Chapter 229
Serena
He stopped, and I felt him turn back fully to face the older man. The temperature in the foyer seemed to drop ten degrees.
"Though I have to say," Lance continued, each word precisely enunciated, "based on Felix's comments, you seem to have quite the emotional attachment to Saint's Cove. How... interesting."
Thomas's face went through several shades of pale. "Lance, please, don't read too much into—it was thirty years ago. We all regret what happened to your mother. Felix was just joking, he got confused, I never—"
"Dad."
Another voice. Another set of footsteps.
Felix emerged from the dining room, that same manic smile still plastered on his face. He walked right up to Thomas and clapped a hand on his father's shoulder, the gesture almost affectionate if you ignored the cruelty in his eyes.
"There's nothing to explain," Felix said cheerfully, cutting off whatever desperate justification Thomas had been building. "You happen to like a particular location that also happens to be where your brother's wife killed herself. That's perfectly normal! It's called emotional projection!"
He squeezed Thomas's shoulder, his smile widening.
"After all, your love for your brother was legendary. And he loved you too, didn't he? Otherwise, why would you have become CEO the moment he died?"
My stomach dropped. Oh, fuck.
Felix was throwing his own father to the wolves. Every word out of his mouth painted Thomas as the man with the oldest, ugliest motive in the book—kill your brother, take his crown, wear it like you earned it.
But why? Why torch your last remaining ally?
Unless this wasn't strategy anymore.
Unless Felix had stopped playing to win and started playing to burn the whole house down.
"Felix, stop—" Thomas tried to interrupt, his voice rising with panic.
"Stop what?" Felix's laugh was bright and terrible. "Stop telling the truth? The more you explain, Dad, the guiltier you look. Isn't that how it works?"
"What the hell are you trying to accomplish?!" Thomas's composure finally shattered completely. His face flushed with rage as he grabbed Felix's arm. "You're leaving for Greenland tonight! Do you hear me? Tonight! Get out of my sight!"
Felix's smile didn't waver. If anything, it grew wider, more unhinged.
"Sure, I can leave tonight," he said pleasantly. "But before I go, I'd like to visit Saint's Cove one more time."
"You wouldn't dare—" Lance's voice was barely above a whisper, but it cut like a blade.
Felix turned to him, eyes glittering with malicious glee. "Why not? I'm curious. I've always wondered why the road where your mother's car went off the cliff was so... slippery. I went back there so many times afterward, and it was never—"
Lance moved.
One second he was standing beside me, the next he was on Felix, fist connecting with his cousin's jaw with a sickening crack. Felix's head snapped back, blood spraying from his nose and split lip. He stumbled but didn't fall, didn't even try to defend himself.
He just stood there, bleeding and smiling.
"Jesus Christ, Felix!" Thomas stared at his son in horror. "You've completely lost your mind—"
"Have I?" Felix wiped blood from his mouth with the back of his hand, still grinning. "Actually, Dad, you should be thanking me. This punch? I took it for you. Because what happened back then, that was all—"
He stopped himself, letting the implication hang in the air like poison gas.
"Anyway." Felix straightened his jacket, dabbing at his bleeding nose with a handkerchief. "I should get back to dinner. Poor Grandfather, still in there completely oblivious to the fact that his family is tearing itself apart."
He started walking back toward the dining room, whistling tunelessly. Then he paused at the doorway and glanced back over his shoulder.
"Oh, Lance? You're not staying at the estate tonight, are you?" His smile turned razor-sharp. "Perfect. I'll borrow your room. I've always wanted to see what the heir's quarters look like. Should be educational."
He disappeared back into the house, his laughter echoing down the hall.
I stood frozen, my hand still clutching Lance's arm. His entire body was shaking with suppressed rage, every muscle locked tight. Thomas remained in the foyer, pale and trembling, looking like a man watching his entire world collapse.
"Lance," I whispered. "We need to leave. Now."
He didn't respond. His eyes were still fixed on the doorway where Felix had vanished, and in them I saw something that terrified me more than anything else tonight.
Not just anger. Not just pain.
Murder.