CHAPTER 84: CHAPTER 84: MAKE HIM SUFFER

"Do you want to see him?"

Elias stared at the edge of the tray, at the way the jam on the toast had begun to bleed into the bread, like it too had been caught off guard by the intrusion. The velvet throw shifted slightly with the slow rise of his chest as he inhaled, then held it.

Victor was still sprawled into his chair with the dignity of sin, dressed in designer clothes. He didn’t say anything. He was waiting for Elias to make his decision.

Elias set the coffee down with deliberate care. His fingers trembled only once, and even then, only slightly. He could’ve lied. Could’ve made a joke. But when he finally looked up, something in his face had cracked clean down the center.

"No. Why would I want to see a parent that disowned me?"

Adam, professional to the last breath in front of Victor, shifted his weight almost imperceptibly. There were things in this house that answered to silence more than sound.

Victor, for his part, didn’t flinch. He watched Elias with the stillness of a man used to holding godhood in one hand and vengeance in the other. But beneath that tailored composure, something narrowed in his gaze, something sharp, possessive, and dangerously quiet.

Elias continued, voice as flat as the porcelain in front of him. "He said I wasn’t dominant. That I wasn’t obedient. That I was born wrong and just stubborn enough to make it worse."

His fingers curled into the throw now, the velvet catching on his nails.

"I don’t need closure," he said, like a verdict. "I already survived. I already made it out. What could he possibly say now?" He paused, realizing something. "Does he believe that you are not here?"

Victor smiled softly, but his eyes, his damn crimson eyes, were filled with nothing but void. "I’ve finished my business in less than two days; he probably had information from Samael that I’m still away on the business trip."

Elias’s mouth twitched in disgust. "So he thought he’d come here, play concerned father, and corner me before you returned?"

Victor didn’t answer at first. The silence coiled around him like smoke, thick with the weight of something ancient and amused.

Then, softly, too softly, he said, "Let him believe I’m still gone. It makes the next part more interesting."

Elias exhaled through his nose, the sound more weary than bitter. "I don’t want a scene."

Victor crouched beside the chaise, resting one forearm lazily along the carved armrest, his other hand reaching to tilt Elias’s chin toward him, just enough to remind him who was watching.

"Then there won’t be one," he murmured. "Adam’s very good at making men regret things quietly."

Elias studied him. The slight smile. The calm. The certainty in every syllable. And underneath all of it, the dangerous stillness of someone who could break kingdoms and had simply chosen, for now, to break breakfast instead.

Victor’s fingers brushed along the line of Elias’s jaw. "I know. But why should you have to?" He leaned in and placed a soft kiss on Elias’s temple. "Let me make him suffer; he’s afraid of me. He doesn’t think I’m the god he served for half his life."

Elias didn’t pull away. But his eyes flicked up, slowly, locking with Victor’s in a way that cut cleaner than any blade.

"He should be," Elias said.

Victor’s smile, slight and curved with something old and wicked, was the kind of smile that kingdoms feared.

"Adam," he said softly, gaze never leaving Elias. "Tell the guards to let the man in."

Adam inclined his head, silent as always, and vanished through the greenhouse doors like smoke disappearing down a corridor.

Elias exhaled slowly, watching Victor as though trying to decide whether to laugh or curse.

"I thought you said there wouldn’t be a scene."

Victor didn’t move, but the corner of his mouth lifted again, lazy and blasphemous. "I lied."

Elias let out a breath that could’ve been laughter if it didn’t taste so much like dread. "Of course you did."

Victor rose to his full height with the kind of slow, unhurried grace that made it impossible to remember he’d been asking Elias’s help to control his body just days ago. He adjusted the cuffs of his shirt like he had nothing better to do than devastate someone’s worldview before lunch.

He looked too healthy. Too whole. Too calm.

Elias hated how good it felt to see him that way and that he was out of the wheelchair because of him.

"He’s still in the car, you know," Elias said, voice low. "Probably fixing his sleeves and rehearsing how to look surprised when I cry."

Victor gave him a thoughtful look, one hand braced on the armrest like he meant to lean closer again. "Will you cry?"

Elias narrowed his eyes. "Not for him."

"Good." Victor’s gaze lingered a moment longer, then drifted toward the greenhouse entrance. "Let him have his illusions. Let him imagine he’s walking into a room with a wounded child and not the mate of a god."

The distant sound of the gates opening gave way to the crunch of gravel under polished tires, then the low purr of an engine shutting off. Elias didn’t move. Victor poured more coffee like they were expecting a guest they barely remembered inviting.

A moment later, footsteps echoed outside the greenhouse doors. Firm. Familiar.

"You’re really going to make him see you first?" Elias asked, not turning.

Victor’s smirk curved sharper. "Elias," he said, as if that was answer enough. "Of course I am."

And then the door opened.

Jonathan Clarke stepped in like a man preparing for a battlefield but hoping for a hospital. His eyes scanned the room with cautious expectation, landing first on Elias, lounging in a gold-trimmed chaise, draped in deep velvet and early morning light, dressed lightly in pajamas and his round glasses catching the morning light when he moved his head.

Then Jonathan’s gaze caught on Victor.

And everything stopped.