Chapter 96 Give Blair Every Last Drop
Rufus didn't flinch under her blows. If anything, his arms tightened, locking her in as if he meant to fuse her to his chest.
Cecilia's fists thudded against the unyielding wall of his body, each strike only making her more desperate, more disheveled. There was no give, no mercy. She could only watch as he kicked the bedroom door open and strode toward the bed, the mattress looming like a trap.
The moment he bent, ready to throw her onto the soft expanse, something in his grip loosened—a fraction, but enough.
Now.
Survival roared through her veins. She dropped her weight hard, twisting her body, and drove her elbow into his abdomen with all the force she could muster.
Rufus grunted, the sound low and pained, his hold slackening just enough.
She wrenched herself free, slipping from his arms, tumbling backward until her spine slammed into the nightstand. The impact rattled the objects on top, sending them wobbling.
Her hand swept blindly across the surface, searching for anything she could use. Cold metal met her fingers.
A fruit knife.
It lay in the curve of a porcelain fruit plate, gleaming under the muted light.
Without thinking, Cecilia snatched it up, the blade trembling in her grip as she leveled it at him.
"Don't come any closer!"
"You touch me again, I swear I'll kill you!"
Her voice was sharp, jagged with hysteria, the kind of tone born from someone ready to drag the other down into the grave with them.
Rufus stopped.
He stared at her—curled at the edge of the bed, clutching a small knife like it was the only thing keeping her alive. She was shaking, her skin chalk-white except for the feverish flush staining her cheeks from lack of air.
She wanted him dead. He could see it. No bluff, no theatrics—just pure, lethal intent.
His tall frame froze, and for a moment, he looked almost human.
Slowly, he raised both hands in a gesture of surrender and took a single step back.
"Alright."
The word fractured in his throat, stripped of its usual weight.
"I won't touch you."
"It's my fault. I shouldn't have done this to you." His voice dropped to a murmur, almost an apology. "I won't force you into anything again."
Cecilia's grip didn't ease. Her eyes tracked every movement he made, the knife steady despite the tremor in her body.
Rufus backed away another two steps, putting what he thought was a safe distance between them.
"I just…" He hesitated, the shadows in his gaze shifting into something far more dangerous—obsession. "I just want to look at you like this."
Look at her?
The words jarred her, and then clarity crashed in, sharp and merciless.
Rufus didn't know. He had no idea she was living in another's body. He wasn't seeing "Amelia". The very idea of him believing in something so impossible was laughable.
No. He was staring through Amelia's face, seeing the ghost of the woman he had driven to her death—Cecilia.
She wasn't a person to him. She was a stand-in. A living substitute for his cheap, corrosive guilt.
The absurdity and revulsion surged higher than her fear, and Cecilia laughed. The sound was brittle, cutting through the bedroom's silence like glass underfoot, laced with scorn.
"Touching, isn't it?" Her smile twisted as tears spilled unchecked. "You don't find this pathetic performance disgusting?"
The words hit him like a strike.
"You didn't cherish her while she was alive. You tortured her until she broke. And now you're standing here, playing the grieving lover to a stranger with a similar face."
Her voice was deliberate, each syllable a hammer blow.
"Tell me, Rufus—was that girl, that ‘Cecilia,' not the most pitiful creature alive? Used like a toy while she breathed, and in death, replaced by a counterfeit for your entertainment. She was unlucky enough to ever meet you."
Her attack shredded the fragile shell of remorse he had wrapped around himself.
"You are Cecilia!" His composure shattered, his voice rising into a raw shout.
"If you weren't her, you wouldn't hate me this much!"
"Hate you?" Cecilia's laugh was cold, dismissive. "Sir, you're flattering yourself."
"I knew Cecilia. I was her friend. Of course I know what she went through."
"Every detail. Every single one."
The blood drained from his face.
He staggered, one hand catching the wall to keep himself upright.
Cecilia watched his pain without pity. She pressed forward, her words a blade.
"You dug through my life, counted every time I was abandoned."
"So tell me—didn't you bother to find out why I went to Charles?"
Rufus's mind went blank.
Why?
He had looked into Amelia's past, but jealousy and rage had blinded him to the reason she had sought Charles.
Cecilia saw the flicker of confusion and drove the knife in deeper.
"Because her ashes are locked inside that monument you built—'Eternal Cecilia.'
"Her only wish was to be buried with her grandfather. And you… you stripped that from her too.
"Rufus, who gave you that right?"
The last words tore from her throat, heavy with the bitterness of her death and the venom of her second life.
Pain and bewilderment carved deep lines into Rufus's face.
Ashes. Final wishes.
The details he had buried, now ripped open and laid bare.
He remembered.
Cecilia had left a letter, asking to rest beside Patrick. But Rufus, in his obsession, had built the Eternal Cecilia mausoleum, keeping her tethered to the Chapman family even in death.
He had thought it was love. Possession. Eternity.
It had been cruelty, one last act of domination.
"No…" His head shook violently, his chest rising and falling in jagged bursts. Breathing seemed impossible.
The shrill ring of a phone cut through the suffocating air.
Rufus's phone.
He ignored it, eyes locked on her, as if he could scrape some trace of the real Cecilia from Amelia's features.
The ringtone persisted, stubborn and relentless.
Cecilia's lip curled. "What's wrong? Afraid to answer? Worried one of your lovers might cause trouble?"
The jab hit home.
Rufus spun, yanking the phone from his pocket, answering without even glancing at the screen. His tone was a whip crack.
"What?"
On the other end, Owen's voice was tight with panic. "Mr. Chapman! The hospital called. Miss Ember is refusing food at the psychiatric ward. She says she'll die unless she sees you."
Blair.
The name drained the last flicker of conflict from Rufus's eyes. His expression hardened, cold as steel.
"Die?"
He let out a low, humorless laugh into the phone.
"Then let her."
Owen fell silent, stunned by the ice in his voice.
Rufus paused, then added words that froze the air in the room.
"Tell the hospital to inject her with whatever's left of those experimental drugs we used on Cecilia. Every last drop."