Chapter 233 Dig
Chapter 233 Dig
Below the scrawled message was a local phone number scribbled in aggressive, jagged handwriting.
For three seconds, the kitchen was so quiet you could hear the hum of the refrigerator in the corner. Elisa felt a cold knot twist in her stomach. She looked up from the note just as heavy, measured footsteps echoed down the hallway.
Ridge walked into the kitchen, looking effortlessly sharp in a tailored navy shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his forearms, a cup of black coffee in hand. He took one look at Elisa’s rigid posture and Andrew’s scowling face, and his internal threat radar locked onto maximum alert.
"All right, what did the dog chew up this time, or did Andrew manage to set the science lab on fire again?" Ridge asked smoothly, stepping up beside Elisa and resting a warm hand on the small of her back.
"Dad, look at this," Andrew said, tapping the paper on the counter. "Some lunatic who claims to be my long-lost uncle Felix handed this to me after track practice. He says Elisa is just a temporary stepmom waiting to dropkick me out the front door once the baby grows up, and that my real mom's case was..." Andrew paused, squinting at a secondary note scribbled in the margin that he hadn't noticed earlier. "...wait, there's more on the back."
Ridge’s dark eyes dropped to the paper. He picked it up, his thumb brushing over the messy ink. As he read the words,not just the pathetic manipulation attempt regarding Andrew, but the subtle, venomous hint scratching at the bottom: ‘P.S. Planes don’t fall out of the sky on clear days unless someone forgets to check the brakes. Ask your old man about Amanda’s final flight...’—the air in the room turned to liquid nitrogen.
The casual, relaxed posture vanished. In its place stood the cold, ruthless patriarch of the Lockhart. His jaw clenched so hard a muscle ticked in his cheek, and his eyes narrowed into twin slats of absolute, lethal ice.
Felix. The cockroach had finally crawled out of the woodwork.
Andrew, entirely oblivious to the miniature nuclear bomb that had just detonated inside his father’s head, crossed his arms and let out an annoyed huff. "I mean, obviously the guy's a psycho, right? Like, mom is great. Annoying sometimes when she lectures me about my curfew, but she’s definitely not kicking me out. Right, mom?"
Elisa offered a strained, tight smile, her eyes darting nervously to Ridge. She knew that look on her husband's face. It was the look he wore right before he metaphorically and perhaps literally fed someone to the river piranhas.
"Right, of course, kiddo," Elisa murmured, gently patting Andrew's shoulder. "Your dad and I aren't going anywhere. But seriously, Andrew, if this guy approaches you again, you call me or your father immediately. Do you understand?"
"Yeah, yeah, I'll sic the guard dogs on him," Andrew waved a hand dismissively, completely unbothered now that he had delivered the message. He grabbed two of the lemon cookies off the tray, stuffing one into his mouth. "Anyway, I'm going upstairs to play video games before dinner. Oh, and dad? Don't forget my birthday is literally this weekend. I expect the car keys we talked about, not a lecture on fiscal responsibility."
With a clatter of sneakers against the hardwood floor, Andrew vanished up the stairwell, leaving the kitchen doors swinging softly behind him.
Ridge stood frozen, staring at the scrap of paper. Slowly, deliberately, he pulled out his own high-end smartphone, snapped a crystal-clear photo of the phone number and the handwriting, and sent it to Matteo with a single three-word text: Find this rat.
Elisa stepped closer, her hand resting gently on Ridge's forearm. The muscles beneath his shirt felt like coiled steel cables. "Ridge... what is this? Who is Felix?" He was Amanda's brother, right? Why is he coming out of the shadows now?"
Ridge let out a slow, heavy breath, forcing the terrifying, volcanic rage back down beneath a mask of absolute, chilling composure. He turned to her, his dark eyes softening just enough so she knew the anger wasn't directed at her.
"Felix is a leech," Ridge said quietly, his voice like grinding stones. "A low-level parasite who ran out of money and thinks he can play chess with people who own the board. Amanda's brother in name only,a man who spent his entire life looking for a handout and blaming everyone else when the well ran dry."
"And the part about the plane crash?" Elisa asked, her voice dropping to a cautious whisper, her eyes searching his face. "Ridge, what did he mean by that?"
Ridge didn't flinch. He looked straight into her eyes with absolute, unyielding sincerity. "He means a desperate man will write anything on a piece of paper if he thinks it will scare a reaction out of me. Amanda’s accident was investigated, closed, and buried three years ago. Felix wasn't even in the country when it happened. He's fishing in muddy water because he's broke."
Elisa searched his expression for a fraction of a second longer, sensing the rough edges of a past he kept locked behind triple-reinforced steel doors, but she nodded slowly, trusting the man who had stood between her and Vicenzo’s gun just days ago.
"Okay," she whispered, squeezing his hand. "So what do we do?"
Ridge's lips curved into a slow, terrifyingly calm smile,the kind of smile that indicated someone was about to have a very, very bad week.
"We don't do anything to him just yet," Ridge replied smoothly, slipping the note into his pocket. "Let him think his little game is working. Let him sweat out his remaining pennies while Matteo tracks the IP address of the burner phone he uses. In the meantime..."
Ridge's expression suddenly brightened, shifting gears so fast it gave whiplash. He reached out, grabbing a lemon cookie off the tray and taking a bite with an expression of exaggerated, joyful innocence.
"...we have a much more pressing emergency to deal with."
Elisa blinked, completely thrown off by the abrupt tonal shift. "An emergency? What emergency?"
"Andrew’s birthday," Ridge declared, throwing his hands up in theatrical despair. "The boy is turning eight this weekend. He is demanding car keys, a DJ, and a catering menu fit for a royal coronation. If we don't start planning his party right this second, he is going to stage a hunger strike and blast Drake through the entire mansion until our eardrums bleed."
Elisa let out a sudden, involuntary bark of laughter, the heavy, suffocating tension of the Felix note shattering into a million harmless pieces. "You are completely ridiculous, Ridge Lockhart. You almost started a.war five minutes ago, and now you're stressed about a kid's party logistics?"
"Parenting is the ultimate combat sport, sweetheart," Ridge grinned, pulling her into his side and pressing a kiss to her red hair. "Forget the leech. Let's go plan the greatest eighth birthday party this city has ever seen. The kid deserves it."
Upstairs in his bedroom, sitting in front of a glowing multi-monitor gaming rig with a headset slung around his neck, Andrew completely forgot the note existed the second he logged into his server.
Downstairs, miles away in a grimy, flickering telephone booth outside a subway station, Felix dialed the burner number he had left on the note, rubbing his hands together in gleeful anticipation. He waited for the phone to ring, picturing Ridge Lockhart sweating over the blackmail demand, ready to wire a hundred grand just to keep the past buried.
The phone rang once. Twice.
Then, a cool, automated operator voice chimed in: ‘The subscriber you have dialed is currently unavailable, or has blocked incoming calls from unregistered networks. Goodbye.’
Felix stared at the screen of his burner phone in absolute, stunned silence.
"Wait," Felix muttered, his jaw dropping as the dial tone buzzed harshly in his ear. "Did he just... block me?!"
Little did Felix know, across town, Ridge Lockhart was sitting at the grand dining table with Elisa, browsing catering catalogs for miniature sliders and gourmet birthday cakes, entirely unbothered by the ghost of the past,because in Ridge's world, ghosts didn't haunt him.
He buried them. And sometimes, he let them dig their own graves first.