Chapter 925
“You invested in it,” Lucian replied. “Don’t confuse the two.”
Skye drove. She didn’t know where she was going. The rain hammered against the windshield of the borrowed sedan, blurring the neon lights of Sea City into streaks of red and blue. She felt like she was drowning on dry land.
She couldn’t go to the Thorne estate — Alistair was still deep in grief, and she couldn’t look him in the eye knowing what Liam had done. She couldn’t go back to the penthouse. Everything there smelled like Liam.
She drove for an hour, aimless, until her car seemed to make a decision her brain hadn’t. She pulled up before a wrought-iron gate covered in ivy.
𝖳he 𝗯𝖾𝘀𝘵 r𝘦𝖺d𝗶ոg еxрe𝗋𝘪eո𝘤е 𝘰𝗻 𝗴𝖺𝗅𝘯ov𝖾l𝘀.𝗰𝗼𝗆
The Vance Estate.
It was the only place that felt neutral. A demilitarized zone in her war-torn life.
The butler opened the door before she could knock. He took one look at her and asked no questions.
“Master Julian is in the medical wing,” he said softly, taking her wet coat. “The doctors just left.”
Skye walked through the silent house. It was filled with antiques and shadows, but it felt warm. She pushed open the heavy oak doors to the converted medical room on the ground floor.
The air inside smelled of disinfectant and saline, with the faint scent of jasmine drifting in from the garden. The rain was muffled here, distant.
Julian Vance lay in a hospital bed surrounded by monitors. His face was a map of bruises, pale and gaunt from the torture he had endured at Silas’s hands just days ago. An IV line ran into his arm. He didn’t turn his head when she entered — he was too weak.
“You shouldn’t be up,” Skye said, her voice hollow, crossing to his bedside.
“I’m not up,” Julian said, his voice a rough whisper that cracked with the effort. “I’m barely existing.” He turned his head slowly on the pillow.
He looked frail. The poison from the Architect’s gas, combined with his recent captivity, had left him gaunt, his skin pale against the white sheets. But his eyes were kind. They were the only kind thing Skye had seen all day.
He didn’t ask what had happened. He didn’t ask why she was there. He simply looked at her, and he knew.
“He hurt you,” Julian said. It wasn’t a question.
Skye sank into the chair beside the monitors, her legs giving out. “He didn’t hit me. He… he calculated me.”
“Liam is an architect of situations,” Julian said, closing his eyes briefly as a wave of pain moved through him. “He sees people as variables. It makes him a brilliant businessman. It makes him a terrible human being.”
“He let Grandpa Thorne die,” Skye whispered. Saying it aloud made it real. “To get leverage.”
Julian’s hand twitched on the sheet. A shadow passed over his face, dark and painful. “I’m sorry, Skye. I know what it is to be a pawn in the Graves family games.”