Chapter 534

Chapter 534

Harold's question, murmured so low it barely carried, pierced the brittle silence hanging over the backyard like a needle through skin.

And in an instant, every ounce of that invisible, crushing pressure shifted squarely onto Beatrice.

The faintest crease flickered between her brows. Her heart slammed against her ribs.

Her mind was running at full speed, the scales tipping wildly back and forth.

Stay quiet?

Zoey's intentions couldn't have been clearer.

Without the answer she wanted, neither Beatrice nor Harold was walking out of the Garcia Villa today.

The bombshell Scarlett had just dropped might buy them a moment — maybe even nudge Zoey into promising to let Harold go — but only if Harold gave up the people behind him.

What Zoey wanted were names. Leads. Something she could use to cut the problem out at the root. Not empty words.

Without that, any promise to release them was worth nothing. Just air.

And the two of them would most likely be dealt with in ways far quieter, and far crueler.

Talk?

That was an even faster road to death.

She knew the Viper organization's rules better than anyone.

Betray them — expose a contact method, give up even one key player — and what waited for her wasn't just death. It was an endless hunt. Torment that made death look like mercy.

Harold might be nothing more than a pawn on the outer edges, someone who barely knew anything. But even one name. One safe house. That was enough for Viper to follow the thread back and trace it straight to her — to the one who'd pushed Harold to talk.

And when that happened, Zoey wouldn't even need to lift a finger. Viper would make sure both of them disappeared without a trace.

But there was something even more dangerous than that.

If Harold opened his mouth, and Zoey and Alexander started pulling on the Viper thread — with their resources, their reach — it was only a matter of time before they uncovered the real connection between Beatrice and the organization. And once they did, they'd dig deeper. They'd find out who she really was.

They'd find out she was Cleo.

That was the one thing she couldn't survive.

To Beatrice, what terrified her more than dying was losing everything she had now — being stripped back down to nothing, or worse, dragged somewhere even darker than where she'd started.

Either way, it felt like a dead end.

The seconds ticked by in the silence, each one dragging a blade across her nerves.

She could feel Zoey's gaze — razor-sharp, locked onto her face, cataloguing every flicker of expression she couldn't quite hide.

Alexander wasn't watching her directly, but his presence pressed down on the space around her like something physical, making it hard to draw a full breath.

Scarlett stood nearby, wringing her fingers, the urgency and worry in her eyes close to spilling over.

And Mason — his face had gone pale and tight, his gaze heavy as it moved over her. The suspicion churning behind his eyes made her stomach drop.

Harold, still face-down on the ground, had started to panic. Beatrice wasn't answering. The air felt wrong in a way he couldn't quite name, and Zoey's patience seemed to be burning down fast.

He couldn't figure out what Beatrice was holding back. Could giving up one name really be worse than dying here?

Then the silence broke.

Scarlett couldn't take it anymore.

She wasn't going to let Beatrice get backed into a corner like this. She wasn't going to let her die inside the Garcia Villa.

Without stopping to think it through, she turned to Harold and blurted it out:

"Harold — was it Peter who came to you first? Did he approach you and offer to set the whole thing up — you put up the money, he'd handle the crew, and together you'd go after Mr. Garcia?!"

The words came out in a rush, the intent barely even veiled.

Throw it on Peter. The same Peter she'd already dangled in front of everyone.

If the man could steal a body, hiring a hit wasn't much of a stretch. And since Peter's identity was murky and his whereabouts impossible to pin down, he made a perfect target. It would be enough to hold Zoey off, and enough to keep Harold and Beatrice alive a little longer.

Harold blinked.

Peter?

He had no idea who that was.

But he wasn't slow. He caught the shape of what Scarlett was doing almost immediately — this Peter was a decoy she'd just manufactured, someone with enough of a reputation to make a convincing fall guy.

He ran with it.

"Yeah — Peter. He's the one who reached out to me. Said he had access to the best in the business. All I had to do was cover the cost, and he'd take care of the rest." Harold's voice cracked slightly. "He was going to help me... get rid of Alexander."

"I wasn't thinking straight. I was jealous. I was jealous that Alexander had Zoey, and I just — I made a stupid call, and I said yes."

Zoey listened.

The cold curve at the corner of her mouth stretched slowly wider, then settled into something quieter — a soft, contemptuous exhale.

"Hm."

She tilted her head, looking down at Harold. The chill in her eyes could have frosted glass.

"Harold. Do you have any idea how far you're reaching right now?"

"Peter runs at the top of an international medical organization. If he had a reason to go after Alexander, he'd have a dozen ways to do it cleanly." Her voice stayed level, unhurried. "So why would a man like that take the long way around — digging up someone like you, handing you a plan, making first contact? You think you were worth his time?"

Each word landed clean and precise, until the whole story was in pieces on the ground.

"You couldn't stand him?" Zoey stepped forward — just half a step — and leaned down slightly, her eyes finding Harold's, watching the panic flicker behind the lie. Her voice dropped, each syllable carved out slow and deliberate. "I warned you. Stay away from Alexander. He is my line. He is my life. And you didn't just cross that line in your head — you acted on it—"

She straightened.

The air around her changed.

"So I'm going to take yours."

She said it like she was reading a closing statement. No heat. No rage. Just certainty.

That was the thing that made it so much worse.

Beatrice felt something inside her go cold and sink.

Just as she'd feared. The cover story hadn't held for a second. Zoey had seen straight through it, and now her attention had swung back to Harold, the intent to kill sitting plain on her face and making no effort to hide.

No.

Harold couldn't die. Not yet.

Not at Zoey's hands. And especially not in front of her.

If Harold died inside the Garcia Villa, would the Rogers family end up pinning that on her? Her footing as a Grace was already shaky enough. If both Viper and the Rogers family started circling her at the same time, she'd have nothing left to stand on.

Harold alive was still useful. If Viper ever came knocking, she could push him forward. Or lean on whatever leverage the Rogers name still carried to buy herself a little room.

The calculation happened in a flash. Beatrice made her move.

"Ms. King." She stepped forward, putting herself between Zoey and Harold, and softened her voice into something close to a plea. "Please. Take a breath. Harold was used. He's not smart, he doesn't think before he acts — I've already torn into him for it."

As she spoke, she drove her thumbnail hard into her own thigh, just enough to sting — just enough to coax a shimmer of tears to the edge of her eyes without letting them fall.

"Ms. King — given that the Grace family and the Garcia family are in the middle of a joint project right now — could you find it in you to show a little mercy? Leave him breathing. That's all I'm asking."

She believed she'd done everything right. Low posture. Soft tone. She'd even played the partnership card — twice. Zoey could think whatever she liked about Beatrice personally, but surely she'd give some ground for the Grace family's sake. For the project's sake.

And especially for Clea.

Zoey's feelings toward Clea had always seemed a little different. A little warmer.

What came back hit her like an open hand across the face.

"I can make room. But not for you, Beatrice."

A beat. Then, with the lightness of something already decided:

"For Clea."

The expression on Beatrice's face went still. The tears she'd been carefully holding in place dried up where they sat.

A surge of humiliation and fury rushed straight to her head, burning across her cheeks, filling her ears with a low, flat ring.

Zoey had said it out loud. In front of everyone. The only reason she'd even consider it was Clea — not Beatrice. As if Beatrice on her own wasn't worth the consideration. As if she didn't even clear the bar for someone whose face you'd bother saving.

She was trembling. Her nails were digging into her palm so hard she could feel the skin giving way.

She wanted to scream. Wanted to claw that perfectly composed, unreadable expression right off Zoey's face.

But then Alexander's gaze moved across her — brief, cool, indifferent — and every ugly word she'd been about to let loose shriveled before it reached her tongue.

She didn't dare.

In front of Alexander, she didn't even have the right to fall apart.

The humiliation swallowed her whole. The helplessness sat on top of it.

She opened her mouth. What came out was dry and thin, pushed through gritted teeth:

"Does Ms. King make a habit of not giving anyone face?"

There was no hiding the bitterness in it. Or the wounded pride.

Zoey's expression didn't shift at all.

"'Face,'" she said simply, "is something you give to people."

The rest went unspoken.

Beatrice wasn't people.