Chapter 234 Are you hungry?😂

Chapter 234 Are you hungry?😂
The towering stacks of brightly colored party hats, inflatable dinosaur decorations, and a catastrophically large catalog of superhero-themed cakes currently consumed half the dining room table.

Elisa tapped her pen against her chin, squinting at a sample menu. "Okay, so the mini-slider station is locked in, but I am legally vetoing a bounce house inside the formal living room. I value our antiques."

When no response came, she looked up.

Ridge was standing by the edge of the table, his tailored suit jacket slung over one broad shoulder, checking his watch with a look of mild, distracted preoccupation.

"Did you hear a single word I just said, or are you mentally firing the superhero entertainer already?" Elisa asked, raising an eyebrow with an amused, half-teasing smile.

Ridge looked up, offering a smooth, completely unreadable grin. "I heard every word, sweetheart. But I need to run downtown for a quick pit stop. Just a few loose ends to fix at the office, and I'll be right back before you can finish arguing with the party planner."

Elisa narrowed her eyes playfully. "At seven o'clock at night? What kind of corporate emergency requires the great Ridge Lockhart to visit his office after hours?"

"Just signing off on some real estate acquisitions," Ridge lied with effortless grace, stepping over to press a quick, lingering kiss to her forehead. "Don't burn the house down while I'm gone, and definitely don't let Andrew talk you into hiring a live Tyrannosaurus Rex for the lawn."

"No promises," Elisa laughed, swatting him away lightly. "Hurry back. The kid has been practicing his birthday karate chops all afternoon and I'm running out of patience."

Ridge gave a crisp nod, turned on his heel, and strode out of the room. The moment the double front doors clicked shut behind him, the relaxed, domestic facade vanished completely.

He didn't get into his standard town car. Instead, he walked briskly toward the secure subterranean parking bay of the estate, where his private security detail had already prepped a matte-black, unplated SUV.

He slipped into the driver’s seat, pulled his encrypted satellite phone from his pocket, and dialed a single, direct extension.

It picked up on the first ring.

"Boss," Matteo’s gravelly voice rumbled through the speaker.

"Tell the cleaning crew to prep the basement archive level at the downtown office," Ridge commanded, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp, arctic register that left zero room for argument. "We have an uninvited rat trying to burrow into our foundation, and it’s time to show him how we handle pests who write bad letters about an eight-year-old's family."

"Understood," Matteo replied, a cold, dark satisfaction bleeding through the line. "We'll have the tea ready when he arrives."

Ridge hung up, threw the SUV into reverse, and tore out of the underground garage into the cool night air. Felix wanted to play hide-and-seek with the past? Ridge was about to show him that in the Lockhart world, the past wasn't buried—it was waiting with a loaded gun.

The flickering night sign of L’Aura, a dimly lit, high-end Italian restaurant tucked away in the most exclusive corner of downtown, hummed with a low, agonizing buzz. The establishment was entirely empty tonight, stripped of its usual bustling crowd of socialites and politicians. Ridge had bought out the entire floor, ensuring absolute privacy for an encounter that required zero witnesses and zero interruptions.

He sat alone at a corner table draped in heavy white linen, a single amber candle casting long, dancing shadows across his chiseled, impassive face. His dark overcoat was unbuttoned, his posture rigid and composed, like a executioner waiting for his final appointment of the evening.

Moments earlier, before stepping inside, Ridge had given explicit, unyielding instructions to the shadow detail of security operatives lurking in the perimeter alleys: Stay back. Keep out of sight. I want him to walk through those doors believing he holds all the cards.

The heavy brass-trimmed glass door swung open with a soft squeak.

Felix stepped into the dining room, looking around with a wide, greasy, self-satisfied grin plastered across his face. He wore a cheap, ill-fitting tweed jacket that smelled faintly of stale tobacco and cheap cologne, walking with the bouncy, swaggering gait of a man who thought he had just stumbled onto a winning lottery ticket.

"Well, well, well," Felix chuckled, loud and abrasive in the quiet room, sliding into the chair opposite Ridge without waiting for an invitation. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the crisp white tablecloth. "Look at the great Ridge Lockhart, dining all by his lonesome. I must say, I'm honored you took my little note so seriously. Though, cutting off my burner phone number was a bit rude, don't you think?"

Ridge didn't blink. He didn't offer a smile, a handshake, or even a basic nod of acknowledgment. His dark, piercing eyes locked onto Felix with the terrifying stillness of a predator staring down a field mouse.

"Go straight to the point, Felix," Ridge said, his voice dropping into a low, arctic register that instantly wiped the smirk off Felix's face. "I have an eight-year-old son waiting at home who needs help planning a superhero-themed birthday party, and listening to you breathe is testing my patience."

Felix’s smile twitched, faltering for a brief second before he quickly recovered, leaning back and trying to reassert his imaginary dominance. He adjusted his collar, giving a theatrical scoff.

"Straight to the point? Fine. Let's talk about legacy, Lockhart," Felix sneered, his tone dripping with venomous self-righteousness. "Just three years…barely three short years and Amanda's corpse isn't even cold in the ground yet, and you've already replaced her. You've got a  new red-headed bride, and a brand-new baby playing house in the wreckage of my sister's memory. Does she even know how Amanda died, Ridge? Or did you gloss over the fine print of that convenient little plane crash?"

The air in the restaurant plummeted by ten degrees. The flame of the candle flickered and nearly died.

Ridge stared at him across the table, his expression completely unreadable. Then, with excruciating slowness, he tilted his head.

"Are you hungry, Felix?" Ridge asked smoothly.

Felix blinked, his jaw dropping halfway to his chest. The carefully rehearsed, dramatic blackmail speech he had practiced in front of his bathroom mirror for three days completely derailed, smashing into a wall of utter confusion.

"W—what?" Felix stammered, his bravado instantly evaporating. "Hungry? What kind of stupid question is that? I didn't come here for a three-course meal, Lockhart! I came here to talk about—"

"I asked if you were hungry," Ridge repeated, his voice dangerously soft. He reached down beside his chair, lifted a heavy, thick canvas bank bag stamped with a federal reserve seal, and dropped it onto the center of the table with a dull, bone-rattling thud. The sheer weight of the heavy stacks of hundred-dollar bills inside caused the table to shudder slightly. 

"Because you look like a stray dog that hasn't eaten a decent meal since you crawled out of whatever gutter you've been hiding in."

Felix’s eyes bulged. He stared at the canvas bag, then up at Ridge, his tongue suddenly feeling like dry sandpaper in his mouth. Complete, absolute silence filled the room, broken only by the hum of the sign outside.

"I... uh..." Felix mumbled, his arrogant swagger crumbling into pathetic, stammering nonsense. He ran a sweaty hand through his thinning hair, his eyes darting frantically toward the heavy bag of cash. "I mean... you know... principles and... family honor... it's not really about food, it's about... well..."

"It's about money," Ridge finished for him, his voice flat, devoid of any human warmth. "It's always been about money with you, Felix. You're a parasite looking for a host."

Ridge slid the heavy canvas bag across the table until it rested right against Felix’s trembling fingertips.

"Take it," Ridge instructed quietly. "Take every last cent of it. It's more cash than you've ever seen in your miserable life. And when you walk out those doors tonight, you are going to get in your car, drive out of this state, and keep driving until the ocean stops you. You are going to disappear into thin air, and you are never, ever going to look back."

Felix’s fingers twitched, hovering over the zipper of the bag. Greed instantly overrode whatever shred of human dignity he had left. He unzipped the bag just an inch, catching the blinding, beautiful flash of stacked green Benjamin Franklins inside. His breathing hitched.

"And... and if I don't?" Felix whispered, a pathetic, nervous tremor shaking his voice.

Ridge slowly leaned forward across the table, his dark eyes burning with a terrifying, apocalyptic intensity that made Felix instinctively shrink back into his chair.

"If I ever see your face again," Ridge whispered, each word dropping like a lead weight, "I won't call my men. I won't negotiate. I won't ask questions. I will pull a gun, look you dead in the eye, and put a bullet straight through your skull before your body even hits the pavement."

Felix swallowed hard, his throat clicking audibly. He gripped the straps of the heavy canvas bag with both hands, pulling it frantically into his lap as if he feared Ridge might snatch it back. Slowly, his legs shaking beneath the table, Felix pushed himself up from the chair.

He didn't say thank you. Men like Felix didn't know how to express gratitude; they only knew how to take. He backed away from the table, clutching the bag of cash to his chest like a mother shielding an infant, his eyes locked nervously onto Ridge’s motionless form.

He reached the heavy glass front door, his hand trembling as he wrapped his fingers around the brass handle. He pushed it open, letting in a sudden, cold gust of night wind from the street.

He paused.

He turned his head back one last time, a dark, desperate, malicious urge compelling him to throw one final stone into the water just to see if the ice would break.

"Do you think Amanda is happy with you?" Felix spat out into the empty room, a twisted, spiteful grin crossing his face.

Before the words had even finished vibrating against the restaurant walls,before Ridge could blink, before he could stand up, before he could draw a single breath to answer, Felix slipped backward through the door and vanished completely into the dark, foggy night.

The heavy glass door clicked shut behind him, leaving Ridge sitting alone in the silence, the flickering candle casting a long, unyielding shadow across an empty table.