Chapter 535

Chapter 535

"You——!"

Beatrice's chest seized up so hard she nearly blacked out from the rage. Her finger shot up at Zoey, trembling, but the words died in her throat.

Harold, flat on the ground, took in every second of it.

He watched Beatrice completely fall apart after just a few words from Zoey — sputtering with suppressed fury, throwing out hollow threats that landed on nothing. A thick wave of contempt and irritation rose in his chest.

This is what she had to offer?

The Grace family's precious daughter?

She was supposed to be here rescuing him?

All she had was tears and a last name. Not a single useful move in her entire playbook.

God, she was useless. If he'd known it would come to this, he would've figured something out himself.

"Would you both shut up already?!"

Harold couldn't hold it back. The outburst tore at his wounds and he hissed through clenched teeth — but the impatience in his voice was razor-sharp.

"What's the point of fighting?! Beatrice, I'm telling you, if you hadn't insisted on sticking your nose in, I would've—"

"Harold!"

Beatrice had already been pushed past her limit. She spun around on him, all pretense gone, her voice cracking like a whip.

"You think I wanted to be here?! If it weren't for our families' history, I would've left you to rot! You made this mess, and now you're blaming me for it?!"

The two of them were half a second away from tearing into each other right then and there. Scarlett, the only one still holding it together, felt a headache splitting her skull wide open.

"Enough! Both of you, shut up!"

Scarlett stamped her foot so hard her voice cracked on the last word.

"Are you serious right now?! This is really the moment you two pick to go at each other?!"

She pushed herself between them, firing a hard look at Harold — a silent, unmistakable warning to keep his mouth shut. Then she turned to Beatrice, dropping her voice to a frantic whisper, her eyes doing half the talking.

"Beatrice, please — not now. What matters right now is getting Harold sorted and getting out of here. We've already taken up enough of Mr. Garcia and Ms. King's time."

As she said it, she turned almost without thinking to Mason, who had been standing beside her in complete silence. She gave him a small push, something close to desperation slipping into her voice.

"Mason — back me up here. Say something, would you?"

She needed him to help smooth things over. Or at least take a side. Anything to bring the temperature down.

But Mason's mind was somewhere else entirely.

He'd been quietly adding things up — from the moment Scarlett dropped that bombshell about his mother's remains being stolen, to the way she'd gone out of her way to shield Beatrice, to what had just happened: the almost brazen way she'd steered Harold into pinning everything on Peter.

Each piece, on its own, meant nothing. Together, they were building into something that made his chest go tight.

The absurd theory he'd been trying to talk himself out of — that Beatrice might actually be Cleo — was starting to feel a lot less absurd.

If Beatrice was Cleo, then every strange thing Scarlett had done today suddenly made perfect sense.

And that move just now, nudging Harold toward Peter — it wasn't just about protecting Harold. It was about burying something bigger.

Whatever Cleo's connection was to the Viper organization, it wasn't clean.

A chill crawled up Mason's spine, vertebra by vertebra.

They could get Zoey hurt.

He didn't want any part of this anymore.

He'd been lied to for over a decade. He'd already let Zoey down in more ways than he could count.

He was done being someone else's weapon. He was done being used to hurt the one person in this world who shared his blood.

"Don't ask me."

Mason knocked Scarlett's hand away — sharp, final. His voice came out scraped dry, worn thin.

He didn't look at Scarlett or Beatrice. He turned to Zoey instead, and what was in his eyes was something complicated — guilt, and the particular ache of someone who had run out of excuses.

"This has nothing to do with me."

He paused. When he spoke again, it sounded like it cost him something.

"I've already let Zoey down enough for one lifetime. What she does, what she decides — I have no right to interfere. I'm not going to."

He took two slow steps back, as if the words had hollowed him out.

Scarlett stared at him, disbelief curdling fast into fury. She bit down on it. Useless. Absolute deadweight. Didn't he care even a little about everything he and Cleo had been through?

But she didn't have time to deal with Mason right now.

Getting Beatrice out safely — that was all that mattered.

She pulled in a slow breath, forced the panic down, and turned to Beatrice. No words. Just eyes and the slight shape of her mouth forming the message.

Forget everything else. Focus on getting out. Ask Zoey what she wants.

Beatrice read it clearly.

Inside, she was seething — at Zoey, at Harold's stupidity, at Scarlett's blind spots. But she was smart enough to know that digging in right now would only hurt her. Staying alive meant staying flexible.

Live to fight another day.

She bit the inside of her cheek, reset her expression, and turned back to Zoey with something that almost resembled a smile.

"Ms. King, I apologize for the disruption today. You've already taught Harold a lesson — and honestly, if that's not enough, feel free to hit him again."

The offer came out measured — part test, part plea, mostly an attempt to find the fastest exit.

The way Beatrice saw it, even half-dead left room to come back swinging. As long as there was a pulse, there was a play.

But Zoey's answer dismantled that logic completely.

"Hit him?"

Zoey tilted her head slightly, like she'd just heard something genuinely ridiculous. A cold, mocking curve touched the corner of her lips.

"You can't teach a dog new tricks by kicking it harder. You really think a beating would stick with him?"

Her gaze settled on Harold. She looked at him the way you'd look at an object you were deciding whether to throw away — detached, without a trace of feeling.

"I want one of his hands."

She said it quietly. Matter-of-factly. Like a weather forecast.

The words detonated in the backyard like a thunderclap.

"No way in hell!"

Harold's voice tore out of him raw and wild, pitched high with terror and rage.

He thrashed against the ground, trying to force himself up, but his wounds and restraints pinned him down. He writhed uselessly — a fish gasping on dry land.

"Zoey, have you lost your mind?! You dare touch my hand — my father will end you. The Rogers family will end you!"

He screamed it like a threat, but his voice broke on the edges and gave him away entirely.

One hand. This wasn't bruises and a busted lip. This was permanent. This was the kind of thing you carried for the rest of your life.

This was something he could not survive intact.

The demand hit Beatrice hard enough to make her stumble backward half a step.

One hand.

Zoey was actually asking for one of Harold's hands.

This had blown so far past anything she'd imagined. She opened her mouth on instinct, some half-formed argument already forming.

Because in Beatrice's mind, walking out of here alive was already Zoey being generous. Harold should be taking that and running.

"Harold, you should—"

"Shut your mouth!"

Harold wrenched his head toward her, eyes gone bloodshot and wild with fury, with fear, with nowhere left to put any of it.

"You useless b— if you hadn't dragged your feet, if you hadn't spent the whole time running your mouth, would I be lying here right now?! Say one more word and I swear I'll—"

The threat cut off. Alexander's gaze swept over him — cold and absolute — and Harold swallowed the rest of it. But the violence in his eyes didn't dim at all.

The raw, undisguised hatred hit Beatrice like a slap. Her face drained of color. Whatever she'd been about to say died quietly in her throat.

She saw it now. Harold genuinely despised her.

The fool couldn't read a room to save his life, and he had zero concept of gratitude.

In his head, she wasn't the person who'd come here to pull him out of the fire. She was the reason he was in it.

A cold, hollow feeling spread through Beatrice's chest, chased closely by exhaustion and something close to disgust.

She hadn't chosen to come here. The Viper organization had shoved her out front to clean up Harold's disaster, and she'd had no real say in it. There was no loyalty between her and Harold — only the kind of alliance built entirely on mutual suspicion and calculated use.

Harold had never seen the Grace family name as anything more than a resource to exploit. He wanted Zoey. Beatrice was just a card he'd play when it was convenient.

She'd told herself that pulling Harold out of this might be worth something — that she could use it to pull in whatever was left of the Rogers family's reach, give herself a backup plan for the day Viper turned on her. A safety net.

She could see now how naive that was.

Harold was worthless as an ally. He always would be.

Zoey watched Harold's venom hit Beatrice. Watched the flicker of fear and cold calculation move through Beatrice's eyes. None of it touched her.

Two people burning each other down. She had no interest in watching the rest.

"His right hand," she said, her voice level and precise. "Leave it here, and I let you walk out right now."

She let a beat pass before she added one more line, delivered in the same unhurried tone — the kind that didn't need to get loud to make your blood run cold.

"Or I burn the Rogers family to the ground."

Harold's roar stopped like a switch had been thrown.

He stared at Zoey, chest heaving, jaw tight. Not a single word came out.