Chapter 111: Bring Her Back

"Mrs. Frost?"

Maybe because she was out in public, Victoria Frost had dressed with a little more restraint than she had the last time he’d seen her at the Frost estate. There was no fancy dress today, no easy display of sensuality wrapped in old-money taste. Instead, she wore a custom white suit with a deep V at the throat, the lines clean and expensive, the fabric fitted so well it looked poured over her rather than tailored onto her. It covered more, but it did not make her any less striking. If anything, the change made her look steadier, more mature, and somehow harder to ignore.

She turned at the sound of his voice.

There was a faint smile on her face. It should have softened her. It did not. Something in her posture, in the quiet weight of the way she looked at people, carried the kind of pressure that only came from spending years at the top without ever once having to lower herself for anyone. It did not need to be performed. It had already settled into her bones.

Her gaze moved over him once, and she caught the difference immediately.

"You got a haircut?"

Elias nodded, then pulled the car door shut behind him and slid into the seat beside her.

The cabin smelled faintly of leather and cold floral perfume. It was one of those luxury cars that muted the outside world so completely it felt less like transportation and more like being sealed inside someone else’s will.

Victoria reached over as naturally as if this were something she had the right to do and laid a hand on his head. Her fingers moved through the shorter dark hair he’d put over his usual gold, testing the softness, lingering there longer than a casual touch needed to.

After a moment, she gave her verdict.

"This looks better than the blond."

Elias lowered his head slightly to make it easier for her, obedient in a way that would have looked almost sweet on anyone who did not know him.

He said softly, "Mrs. Frost..."

Her smile deepened a little. "Didn’t you call me Aunt Victoria last time? Why did I suddenly become Mrs. Frost?"

Elias changed course without hesitation. "Then why did Aunt Victoria come to see me in person?"

Victoria withdrew her hand and looked toward the front seat. "Give it to him."

The driver did not turn around. He only passed a phone back.

Elias did not take it immediately. He glanced at Victoria first.

That tiny pause made her laugh for real. The corners of her eyes creased just slightly, and for the first time since he’d gotten into the car, the smile looked genuinely amused.

"You little thing." She shook her head. "Go on."

Only then did Elias take the phone.

A video sat paused on the screen. When he hit play, the first thing he heard was the heavy chopping roar of helicopter blades. The footage shook a little in the wind. Several people sat inside with parachute packs strapped to their backs, all of them geared up and waiting.

Victoria asked, "Do you know what they’re doing?"

"Skydiving?"

She hummed in approval. "Mm."

That answer did not clear anything up. It only made him more confused.

What did any of this have to do with her coming to him?

Then the camera shifted, and he saw a flash of silver.

Giselle Frost stood near the aircraft in a silver custom jumpsuit that caught the light every time the wind hit it. The color matched the streaked silver of her hair, which was whipping loose around her shoulders. The suit fit close enough to show the line of her body without cheapening it. She had a parachute on her back, her face as cold and unreadable as ever while she stared toward the helicopter like it was just another thing she intended to conquer.

It was obvious what the footage meant. The first group would go up, jump, and land. Then it would be her turn.

Elias understood at once.

No wonder she had not answered a single message.

She’d gone off to throw herself out of the sky.

"She hasn’t looked for death like this in a long time," Victoria said, a trace of amusement threading through her voice. "You’ve had quite an effect on her."

It could have been blame. It could have been praise. It could have been neither.

Elias could not read her cleanly, so he did not try to answer with anything reckless. He let silence hold.

After a beat, Victoria let out a soft laugh and said, "Bring her back."

She spoke as if she were asking him to retrieve a misplaced belonging, not her daughter.

"I didn’t know where she was before," she continued. "Now that I do, I’m sure you have a way to get her to come back."

The way she referred to Giselle held no obvious warmth. If someone judged by tone alone, they might have thought she would not care whether Giselle jumped or vanished.

Elias did not bother with surfaces. He cared about motive.

Whatever else Victoria Frost was, she did not want Giselle continuing something this reckless.

At the end of it, that still counted as concern.

A person with nothing to lose was dangerous. A person with something she wanted to protect was easier to understand, and easier to pressure. The moment Elias recognized that, Victoria’s threat level dropped sharply in his mind.

No matter how hard, how severe, how extreme she might be, she was still a mother.

That realization did not make him careless. It only changed the shape of the danger.

He answered with the same careful seriousness as before. "All right. I’ll bring her back."

"Good." Victoria watched him for a moment, then added with no attempt at concealment, "I heard you’re staying at the Blackwood residence now."

Elias was not surprised.

Everything about her handling of Giselle already made one thing clear. Her need for control ran deep. Anything connected to her, even by one thin thread, would eventually end up under her hand.

Outwardly, he stayed mild and compliant. "Yes."

Inside, he was cursing.

A bunch of obsessive stalkers. Every last one of them.

If this had been some ancient imperial court and he had been sitting on the throne, he would have had his personal guard drag all these lunatics out one by one and cut their heads off before breakfast.

Victoria tilted her head slightly. "How long are you planning to play house with those two girls?"

Elias almost laughed.

What a devoted mother. She had already started trying to clear the field for Giselle.

The problem was that even if he did take Serena Blackwood and Liora Voss down first, Giselle still would not be third.

Last meant last. He was a man of his word.

[ ... ]

The silence from System Theta was so pointed it might as well have been a cough.

Elias ignored it and calmly ran through his next steps for handling the Blackwood sisters. He was close to getting tired of the game anyway.

Out loud, he said nothing.

Victoria studied him, then smiled again. "They really aren’t much fun for you, are they? Not like when I was younger..."

That was enough to put him on guard.

He knew this routine too well. When a woman started bringing up her past around him, there was usually a reason, and that reason usually had very little to do with nostalgia.

For one brief second, Elias wondered whether this older woman had actually developed an interest in him.

Fortunately, Victoria did not continue. She stopped right at the edge, smiling at him as if she had seen the thought flicker across his face and enjoyed it.

"You seem like you really don’t want to see me," she said slowly.

Elias paused, then answered with a level of honesty that was only possible because it had already been wrapped in instinct and timing. "I guess I really don’t, a little."

The driver’s hands tightened on the steering wheel at once.

Who spoke to Victoria Frost like that?

Victoria herself did not look offended. If anything, she seemed curious.

"Why?"

Elias pressed his lips together as if he were a little nervous to say it. "Because you..." He looked at her, then lowered his eyes just enough. "You carry yourself too well. I never know what I’m supposed to say around you."

Victoria laughed aloud.

It was cheap flattery, the lowest kind, but coming from a boy his age, from that face, in that voice, it gained an honesty it would not have had from anyone else. Or at least it looked that way.

"What carrying myself too well?" she said. "That’s just what age looks like to someone your age."

Elias blinked, all innocence. "You look very young."

Her expression shifted into something harder to read. "That’s because I take good care of myself."

"All right." She lifted a hand and patted him lightly on the shoulder, half dismissing him, half indulging him. "Since talking to an old auntie like me makes you uncomfortable, I won’t keep putting you through it."

Elias did not argue.

He pushed the door open and stepped out of the car. The air outside felt loud after the sealed quiet inside.

Just before he shut the door, he bent slightly and tossed one last line back into the car.

"I wanted to call you my sister instead, but you wouldn’t let me."

Then he closed the door and walked away without waiting to see how it landed.

Inside the car, Victoria watched his retreating figure through the tinted glass. The smile on her face faded by degrees until only thoughtfulness remained.

After a while, she said mildly, "He knows exactly where the line is, doesn’t he?"

The driver answered at once, respectful and cautious. "Yes, ma’am."

Victoria let out a quiet breath that was almost a sigh. "A sense of advance and retreat like that is something most adults never learn." Her eyes stayed on Elias until he disappeared from view. "And he’s still so young. I really do wonder where he learned it."

A pity he was not her child.

Still, that was not a real problem.

He was a boy.

She happened to have a daughter.

They were a perfect match from the start.