Chapter 166: Chapter 166: Sister
By the time the lift opened onto the underground garage, the chocolate bar was down to its wrapper. Victor handed the empty foil back with an expression so serene it almost counted as smug.
"You’re impossible," Elias muttered, shoving the wrapper into his pocket as they crossed to the waiting car.
The ride into the city was quick, but not quick enough for Elias to save his snacks. Between Victor "evening the score" and Ashwin "just making sure they’re not poisoned," his hoard dwindled with every kilometer. Only the diet coke survived untouched, cold and sweating against his palm like the last bastion of his autonomy.
By the time the car slid to a stop outside the restaurant, Elias was glaring at the empty chip bag on Ashwin’s lap. "You’re both parasites," he said flatly. "If Robert ever joins in, I’m bringing a lunchbox with a padlock."
Ashwin’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. "Relax. Robert doesn’t like junk food," he said. "You’re safe on that front."
Victor, already unbuttoning his jacket as the door opened, glanced over with a faint glint of amusement. "Safe is a relative term," he murmured. "Now get out. Reservation’s waiting."
Elias climbed out after him, blinking at the façade of the restaurant, all glass and stone and a discreet, gilt sign, and tried to square his sleep-deprived brain with the fact that he was being frog-marched from a boardroom into fine dining at two in the afternoon.
"Kidnapped at dawn, ambushed at noon, dinner at dusk," he muttered under his breath. "And not a single snack left. Perfect."
Victor’s hand brushed the small of his back again, steering him toward the door with unhurried pressure. "You’ll live," he said softly. "I’ll feed you properly now."
Ashwin fell in behind them, still chewing on the last chip. "See?" he murmured to Elias. "Totally worth it."
Elias shot him a look over his shoulder. "I’m billing both of you for emotional damages," he said, but the corner of his mouth twitched upward as he followed Victor inside.
A young host in a black waistcoat met them at the door, all smiles and professional deference. "Mr. Numen, Mr. Clarke," he said with a little bow, "your table is ready." He ushered them through a corridor lined with wine racks and soft lighting into the main dining room, where glass walls framed the skyline and muted music hummed beneath the clink of cutlery.
Victor’s hand stayed at the small of Elias’s back, steering him past the tables with unhurried authority. Ashwin peeled off to a discreet distance, giving them the illusion of privacy.
They’d barely made it halfway across the room when the hush broke.
A sharp, petulant voice rose above the murmur of diners. "I told you three times I can’t eat this! Do you people not understand what a restricted diet means?" The clatter of cutlery followed. "Is this how you treat paying patrons?"
Elias turned his head just enough to see. At a corner table a woman in a pale designer dress was half out of her chair, dark hair pinned in an elaborate knot, cheeks flushed with indignation. Two waiters hovered at a safe distance with a replacement plate, faces fixed in careful neutrality. Her bump was visible now beneath the silk; she was unmistakably pregnant and just as unmistakably furious.
Recognition landed like a small shock. Anna Clarke Adler.
His older sister looked every inch the rich wife making a fuss over nothing, eyes flashing as she gestured at the food. The people at the surrounding tables were studiously pretending not to watch.
And then she saw them, her eyes locking onto Elias. The fury on her face smoothed instantly into something bright and polished. "Elias!" she exclaimed, her voice rising above the room with the practiced sweetness of a society hostess. "And... oh... Mr. Numen?" Her gaze flicked over Victor, sizing him up with open curiosity. "What a surprise. You won’t believe how they’re treating me."
She pressed a hand to her stomach for emphasis, the picture of injured dignity. "It’s outrageous. I’ve told them three times..."
Elias only raised one brow, letting the chocolate-warm smell of the restaurant wash over him. For a heartbeat the noise and the stares blurred; all he could see was Anna as she had been when she and the rest of the family had left him with nothing. Some things never change, he thought.
Instead of answering, he shifted a fraction closer to Victor, letting the burgundy sleeve brush his own. "Aren’t we busy?" he murmured, tilting his head toward the host as if they were in the middle of a private conversation. He didn’t even glance at Anna again.
Victor’s thumb moved in a slow, deliberate circle at the small of his back, a wordless praise for the gesture. His crimson eyes glinted with a flicker of something that looked a lot like pride. In public, Elias was not a discarded brother but a partner at his side, and Victor loved it.
Anna’s smile tightened by a hair when Elias didn’t leap to her aid. "Elias?" she tried again, stepping out from behind her chair, voice pitching upward with false brightness. "You’ll help me, won’t you? You always were so good at smoothing things over..."
Victor’s gaze slid to her, cool and unreadable, before returning to Elias. "Table’s ready," he murmured, still low and private. "Shall we?"
Elias adjusted his grip on the diet coke the way someone else might adjust a cufflink, eyes on Victor rather than his sister. "Lead on," he said softly. "I’m starving."
Victor’s mouth curved, not a smile exactly, but something that lived in the corner of his eyes, and he guided him past Anna’s table without a word. The host moved quickly ahead, parting the path between them and the stares.
Anna’s voice, sugary-sweet a heartbeat ago, sharpened. "Elias Clarke!" she called, louder than before. Heads turned. "Are you going to pretend you don’t know me? Your own sister? I’m standing here, pregnant, being humiliated, and you just walk past?"
The waiters froze. Someone at a nearby table set down a glass with a soft clink. Even Ashwin, trailing at a polite distance, glanced back once over his shoulder.
Elias kept walking, shoulders loose, but inside something coiled. ’Always the same game,’ he thought. ’She would use anyone to get what she wants.’
Anna stepped out fully from behind her chair, voice rising again. "Elias!" she snapped, the mask cracking. "Stop. I’m talking to you!"