Chapter 143: The Joke Lands

Giselle closed her eyes for a moment.

She needed that brief darkness, that forced reset, to make the chaos in her mind arrange itself into something she could examine. Otherwise, every piece of information Elias had just handed her kept striking against the others until none of them made sense.

Serena had been good to him.

Elias had misunderstood.

He had smiled when he said it.

Across from her, Elias nearly laughed hard enough to hurt himself.

The pressure built low in his stomach, and he had to keep his face soft while holding it in. He wanted nothing more than to lift one hand right now, point straight at Giselle’s nose, and say, That’s what you get for hiding from me these past few days. You thought I liked you, so you got proud? Look at you, getting smug over it. Well, I don’t like you anymore, so go find a corner and regret it.

Of course, he only enjoyed the fantasy in his head.

He was not stupid enough to expose himself. He also knew Giselle would not regret it in the simple, ordinary way he was imagining. She was not that kind of person. More likely, she was currently trying to sort out what had happened, which meant the volcano was coming.

No, not volcano.

Iceberg eruption.

That would be more appropriate.

And it would probably look spectacular.

Elias watched Giselle’s cold face. Her expression was still calm, but the calm had started to shift toward something uglier, something flatter and more terrifying. It was the kind of face that could make a room stop breathing without raising its voice.

At last, Giselle opened her lips.

Her voice was so cold that an ordinary person might have felt it in the bones. "What misunderstanding?"

Elias was almost impressed.

Not bad.

The little virgin had learned expression management, and now she was working on emotional management too. The progress was so large that he felt a ridiculous, teacherly pride by association.

Now I want to see what she looks like when she can’t manage it anymore.

[Honestly, I also want to see that a little. Am I allowed to say that?]

For once, Elias and System Theta reached perfect agreement.

He let his expression turn even gentler, soft enough to look like a devoted husband who had already raised a child and learned patience from domestic life. Since Giselle wanted to manage herself, he would help her practice by making the exercise harder.

"I misunderstood the things she did to me before," Elias said. "I thought she only wanted..."

He paused. The timing mattered. He let a trace of shame move across his face, then seemed to remember that Giselle was his bestie and therefore safe enough to hear this.

"...my body."

After saying it, he stole a quick glance at Giselle.

Did you see that? Did you see that? Her eyes are about to catch fire.

[I saw it. I saw it. They really do look like they’re burning.]

Elias was not done.

His eyes softened further, bright and wet enough to look almost fragile. In a low voice, he said, "Now I finally understand. She really does like me."

Then he stopped.

Going further would ruin the fun. He had already given Giselle enough material, and the rest should be left for her to think through on her own. This was education. He was training the child’s ability to reason independently.

Giselle looked at him.

"So you fell for her too?"

If anyone who knew Giselle had been standing there, their face would have changed immediately. That tone meant she was furious past the point of ordinary anger. Usually, the next second would involve action, and whoever caused that tone would be very lucky if the damage stayed metaphorical.

Elias understood Giselle well enough to hear it too.

That was why he knew she was nearly at her limit, and also why she still had to endure it. What was she going to do, hit him?

He was only a pure, innocent boy yearning for love and desperate to be cherished.

In front of Giselle, Elias nodded.

He nodded slowly, with enough amplitude that she could not miss it, as if he feared her cold eyes might fail to capture his answer unless he made the movement obvious. Then he looked at her with open expectation.

"Giselle, you’ll bless us, won’t you?"

After all, they were besties.

That sentence snapped the final thread.

Giselle reached out and seized him by the collar. Elias let out a startled sound as she dragged him straight toward her, the fabric twisting tight under her fingers.

"Bless what?" Giselle’s entire body seemed cold, but the breath that brushed his face was hot. "Do you know what you’re doing?"

Elias thought, of course he knew.

In Giselle’s eyes, however, he should not know.

And "Elias" truly did not know.

Who could blame him? Serena Blackwood’s acting had been so seamless. How could "Elias" possibly see through her? He did not know that everything Serena felt for him was based on his resemblance to Lucien Hart, that the so-called affection was nothing but moonlight on water, prettier than a bubble and easier to burst.

Of course, all of that was only what Giselle believed. Even Serena had "convinced herself" that she was treating Elias as a replacement.

Elias alone saw the whole board clearly.

While laughing inside, he let the joy on his face break into stunned hurt. He looked at Giselle with grievance and a thread of fear, as if he could not understand why the friend he trusted had suddenly turned on him.

"What do you mean, do I know?" His voice trembled. "What am I doing? Giselle, let go of me."

Giselle did not have the patience to argue with him.

She could not explain it to him properly either, because the explanation itself would require opening too many wounds. So she chose the simplest command, clean and decisive.

"Leave her."

"I won’t."

Giselle pulled him closer.

Their faces were now so close that each of them reflected in the other’s eyes. Her grip tightened against his collar, and every word came out with controlled force.

"I said, leave her."

"I won’t."

This time, Elias’s voice broke with the edge of tears.

Even so, shivering under her hand, he said those two words.

The cowardly person once again showed the courage he had displayed when he clung to the aircraft, except this time that courage was no longer for Giselle. It was for another woman.

Tears gathered in his eyes. He looked at Giselle with confusion, disbelief, and a sadness so full it seemed ready to spill over before the tears did.

"Giselle, I know you don’t trust Serena," he said, his voice shaking. "But we really do like each other."

His mouth trembled around the words, but he kept going, as if the sentence itself hurt and he could not stop until she understood. "I thought you would be happy for me. We’re besties, aren’t we? I don’t understand why you’re doing this, why you..."

He could not finish.

Giselle knew what he wanted to ask.

Why would she treat him this way?

[Giselle Frost favorability increased. Current: 35%.]

The system notice slid coldly through the moment, absurd and precise.

Giselle forced herself to steady some of her emotion. She wanted to explain to Elias calmly, to pull him back from the edge without scaring him further.

"It’s not like that," she said. "Serena Blackwood..."

Elias interrupted her.

His tears fell silently from reddened eyes. One slid down his cheek, gathered under his jaw, and dropped onto the hand still gripping his collar. It was so warm against Giselle’s skin that it felt almost like a burn.

He looked at her through those tears, weak in voice yet painfully firm.

"I won’t."

Then, after a breath, he said, "I believe her."

The sentence landed more heavily than any argument could have.

Giselle’s fingers remained tangled in his collar. Elias was right in front of her, close enough that she could see the wetness clinging to his lashes, close enough to feel the uneven lift of his breath through the cloth she held. He looked frightened of her, hurt by her, and still stubbornly loyal to the person Giselle was trying to pull him away from.

For one terrible second, the whole room looked like Serena’s work.

The new furniture. The warm bedding. The soft colors chosen for someone who had probably never asked for anything that gentle. The apartment itself, clean and prepared and waiting. Elias standing inside it with tears on his face, defending the woman who had given it to him.

A trap did not need bars if the person inside believed it was a home.

Giselle slowly released his collar.

The cloth slipped from her fingers.

Elias lowered his head, as if afraid to meet her eyes again.

Giselle said nothing.

There was nothing she could say that would not make him defend Serena harder. If she pushed, he would cling. If she argued, he would bleed himself open proving the sincerity of a feeling Serena had planted in soil already damaged. And if Giselle touched him again, he would look at her with those injured eyes and make her the villain in a story she had not known she was entering.

The worst part was that he would not even be doing it consciously.

That was what made it so cruel.

Elias Kane had survived too much by turning himself into bait. He understood manipulation when he used it. He understood performance when he chose it. Yet with Serena, in this room, under this prepared light, he looked like someone who had mistaken the leash for rescue.

Giselle looked away first.

Elias did not stop her when she left.

By the time the door closed behind her, his tears had already stopped.

He stood still in the warm little apartment Serena had prepared and listened to the hallway silence settle back into place. Then his expression relaxed, the wounded softness fading from his face as if someone had wiped condensation from glass.

Outside, the building remained quiet.

Inside, Elias slept well.

Somewhere else, Giselle did not.

Naomi Vale was dragged out of sleep by frantic knocking.

The sound came so hard and fast that for several seconds she thought it had entered her dream first. Then it kept going, blunt and violent against the door, until she opened her eyes and realized someone was actually trying to wake her.

"Are you insane?" Naomi snapped.

No one who had just been sleeping well ever woke up with a good attitude. Wealth did not change that. Neither did good bedding, blackout curtains, or the expensive little sleep monitor glowing on the nightstand.

She threw the covers aside, pulled on a robe, and went to the door ready to verbally murder whoever stood outside.

When she opened it, Sloane Sinclair was there.

Sloane’s expression was strange, caught between urgency and the awful reluctance of someone who had to say something ridiculous.

"Giselle..." Sloane began, then stopped.

Naomi stared at her. "Giselle what?"

Sloane looked as if she wanted to swallow the rest of the sentence and failed. "Giselle has actually lost her mind."

Naomi’s irritation thinned.

A short while later, when Naomi and Sloane arrived at the boxing gym, the last of Naomi’s sleep vanished completely.

She stood near the entrance and looked at the floor.

"Holy shit."

Two heavy bags lay ruined across the mat.

They were not simply torn. They had been beaten into something shapeless, seams split open, stuffing spilled out in ugly clumps, straps twisted and half-ripped from their mounts. One of the bags still swayed faintly from the last impact, though Giselle had already turned away from it.

Naomi rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand and looked again.

The scene did not improve.

"What happened to her?" Naomi asked, turning toward Sloane. "Did she take something?"

"How would I know?" Sloane kept her voice low. "She’s been like this since she came back from Elias."

Naomi stared for a long time before managing to produce a conclusion.

"That’s insane."

Inside the ring, Giselle moved without wasting a single motion.

Her silver hair had been tied back, but several strands had escaped and stuck lightly near her face. Her expression was blank. Not calm, exactly. Blank. The kind of blank that made Naomi understand why Sloane had come for backup instead of trying to handle this alone.

Giselle’s next punch struck the remaining bag with a sound that made Naomi’s shoulders tighten.

The gym staff had wisely disappeared to the edges of the room. One trainer stood near the wall with a towel in his hands and the expression of a man who had decided that customer service did not include interrupting a Frost family daughter while she dismantled equipment. Another staff member glanced at the ruined bags, then at Giselle, then chose to study the floor.

Naomi swallowed.

"Should we stop her?"

The moment the words left her mouth, she knew how stupid they were.

Sloane turned and glared at her. "You go."

Naomi closed her mouth.

No one in their right mind would try to talk Giselle down like this. If they stopped her before she burned through whatever had taken hold of her, they might become the next things on the floor.

Naomi folded her arms and watched Giselle land another hit.

The impact was so clean it made the room feel colder.

"Then maybe her mother can save her?" Naomi said.

Sloane’s face tightened. "The house staff don’t dare wake Victoria for the same reason we don’t dare advise Giselle."

Naomi slapped a hand lightly to her forehead.

Of course. At this hour, normal people were asleep. Even abnormal people with too much money and too many family issues were supposed to be asleep.

But Giselle was here, tearing apart punching bags in the middle of the night because she had gone to see Elias Kane.

Naomi looked at the ruined floor again.

The little two-faced menace had done it.

She did not know what exactly he had done, but he had done it.

At the same time, in the apartment Serena Blackwood had rented for him, Elias was sleeping deeply.

As for Giselle losing control somewhere else...

Giselle?

Who was Giselle?