Chapter 276: No Winner

Both of them were covered in injuries.

Bruises, torn clothes, blood at the mouth, dirt smeared into fabric and skin. By the end of it, no one looked like she had won. No one looked like the winner of anything.

But Liora Voss knew the truth.

The moment her secret with Elias was exposed, the moment Serena Blackwood sent that message telling her to come to the garden, Liora’s failure had already been decided.

Because no matter what reason she had, no matter how many excuses she could pull from their history, touching her sister’s man was an unforgivable mistake.

In truth, the fight should never have happened.

She should have stood still. She should have let Serena hit her, curse her, vent everything she needed to vent. Maybe if Liora had taken it without fighting back, there might have been one tiny chance left. One chance in ten thousand, perhaps. Ugly, humiliating, but still a chance.

But Serena had not wanted to leave room for a turn.

She had told Liora to stand up.

She had wanted Liora to face her properly and fight.

Now the fight was over.

It was time for Liora to leave before the actual owner of this place grew even more unhappy with her presence.

"Sis."

Liora’s voice had gone hoarse. Even with her face bruised and blood at her lip, she still kept a faint smile there, as if that alone could stop her from looking completely wrecked.

"I know this sounds ridiculous coming from me right now, but..."

She paused and lifted one finger, pointing upward.

"Don’t sink too deep. There’s still a chance to climb back up a little."

Serena’s voice was cold enough to cut.

"Get out."

Liora turned and left without the slightest hesitation.

There was no longing in her back.

She would not die without the Blackwood family. She would not die without Serena. In reality, if she were not being compared to Blackwood Group, the assets under her name were already enough to place her above countless people.

She only looked small beside a giant.

That was all.

Her footsteps faded little by little.

Soon, the enormous garden held only Serena.

She stood under the moonlight, half in shadow, and her figure looked lonely in a way even she would have hated if anyone had been there to see it.

The tension that had held her body together suddenly loosened.

The pain, which had not seemed unbearable during the fight, came rushing in like tidewater. Her abdomen was manageable. Her arms and legs ached sharply. But the tearing sensation in her chest nearly stole her breath.

She kept breathing through it, one breath after another, trying to press down the steady rise of pain, confusion, and suspicion.

How could it all have been fake?

Every moment between her and Elias. Every argument, every sweetness, every tear, every time he had looked at her like she mattered.

Even now, with the truth placed in front of her, Serena could look back at everything that had happened with Elias and still fail to see how all of it could have been false.

His stubbornness.

His crying.

His pain.

His tears.

If all of that had been acting, then making him her lover had been a criminal waste of talent. The stage would have suited him better. Awards, cameras, standing ovations. He should have been crowned for it, not hidden in her house and wrapped in her money.

Serena dragged her aching body back inside with a state of mind she could not name.

The living room was quiet and empty. When she passed through it, she turned her head toward the kitchen.

The kitchen island still seemed to hold Elias’s presence.

She could almost see him there again, sitting in those ridiculous dinosaur pajamas, face bright under the hood, looking sweet enough to be forgiven for anything. She could see the tilt of his mouth, that coaxing, wicked little expression as he spoke the sentence that had split her open.

If he had not been hypnotized, would she have lived her whole life without knowing the truth?

Would she have stayed in the dark forever, stupidly believing the parts of him she had been allowed to touch were real?

Serena shook her head hard.

She could not keep thinking.

Every time she pictured Elias crying, every time she pictured Liora smiling, the pulse at her temples beat wildly. It felt as if her head might burst open in the next second, blood pouring out with every memory she had misread.

Her thighs were swollen from the fight, each step up the stairs sending a dull pain through her body.

When she reached Elias’s bedroom, she stopped.

Right now, the liar who had deceived her was inside.

He was probably lying on the bed, eyes closed, sleeping with that peaceful expression of his.

And she was the one covered in injuries because of one sentence from him.

She already knew she would not sleep.

So how could he sleep so sweetly?

Serena knew that, according to her own nature, she should open the door now. She should storm in, grab Elias by the hair, ignore his pain and confusion, and make him taste a little of the suffering in her body and the torment in her heart. She should make him cry. Make him scream. Make him understand that cheating her had a price.

But her hand did not rise.

It was as if she could not lift it.

Or maybe she could not bear to.

If Serena had sunk costs, then she had staked everything.

There was no way back.

She closed her eyes.

Her right hand clenched, then loosened. Her long fingers slowly stretched open.

Elias lying to her did not matter, she told herself.

She did not love him anyway.

How reasonable.

How fair.

A door closed behind her with a muted thud.

Serena returned to her own bedroom. She lowered her head and looked at the blood drying across her palms, then went into the bathroom to wash it away.

When she reached the mirror and lifted her eyes, she froze.

Only then did she realize how terrible she looked.

Her hair was a mess. Her lip was cut. There were marks along her jaw and cheek, dirt at the edge of her sleeve, blood on her hands. The woman in the mirror looked nothing like the Serena Blackwood who walked into boardrooms and made grown executives lower their eyes.

Serena looked away calmly and began washing her hands.

It was nothing.

No one had seen her like this.

So it was nothing.

The water ran red at first, then pink, then clear. She kept rubbing at her palms until the sting sharpened enough to feel cleaner than thought. When she finally shut off the faucet, the bathroom felt louder without the water.

She stepped out, walked to the bed, and sat down heavily.

Then she began removing her shoes.

One heel dropped to the carpet.

Then the other.

She lifted one leg and slowly peeled off the torn black stocking. The sheer fabric was ruined, laddered and ripped from the fight, no longer fit for anything except the trash. The second stocking came off the same way.

Serena tossed both onto the floor.

Then she fell back onto the bed and stared up at the white ceiling.

Everything around her was silent.

So silent that even her heartbeat sounded clear.

One beat.

Then another.

In that kind of silence, the mind became impossible to control. Even Serena could not command herself to stop thinking.

Scene after scene flashed through her head.

Her. Elias. Liora.

Now that she knew, there had been so many flaws. So many details. They had been there all along. She had simply failed to notice, or noticed and convinced herself she had seen wrong.

Yes.

Especially that time she had tested Elias and Liora together.

Elias had been hurt and furious to the limit. That was when he had broken up with her, cut off their relationship, left her so restless afterward that even work could not bring peace. She had thought about him day and night, like a woman starving at a table she refused to admit she wanted.

Thinking about it now, maybe he had been lying in Giselle Frost’s arms at that exact time, laughing happily.

How funny.

"Ha."

The sudden laugh broke the silence in the room.

Serena laughed for no clear reason.

The corner of her mouth lifted by a fraction. Then the laughter slipped out of her control. Her body shook with it.

She laughed until her ribs hurt.

She laughed until breathing became difficult.

Then, somewhere inside the laughter, she lifted one arm and laid it across her face, covering her eyes so the warm liquid gathering there would not roll down.

Even though no one was in the room but her.

Maybe she did not want the stars outside the window to see.

Maybe the great President Blackwood was simply maintaining the last scrap of her dignity.

Serena had thought she would spend the entire night awake.

Instead, she cried and laughed until the laughter slowly faded. At some point, without realizing when, exhaustion pulled her under.

She was too tired.

Her body was tired.

Her mind was worse.

The night passed without dreams.

When daylight came, Serena opened her eyes.

The first thing she saw was the same white ceiling.

She blinked, staring at it a little blankly.

She should replace this bed, she thought.

How had she never noticed before that it was so hard?

Just then, there came a knock.

Knock, knock, knock.

"Big sister, wake up. The sun’s already on your butt!"