Chapter 54 #3
“Gerard is lucky he’s already dead,” Thorn muttered, his voice so low Rell barely caught the words.
For once Rell actually agreed with the bastard. His head shook back and forth, trying to knock loose the half-formed images his mind had created. Instead, he focused on the memory of Gerard’s corpse—face destroyed beyond recognition, the sick fuck’s junk ripped clean off his body.
When he looked at Elora, her skin had gone paper-white, her eyes unfocused and glassy.
Then Thorn just had to add, “And if it was someone else—” His gaze shifted back to Rell.
Florence set the dish down carefully and straightened her spine. “This will be a setback,” she interrupted, her voice clinically detached. “She’ll need recovery time before we can truly begin with your experiment.”
Thorn didn’t answer right away. Just stood there. The air in the lab got so thick with his quiet rage that Rell could practically taste it. He’d seen guys like this before—that eerie calm right before they snapped and tore everything apart.
“Give her the damn potion,” Thorn finally said, each word precise and controlled. He turned toward the door, his movements stiff. “I have arrangements to make.” Then he was gone.
Elora swayed on the gurney, her face a sickly gray-green. She looked seconds away from vomiting or collapsing—possibly both. Rell grabbed her arms to keep her steady.
Florence turned toward them slowly. A smile spread across her face. “She’s pregnant.”
Rell’s fingers dug into Elora’s flesh without him meaning to. “What the hell are you grinning about?!”
“The test doesn’t lie, and Thorn knows it.” Florence held up a vial of blood. “But he doesn’t know that that wasn’t her blood.”
Elora made a small, broken sound beside him. “But am I—”
Florence mixed blood from the vial in her hand labeled ‘ Elora’ with the clear stuff from before. The result went black as pitch. “Nope.”
Rell felt Elora’s weight shift under his hand—not standing, not sitting, just… folding inward a fraction, as if her spine had forgotten how to hold itself upright.
His fingers curled tighter. Rage bubbled up inside him, hot and sudden as lava. He wanted to hit Florence. Not just for the deception, but for the smug look on her face, like her using the sick shit that happened to Elora was just a genius move to further their plan.
“You could have warned us,” he growled, stepping toward her.
Florence’s smile faltered. She set the vials down with care, as if sudden movements might shatter something fragile in the room.
“This wasn’t my plan,” she said quietly. “Not until Elora said she hadn’t bled. Then I saw an opening.” She stepped closer, her voice lowering. “There wasn’t time to explain. Thorn was already recalculating.”
Rell scoffed.
Florence ignored him. Her attention stayed fixed on Elora—who hadn’t moved, hadn’t spoken, hadn’t even looked at the vials again.
“I’m sorry,” Florence said, placing a hand on Elora’s shoulder.
Elora flinched.
It was small. Barely there. But Rell felt it — a sharp, involuntary recoil, gone as quickly as it came.
Florence hesitated, then continued anyway.
“This buys us time,” she said. “Thorn believes I’ll terminate the pregnancy. That gives you weeks of recovery. Weeks where he won’t touch you. Weeks where I can redirect him back to the original plan.”
He watched Elora’s face, expecting—hoping for—the same fury that was coursing through his veins.
Instead, she inhaled and nodded once.
“It gives us time,” She didn’t look at Florence. Didn’t look at him. Her gaze stayed fixed somewhere on the ground, unfocused, as if she were bracing against something only she could feel.
“Florence just convinced Thorn you’re carrying another man’s child. A man who assaulted you. And you’re fine with that?” Rell dragged fingers through his hair, leaving furrows like a man trying to claw his way out of his own thoughts, pacing the short distance between the gurney and the workbench.
She slid off the gurney, legs wobbling for a moment before she steadied herself. “I don’t like it either, but we need time.”
Rell swallowed whatever nasty thing was about to come out of his mouth.
His chest felt squeezed, like someone had wrapped a damn python around his ribs.
It wasn’t Elora he wanted to tear into—it was Florence, Thorn, this whole screwed-up mess they’d walked right into with their eyes wide open.
But watching Elora just roll over and take this latest bit of bullshit like it was nothing... that stung worse than he’d expected.
Florence cleared her throat. “We should continue this discussion elsewhere. Thorn will expect me to administer the termination potion.” She selected a small vial of amber liquid from the shelf.
“This is harmless—just a mild sedative with some herbs that will cause minor cramping. Enough to convince him the procedure was completed.”
Their deceptions were already becoming a house of cards, each new lie propping up the ones before it. Rell wondered how high they could build before the whole structure came crashing down around them.