Chapter 332
The words hit Hilliard like a physical slap. He flinched.
Sensing the shift in the room, Jakobe decided to push his luck. He let go of Hilliard’s leg and took a step toward Elia, holding out his hand.
“Let’s be friends, Elia,” Jakobe said sweetly, reaching for the fabric of her dress.
Elia’s survival instinct flared. She remembered the vicious pinch. She jerked backward violently and swatted her hand out to bat Jakobe’s arm away.
Jakobe didn’t resist the swat. Instead, he threw his arms up and hurled himself backward.
He collapsed toward the heavy glass coffee table. The side of his forehead clipped the sharp brass edge.
A loud thwack echoed through the room.
Jakobe hit the floor. A thin line of bright red blood welled up on his forehead and trickled down his temple.
Jeraldine let out a blood-curdling scream. “Oh my God! He’s bleeding! You little monster!” She pointed a shaking finger at Elia. “You have your mother’s psychotic blood in your veins!”
Hilliard’s face became a mask of cold fury, his temples throbbing. His sharp, analytical mind had processed the entire sequence in a fraction of a second — Elia’s weak, defensive swat and Jakobe’s highly calculated, theatrical dive into the table. But the truth was utterly meaningless against the deafening pitch of his mother’s shrieks. In this toxic ecosystem, weaponized emotions and staged victimhood always overpowered cold facts. He wasn’t trapped by a logical nightmare; he was paralyzed by the suffocating chains of his own bloodline.
“Mother, stop screaming,” Hilliard barked, but his voice lacked conviction. He stared at the blood, his hands opening and closing helplessly at his sides.
Cailin didn’t yell. She didn’t argue. She knelt down and clamped her hands over Elia’s ears, shielding her daughter from the toxic noise.
She looked up at Hilliard. Her eyes were dead.
“This is your safety,” Cailin whispered.
She picked Elia up, turned her back on the chaos, and walked up the stairs.
Hilliard stood in the center of his billion-dollar mansion, surrounded by his shrieking mother and a bleeding child. He realized with chilling clarity that brute force and logic were useless here. This was a war of whispers and poison — and for the first time in his life, he felt the terrifying limits of his power.
The next morning, the air in Holloway Manor was thick with unresolved tension.
Hilliard stood in the second-floor hallway, his hands shoved deep into the pockets of his slacks, staring at the closed door of Elia’s bedroom. At his feet sat a massive, velvet-lined box containing a set of antique porcelain dolls — a collector’s item worth more than most people’s homes. Resting on top of the box was a limitless black Centurion card.
It was a pathetic, desperate peace offering.
The bedroom door clicked open. The nanny peeked out. She looked at Hilliard, then down at the box.
“Take it inside,” Hilliard ordered quietly.
The nanny hesitated. “Sir… Miss Elia gave me specific instructions.”
“What instructions?”
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