons. But right now the only thing flooding her veins was raw, suffocating fear, as if a predator far more dangerous than any ordinary man had fixed its gaze on her and refused to look away.

In that near-breathless state she forced the words out. "I’ll talk..."

The instant the admission left her lips, Elias slid back into his chair with effortless calm, slipping his glasses back on as though the entire charged encounter had never happened.

Only Lila remained, drawing quick, shallow breaths, trying to steady the frantic hammering inside her chest.

She lifted her eyes to him again and blinked rapidly, half-convinced she had imagined the crushing pressure from seconds earlier. Could this same soft-featured college guy really have been the source of that overwhelming dread? Yet the lingering terror in her bones hadn’t faded enough for her to risk underestimating him.

Before Elias could ask a second time, she blurted it out with crisp finality. "It was Ms. Liora Voss who sent me to follow you."

She stole a quick glance at his face, searching for any flicker of surprise. There was none. His expression stayed perfectly even, as if he had known the answer all along.

And he had. The question had never really been about her; it was a probe aimed straight at Liora Voss herself.

The result, however, left Elias quietly disappointed. Liora Voss seemed...

Not particularly sharp.

Usually the women who circled him set the bar high, but he held himself to the same standard. Anyone lacking in looks—no matter how useful they might be for the long game—never even registered on his radar. Intelligence mattered just as much.

Elias lifted his gaze, the movement lazy and almost bored. "Did she tell you anything specific?"

Lila Morgan almost shook her head on instinct, then a memory jolted through her. Her heart stuttered. "Ms. Voss told me that if you caught me, I was supposed to tell you the whole truth."

Elias’s brow arched a fraction. "Then why didn’t you say it right away?"

She fell silent. She could hardly admit that his sudden appearance had scared her so badly she had blanked on her employer’s instructions.

She didn’t need to say it. Elias read the hesitation like an open book, and a faint spark of amusement finally showed in his eyes. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Not completely hopeless, at least.

Still, the person Liora had chosen for the job...

Elias had a simple policy with idiots: keep your distance so you didn’t catch whatever they had.

Without another word he stood and walked away, leaving the table—and Lila—behind.

She made no move to stop him. Only after he had disappeared through the library doors did the tension finally drain from her shoulders.

She pulled out her phone and fired off a quick text to Liora Voss. "Ms. Voss, I was discovered."

No reply came.

Because Elias had already beaten her to it.

Liora Voss’s eyes were lowered, fixed on the message glowing on her screen: "The person you sent to tail me is really stupid."

The words carried clear contempt for the girl and an unmistakable layer of mockery aimed straight at her.

She hesitated for a long moment, then began typing.

Now that she had been found out, staying silent would only look like evasion—like she was afraid of him.

"What?"

Elias’s reply came almost instantly, the speed bordering on insolent. "Don’t let her follow me anymore. Get someone else. I don’t want to catch the idiot virus."

Liora’s lips twitched at the phrase "idiot virus." Her fingers moved again. "What exactly did she do?"

She expected another lightning-fast text. Instead her phone began to vibrate in her hand, the screen lighting up with the contact name she had saved for him alone.

Little Kitten.

Liora’s expression hardened, the elegant lines of her face tightening as though the incoming call were not a simple phone conversation but a ticket straight to the abyss.

She stared at the pulsing screen for several heartbeats. Then her fingertip finally descended.

The moment the call connected, a stream of complaints poured out in that clear, lively voice that belonged only to him. "I’m telling you, what kind of person did you even hire? Her tracking skills are garbage, and she somehow managed to forget the exact instructions her boss gave her. I can’t stand her. Just talking to her for a couple of minutes made me feel like my brain was getting contaminated..."

The household staff moving quietly through Liora Voss’s residence glanced over and saw their mistress lounging on the deep sectional sofa, body sinking languidly into the plush cushions, one arm draped along the back. A faint, almost imperceptible curve lifted the corner of her mouth while her lips parted and closed, answering in that cool, velvet tone she reserved for him alone.

"You’re very dissatisfied with her?"

Elias’s voice carried clear irritation across the line. "Not just dissatisfied—extremely dissatisfied. Change the person tracking me right now!"

Liora smiled, small and private. His complaint wasn’t about the fact that someone had been sent to follow him at all. No, the real offense was that the someone in question had been incompetent. It was the sort of reaction no ordinary person being stalked would ever have. Elias didn’t seem to care in the slightest that his true face might be exposed to the world.

And the fact that he reacted this way didn’t surprise her in the least.

The confidence was written all over him—otherwise he would never have dared to move so freely among a group of women like them. Ever since he had shown her a side of himself that Serena Blackwood had never seen, he had stopped bothering to protect any of his other images. He simply believed she would keep his secrets for him.

And she would. She absolutely would.

Liora lifted one hand and pressed it lightly over her heart. The beat beneath her palm was faster than usual, accelerating with every passing second. It was the same electric rush she used to feel tearing down empty highways in the dead of night—but this time the adrenaline wasn’t from speed. It came from something far more dangerous: the razor-thin line between right and wrong.

Her lips curved a little higher. Her breathing stayed soft, almost delicate. The sensation was exactly like playing with fire...

Or dancing right on the edge of the abyss.