Chapter 137: Elora’s Second Proposition [I]
Chapter 137: Elora’s Second Proposition [I]
He quickly stood up from the couch, walking over to the large glass window overlooking the rainy Silverleaf street below.
He pulled the heavy blind aside with two fingers.
Sure enough, idling directly on the rain-slicked curb outside his building, was a black supercar.
The rain seemed to physically repel off its chassis, sliding away before it even touched the paint, indicating a high-tier hydrophobic mana-coating.
The engine wasn’t making a sound, but the dense mana signature radiating from its core was unmistakable.
She hadn’t just called him. She had driven to his home, parked outside, and waited for him to pick up!
"Hurry up, Graves. It’s raining, and I hate waiting in residential zones..." Elora ordered, she was seriously unapologetic about tracking his address.
Click!
She hung up on him.
Silas slowly lowered the phone from his ear, staring at the screen. He locked the device, shoving it deep into his pocket.
He turned around, crossing his arms over his chest, and looked down at the couch.
Lia was slowly emerging from the yellow fabric of her hoodie. She peeked out, looking at him with wide, guilty brown eyes.
"Why?" Silas asked.
"I was just looking," Lia mumbled, shifting her weight defensively on the cushions. "You left your phone on the bed so I just took it and opened it..."
"How did you even know my password?" Silas interrupted with his brow furrowing.
He couldn’t be that lacking in security.
Lia rolled her eyes, scoffing quietly. "You are not being original about it at all, Big brother. It was my birthday."
Silas paused.
He opened his mouth to argue, realized she was correct, and closed it again.
"Fuck," Silas cursed under his breath, dragging a hand down his face.
Lia immediately gasped, pointing an accusing finger at him.
"Hey! You shouldn’t be speaking like that in front of a little girl such as myself! You’re supposed to be a good role model!"
Silas slowly turned his head, side-eying the eleven-year-old street thief who had just hacked his phone, bypassed a lock and sexually harassed a politician’s daughter too...
"You lost the right to play the ’innocent little girl’ card about ten minutes ago," Silas told her dryly.
He stood up straight, stretching his broad shoulders.
He felt the muscles of his physique pull against the dark canvas of his shirt.
He needed to get moving. If he kept Elora waiting outside in her luxury car, she would likely just leave, and he would lose whatever intel she was holding hostage...
"I’m going out," Silas announced, turning toward the stairs.
Lia immediately scrambled to the edge of the couch, her worn sneakers hitting the floor. "I want to go too!"
Silas stopped, looking back at her. He scanned her up and down.
She was wearing an oversized black tank top that hung off her small frame like a dress, and a pair of worn mud-stained denim jeans.
She looked exactly like what she was... a slum rat who had been sleeping in alleys for the better part of two years.
"You don’t even have proper clothes," Silas pointed out.
"I don’t care," Lia insisted, crossing her arms stubbornly. "I’m not staying here by myself. What if the lock breaks again and someone else comes in?"
Silas considered it.
He didn’t like the idea of dragging a child into a car with a scion, but leaving her alone in an apartment after she had just compromised its primary security ward was a flaw...
Plus, he hadn’t seen her in two years. He wasn’t going to just lock her in a room the second he got her back.
"Fine. Come along," Silas muttered. "Give me two minutes."
He took the stairs two at a time, heading up to his master bedroom.
The room was clean and lacking the clutter he used to live with in the lower wards.
He walked over to the closet, pulling open the sliding wooden door.
He needed something presentable.
He wasn’t going to sit in a corporate supercar wearing the ash-stained canvas shirt he used to slaughter Umbral Wolves... He quickly stripped off his shirt, tossing it into the hamper.
For a brief second, he caught his reflection in the tall mirror mounted on the closet door.
It was still jarring to see... he looked less like how he did before and he looked like an insanely handsome Lord which he was.
Silas quickly pulled a black long-sleeved formal shirt off a hanger, slipping it on. He buttoned it up, rolling the sleeves up to his forearms, exposing the thick veins and heavy muscle.
He grabbed a pair of clean tailored dark trousers, swapping them out for his ash-stained combat pants.
It was fitting, it was sharp and, most importantly, it didn’t smell like a forge or monster blood.
He grabbed one of his clean casual dark t-shirts from the drawer. It was heavily oversized, meant for a man who weighed a lot.
He walked back downstairs.
Lia was standing by the front door, bouncing slightly on the balls of her feet, clearly eager to get out of the apartment.
Silas tossed the dark t-shirt at her face.
She caught it, looking at the massive garment in confusion. "What is this?"
"Put it over the tank top. Your other shirt has a hole in it," Silas instructed, grabbing his heavy waterproof dark trench coat off the rack by the door. "That’s enough for now. We’ll buy you some actual clothes when we’re coming back... I need to make a stop at the commercial district anyway."
Lia’s large brown eyes instantly glittered with excitement. She quickly pulled the heavy, clean t-shirt over her head.
It dropped all the way down past her knees, making her look like she was wearing a dark formless tent. She didn’t care. She eagerly rolled up the massive sleeves, practically vibrating with the promise of a shopping trip.
"Oh, and one more thing," Silas added, pausing with his hand on the doorknob.
He looked down at her, his voice returning to a cold deadpan tone.
"We’ll be stopping by the Association’s medical ward to do a full blood check-up. Just to see if you picked up any lingering infections or parasites while you were living in dumpsters for two years."
Lia froze.
The excitement instantly drained from her face.
She took a slow step backward, clutching the hem of her oversized shirt. "I don’t like needles."
"I don’t really care," Silas replied effortlessly, completely immune to her pouting. "You let me pour boiling magical acid on your ribs ten minutes ago so you can handle a syringe. Let’s go."
He opened the heavy front door, stepping out into the hallway of the upscale residential complex.
Lia grumbled under her breath, dragging her feet as she followed him out.
Silas turned, placing his bare hand flat against the center of the door.
He channeled a tiny fraction of his mana into the metal. The internal runic matrix hummed to life, and a glowing panel projected onto the wood.
He checked the logs.
Sure enough, the Spirit Lock had been deactivated by a temporary override command.
’Useless companies man...’ Silas scoffed inwardly, re-engaging the protection ward.
The door locked with a satisfying metallic sound.
They walked down the carpeted hallway, took the private elevator down to the lobby, and stepped out through the glass double doors of the complex.
The rain in Valoria City was relentless.
It wasn’t the freezing ash-choked sleet of the Umbral Basin, but it was a heavy downpour that washed the neon lights of the Silverleaf district across the slick black pavement.
Idling directly against the curb, ignoring the designated parking zones, was Elora’s supercar.
It was a masterpiece of automotive engineering.
The chassis was low and painted in a black finish that seemed to absorb the surrounding streetlights.
The heavy mag-tires hummed with a low vibrating frequency, hovering an inch above the wet pavement.
As Silas and Lia stepped out from under the awning of the building, the passenger-side window smoothly, silently whined down.
Elora Verinda sat in the driver’s seat.
She looked immaculate.
She was wearing a tailored, high-collared white blouse and a dark blazer with her long, silver-blonde hair perfectly straightened.
The ambient glow of the car’s advanced dashboard illuminated her aristocratic features.
The woman looked completely out of place sitting on a curb in the rain.
She leaned over slightly, looking past Silas to the small baggy-shirt-wearing child standing behind him.
"Get in," Elora ordered smoothly, tapping a button on her steering wheel.
The heavy, gull-wing passenger door swung upward with a soft hydraulic hiss.
Silas didn’t hesitate.
He grabbed Lia by the back of her shirt, effortlessly lifting her off the ground, and tossed her gently into the passenger seat before sliding in right behind her.
The interior of the supercar smelled like expensive leather.
It was warm, dry, and soundproof too.
The moment Silas pulled the heavy door shut, the roaring sound of the city rain instantly vanished, replaced by the soft sound of the mana-engine.
The seats were bucketed, designed for high-speed maneuvering.
Because it was a two-seater sports model, there was no back seat. Lia, grumbling about being treated like luggage, simply shifted around and sat directly on Silas’s lap, crossing her small arms over her chest.
Elora shifted the vehicle into gear.
She didn’t touch a traditional steering wheel... her hands rested on a pair of sleek glowing control yokes.
The supercar glided away from the curb, merging seamlessly into the slick rain-washed traffic of the Silverleaf district.
The silence inside the cabin lasted for exactly ten seconds.
Elora kept her eyes on the road, her hands lightly guiding the control yokes, but she tilted her head slightly toward the passenger seat.
"So," Elora said, her icy blue eyes flicking toward the rearview mirror to look directly at the ten-year-old girl sitting on Silas’s lap. "Care to explain why you would be sending all of those highly explicit messages to me on behalf of your brother?"
Lia stiffened.
She slowly peeked over the top of the dashboard, looking at the intimidating, beautiful woman driving the car.
The street-rat bravado completely failed her under the crushing high-society gaze of the City Lord’s daughter.
Lia suddenly felt very small, and very shy.
"I..." Lia mumbled, burying her face into Silas’s dark shirt to hide her violently blushing cheeks. "I was just jealous that Big brother was talking with other women on his phone. I wanted to scare you away."
Silas didn’t say a word. He just casually delivered a sharp karate chop directly to the top of Lia’s head.
"Ow!" Lia yelped, rubbing her scalp and glaring up at him.
Elora let out a genuine amused chuckle. The sound was surprisingly light, completely contrasting her usual icy demeanor.
"You can relax, little one," Elora assured her smoothly, gracefully navigating the supercar around a slow-moving commercial transport. "I have absolutely no intention of stealing your big brother from you. I assure you, his ego is far too grating for my tastes."
Silas let out a dry snort, resting his arm against the heavy leather of the door panel. "Glad we cleared that up. The feeling is entirely mutual."
Elora ignored his comment, tapping a glowing blue icon on her dashboard console.
A holographic map of Valoria City projected into the air between them, the various districts glowing in different colors.
"Where do you want to go?" Elora asked with her voice shifting back to business. "With the way you’re dressing, I’m guessing you need to be dropped off somewhere."
"The Lord Association Building," Silas answered immediately.
Elora raised a delicate silver eyebrow. "The LAB? At this hour? The primary appraisal floors are mostly closed... Are you looking to offload more of your Novice Trial surplus?"
"I’m looking to buy," Silas corrected her. "I need bulk crates of materials to build something in the territory and the central commercial hub inside the LAB is the only place that carries them in the quantities I need without filing a three-week requisition form."
Initially Silas had planned to just order but as of right now, he felt like going there himself. Besides he had to sell his ores.