Chapter 54 Chapter 54.
Chapter 54 Chapter 54.
Chapter 54.
They both smile slightly.
“Working at this hour?” Alexei asks, his blue eyes fixed on her.
“Yes. Graduation and the corporate world are keeping me busy,” Alicia replies, returning to the lightness of their previous conversation.
They share another brief conversation. This time they talk about the pressure of success, about ambitions. Alicia feels strangely comfortable with this stranger who knows nothing of her life with Lucas.
In the same building, a man with a bored, neutral appearance, sitting in an anonymous car, records the interaction with a telephoto lens. It is Gael, one of Lucas’s security men.
Minutes later, Lucas receives an encrypted text message, which interrupts his attempt to pretend he slept all night. The message contains the address and a concise phrase from Gael:
> Ms. Alicia is at address X. Speaking with a man. Does not appear to be the "work group" contact. Photo attached.
The image of Alicia laughing at 3 AM with a stranger, combined with her refusal to come home, causes Lucas’s jaw to harden to the limit. Jealousy, fueled by stress, turns into suspicion.
Lucas replies to Gael's message with a cold and precise command:
> Find out who he is. Full name and if he is part of the work group. I want it on my desk first thing.
The seed of doubt and anger has been sown, just as Carolina had planned. The danger doesn't come from the corporate world; it comes from the threat of losing Alicia to a rival who represents the freedom she craves.
The Morning of Suspicion
Alicia returns to the mansion at seven in the morning, exhausted but triumphant. The project is finished, the speech polished. The weight of the Jank company feels far away for a moment.
As soon as she crosses the threshold of her room, she finds Lucas waiting for her. He is fully dressed, in an impeccable suit, which accentuates the intensity of his anger. The room is permeated by his aura of silent fury.
“Did you have a good night, Alicia?” His voice is low and glacial, not a question, but the edge of a knife.
Alicia stops, her fatigue and euphoria vanishing. “Yes, Lucas. We finished. It was productive. You should be happy, the work is done.”
“I’m not interested in the work,” he snaps, taking a step toward her. He corners her with his presence. “I’m interested in honesty.”
Lucas holds up his cell phone. The screen displays the blurry photo taken by Gael: Alicia in the parking lot, leaning over the Ferrari, and a young man, Alexei, beside her, holding a small dog.
“Who is this man, Alicia?” he demands. “Your message said ‘group of friends.’ Not ‘a 3 AM encounter in the parking lot with a stranger and his pet’.”
Alicia feels the blood rush to her face, not from guilt, but from the outrageous invasion of her privacy.
“Were you watching me?” she asks, incredulous.
“I was looking out for you, which is very different,” Lucas corrects, though the difference is minimal. “And, yes, I know you were laughing and flirting in the parking lot at three in the morning with a guy who, coincidentally, is not part of your study group.”
“Enough, Lucas!” Alicia pushes him slightly, trying to regain space. “It was an accident. His aunt's dog, Alexei’s, set off my car alarm. We ran into each other by chance and talked. It was a five-minute encounter. Why do you have to turn everything into drama and a lie?”
“Because drama and lies are your specialty. You told me ‘group of friends.’ Why do you have to talk to a man who is not from your group, who is not in your house, at those hours? What was the reason for so much insistence on not coming back here?”
Lucas approaches again, his voice echoing with the jealousy he cannot name. “The rule is clear. You come back here. Because I want to have you close. Because you are mine!”
Alicia runs out of breath. The brutality of his possessiveness is more hurtful than the accusation. “I am not yours. Nor am I a child who has to check in. I have a life. I have friends. I have ambitions beyond this golden cage. And if you monitor me as if I were a criminal, the lie is not mine, it is the one you build between us. I don’t want this, Lucas.”
The confrontation ends with a freezing silence. Lucas retreats with contained rage, knowing he has gone too far, but unable to silence the jealous animal that screams at him that he is losing her.
Carolina’s Manipulation
While Lucas locks himself in his office, burning from the confrontation, Carolina, who has not "recovered" from her migraine, enters silently. She has been waiting for this moment. Gael's report was forwarded to her from an internal security source, and she has more information about Alexei.
“Lucas, my love, I heard some of what happened,” she says sweetly, approaching him as he stares fixedly at Alexei’s photo.
“Don’t interfere, Carolina. It’s my problem,” Lucas growls.
“Of course it is, because if she distracts her attention now, the project and the company will fail. Lucas, I know who that man is.”
Lucas looks at her, curiosity overriding his anger. “Speak.”
“Alexei. Alexei Krylov. He is not just a student. He is the grandson of the owner of the Krylov Tech electronics chain. A promising, brilliant young man who, in fact, rejected a position at your own company two years ago. He is at the cusp of his own revolution.”
Carolina distills the poison slowly, attacking Lucas's most sensitive flank: his ego and his competitiveness.
“He represents the life she could have without the chains of the Janks.”
Carolina pulls up a chair and sits down, lowering her voice even more. “Don't worry about flirting. Worry that this man is an escape route. Alicia is brilliant, Lucas. This young man could represent the change for Alicia.”
Lucas jumps up abruptly. The idea that Alicia might not only betray him but choose a man who is his antithesis and a professional rival is an affront that turns his stomach. His anger is not just possessiveness; it is the humiliation of an emperor.
“She wouldn't leave me for that child,” he thinks.
“Sooner or later, she will have to find someone. This young man is brilliant, who knows, maybe he will be the one who wins Alicia's affection. Seeing her form a romantic relationship with someone would be pleasing.”
Carolina retreats, her mission accomplished. She doesn't need to use the photos. Only Lucas’s doubt, wounded ego, and competitiveness remain—he now saw Alexei not as a romantic threat, but as an obstacle that had to be eliminated from Alicia’s life, at any cost.
Lucas Jank looks at Alexei’s photo. The rebellious young man is no longer a ghost, but a target. The confrontation with Alicia has put him on the defensive, but Carolina’s manipulation has focused him: he must drive him away from her.