Chapter 193
Beau might have been better off staying silent, but the moment he spoke, Niamh covered her face in frustration.
That idiot! She barely stopped herself from cursing aloud.
His hasty denial was as obvious as a guilty thief declaring Immocence before being accused. Finnegan stepped toward Bean as his towering presence cast a shadow over the small boy. Beau looked up and felt as if a mountain was about to crush him.
“Why are you so sure there’s no one down there?”
He couldn’t meet Finnegan’s gaze, and his frail shoulders trembled uncontrollably. He stood frozen like a tiny shrimp caught in a beam of light. His mind was blank, unable to form a single word.
“What are you hiding?” Finnegan’s sharp instinets immediately sensed something was off
“Daddy!” Beau wailed in terror and darted behind Harvey, seeking refuge.
Harvey’s face remained ice–cold. He, too, realized his son was lying. Meanwhile, the plainclothes security had already secured the safety ropes and swiftly descended the slope along with Finnegan,
Their movements were agile, almost like spiders as they navigated the rugged terrain with ease. Finnegan pushed through the dense underbrush.
Elara looked up when she heard the rustling. The moment she saw Finnegan, relief washed over her face.
“Finn!” Earlier, she had felt her phone vibrating. However, both her hands were gripping onto the steep rock face, making it impossible to answer.
Still, she had faith in Finnegan’s sharp sense of crisis. If she and Xavier were delayed in returning to camp, he would surely act.
“Mr. Xavier!”
The security team spotted Xavier and immediately fastened a safety harness around him. But Xavier clutched onto Elara’s sleeve, while his stubborn gaze silently pleaded for them to save her first.
Elara reassured him gently, “Xav, don’t worry. With so many people here to help, we’ll go up together.”
She handed Xavier over to the plainclothes security team while Finnegan secured a safety harness around her. With Finnegan’s help, Elara climbed up the slope, collapsing onto the ground as she gasped for air.
When faced with a crisis, adrenaline would surge, unleashing immense energy that pushed a person to overcome fear. But once the danger had passed, exhaustion swept over her like a crashing wave.
Loose strands of dust–covered hair clung to her face, and her clothes were speckled with bits of leaves and tiny thorns.
“What were you doing down there?” The one questioning her was Harvey.
She ignored him as her gaze locked onto Niamh, who was seated on a stretcher. Elara’s black–and–white eyes were as cold as still water. She picked up a rock from the ground without hesitation, stood up sharply, and hurled it at Niamh!
“Ah!” Niamh shrieked, instinctively raising her arms to shield her head.
Harvey reacted instantly, stepping in front of her and catching the rock mid–air with ease.
“Are you out of your mind?” he snarled, his usually composed eyes blazing with fury as a clear warning flashed
through them.
Elara’s cracked lips curled into a mocking smirk. “I’m siroply returning the favor. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth!”
Harvey tossed the rock aside, his chiseled features hardening: “Can you stop making
Elara laughed coldly. “Why don’t you ask me how I ended up down there?”
His expression remained icy, yet his voice was even colder. “I don’t care how you fell”
The smirk on Elara’s pale face deepened. “Because you already know. You know damn well that Niamh had something to do with Xavier and me falling down that slope. That’s why you’re avoiding the questi
“After all, you’ve been indulging her all along.”
Her words pierced through Harvey’s carefully constructed armor. Her voice was sharp as an arrow aimed straight at his heart.
“Rather than calling it affection, it’s more accurate to say Niamh is nothing more than a convenient blade in your hand
“There are things you wouldn’t lower yourself to do, but she eagerly does them for you, bending over backward just to please you. And since you benefit from it, you conveniently turn a blind eye to her crossing the line.
Elara laid his hypocrisy bare with brutal honesty. “The moment you realized Xavier was down there too, your first instinct wasn’t to ask how he fell. It was to think of a way to cover it up to avoid provoking Leonard.”
