Chapter 162: The Man Wrapped in Gold
The morning sun hit the arched windows like an unwanted guest, stretching distorted shadows across the oak table. This wasn’t breakfast; it was a standoff. The air was heavy, tasting of iron. Every time a silver spoon clattered against porcelain, the sound echoed like a hammer striking a coffin nail.
Matthias sat rigid, his jaw locked. Opposite him, Leon and Isabella were motionless, staring at their plates as if looking into an open grave. Suddenly, a sharp pain shot up Matthias’s leg. Olivia’s heel dug into his shin with cold precision.
"What?" Matthias hissed, his voice barely a rasp.
Olivia didn’t blink. She was tearing into a loaf of bread, her knife moving with the practiced rhythm of a butcher. She leaned in, her scent—lilies and something metallic—hitting him before she spoke.
"The hounds have finally turned on each other," she whispered. Her voice was thin and freezing. "They’ve had a falling out."
Matthias risked a glance at Leon. His brother’s face was a mask of suppressed rage, his knuckles white as he strangled the hilt of his fork.
"Why?" Matthias mouthed. "What did it?"
"I did," Olivia said. There wasn’t a hint of regret in her voice—just a flat, dark pride.
Matthias stopped moving. He turned his head to catch her eyes. They held a look that didn’t belong at a breakfast table; the look of a predator that had finally cornered its prey.
"Olivia, what the hell have you done?" he whispered. "Since when do you show your hand like this? You’re acting like a stranger."
"Your brother is a fool for thinking I’m desperate enough to want Isabella," she shot back, her voice a blade of pure spite. "Keep your judgment to yourself."
Matthias nearly choked on his wine. The liquid burned his throat as the reality hit him like a punch to the gut. "What?!"
"Shut up," she hissed. She snapped her spine straight, assuming a posture of icy perfection. "I want to watch Leon unravel, thread by thread. He bruised my pride, and I intend to collect every drop he owes me."
"I’m watching," Matthias muttered into his cup, drowning the dark laugh building in his chest. His head was hammering—a rhythmic throb that felt like a hangover from a war.
"Isabella," Olivia called out. Her voice was a soft purr.
Isabella lifted her gaze, her face a mask of brittle glass. "Yes, Olivia?"
Olivia reached for the silver tongs, lifting a slab of rare meat from the platter. She lowered it onto Isabella’s plate with agonizing care—the precision of a priestess performing a sacrifice.
"Eat, my sweet," Olivia urged. Her eyes shone with a sickening warmth. "You’ve barely touched a thing. It would be a tragedy to let such a beauty wither away from neglect."
The silence was absolute. Matthias gripped his fork until his knuckles turned white, his heart thudding against his ribs. Across the table, Leon looked ready to combust. His face was a bruised crimson, the veins in his neck bulging like writhing snakes as he fought for air. He wasn’t just angry; he was on the edge of a breakdown, and Olivia had just given him the final shove.
"Stop it," she spat suddenly, snapping back into her seat, her spine rigid as a pike. "I only want to see him unravel. Watch closely, brother. I’m paying back his insults with interest."
"I’m watching," Matthias muttered into his goblet. He fought back a jagged laugh, ignoring the rhythmic hammering in his skull.
"Isabella," Olivia called again, her voice a silken caress that made the skin crawl.
Isabella lifted her head, her gaze a wall of frost. "Yes, Olivia?"
Then came the explosion.
Leon lunged back, his chair screeching against the floor like a dying animal before it toppled over. The thud of his boots echoed through the hall like a declaration of war.
"I’ve had enough," he snarled, his voice a guttural rasp. "I’m leaving."
He tore out of the hall, each footfall a thunderclap. Isabella lingered for a heartbeat, her eyes fixed on Olivia with lethal intensity.
"You did that on purpose," she hissed, her voice trembling with fury.
Olivia merely shrugged, taking a slow, deliberate sip of her wine. "I haven’t the slightest idea what you mean. I’m simply being a devoted sister-in-law."
Isabella rose, her features hardening into a mask of porcelain rage. She threw her napkin onto the table—a white flag soaked in unspoken threats—and turned on her heel. The screech of her chair joined the echoes of Leon’s departure as she vanished, leaving nothing behind but the smell of bitter resentment.
The silence was thick, broken only by the rattle of silver against the table.
"Alone at last," Matthias breathed, sagging into his chair as if his bones had turned to lead. He leveled a look at Olivia filled with exhaustion and disbelief. "You truly can’t breathe for a single day without setting the curtains on fire, can you?"
"Don’t start," Olivia snapped, her eyes flashing. "A little chaos thins the air in this tomb. I’m rotting under their self-importance. Besides," she leaned forward, her voice a low hiss, "he never misses a chance to spit on my name. Why should I be denied the pleasure of flaying him and his hollow ’saint’?"
Matthias exhaled a long breath. His irritation dissolved into cynical surrender—the look of a man who had long ago accepted his seat next to a demon. "Fine. Do your worst. We aren’t going to rewrite the world over cold eggs and spite."
He straightened, the lethargy vanishing as his voice took on a military edge. "To the matter at hand. Sylvester—or whatever name that wretch is using. What’s the endgame? What are you actually going to do to him?"
Olivia set her cup down. The clink of china against the saucer was final. In an instant, the provocateur was gone. In her place sat a predatory stillness that made the walls feel like they were closing in.
"I am going to see him. Obviously."
Matthias opened his mouth to protest, but she sliced through the air with a single hand.
"I know, Matthias... we are ’bound in this together,’" she said, her voice like a velvet noose. "So, you’re coming with me into the dark."
A ghost of a smile haunted Matthias’s lips—a flash of dark mirth he quickly strangled. "Naturally, I’m coming," he said, reaching for his coat with lethal grace. "Let’s go and greet him. I want to see this ’devotion’ Elvira speaks of... right before I gouge his eyes out."
In the heart of the sunset, where light filtered through the windows like wine spilled on stone, the man sat perfectly still. His golden hair tumbled over his shoulders like the threads of a dying sun. His silver eyes—bright and depthless—held a coldness no fire could warm. He was a masterpiece of porcelain and bone, sitting with the poise of a pretender amidst a vulgar display of wealth.
The room was filled with red velvet and chandeliers that wept light—the kind of luxury that made one wonder how many throats had been slit to pay for it.
A series of soft thuds echoed against the door.
He closed his book with agonizing slowness. A radiant smile spread across his face—a mask of warmth that never reached his eyes. He crossed the room with the stride of a predator in silk, his voice dripping with honeyed affection.
"My love, you’ve come to me early today..."
He pulled the door wide, the greeting warm on his tongue, but the air in his lungs turned to ash. There was no "beloved" waiting. Instead, he met a pair of icy blue eyes. Olivia stood there, her smile a frozen curve that carried the weight of a blood-soaked promise.
"It’s been a lifetime... Sylvie," Olivia purred. Her tone was a cocktail of venom and playfulness.
Sylvester’s gaze prowled over her features with a repulsive boldness, as if scanning a ledger he had written himself. He stepped forward, fluid and insulting, utterly dismissing the man looming just paces behind her.
"Is Elvira with you?" he murmured, his voice a low rasp.
"No," Olivia snapped. Her eyes remained fixed on his, tracking the narrowing gap with the indifference of a headsman.
Sylvester didn’t flinch. He glided forward until his breath brushed her skin. A sharp curve pulled at the corners of his mouth—a smile that promised both a caress and a cage.
"You’ve grown even more radiant, Olivia," he whispered, his voice thick with a foul sweetness. "Did you finally tire of the shadows? You must have missed the way we were... haven’t you?"
He reached out, his fingers snaking toward her jaw as if reclaiming lost property.
The air fractured.
Before his skin could touch hers, a blurred arc of violence cut through the space. A fist, heavy with a soldier’s hate, slammed into the center of Sylvester’s jaw. The sound was a wet, dull thwack—meat hitting stone.
The "Golden Prince" went down like a slaughtered calf.
The force sent him sprawling across the carpet, his head snapping back as his body turned to lead. A smear of crimson leaked from his ruined mouth. Gasping, his ears ringing with the whine of a concussion, Sylvester looked up.
There, looming over him like a shadow from a grave, was the man he had ignored. For the first time, the silver in Sylvester’s eyes wasn’t reflecting light—it was reflecting the presence of his own death.
Matthias loomed over him, a mountain of iron and fury. His chest heaved, his tunic straining against the violence radiating from his frame. In the dim light, he didn’t look like a man anymore; he looked like an executioner come to claim a debt.
"You parasitic son of a bitch," Matthias spat, his voice a vibration that rattled the floorboards. "If you so much as breathe on her again, I will nail you to these walls. I’ll make your ending a lesson whispered for generations—a reminder of what happens when a dog touches the Duke’s blood."
Sylvester lay on the velvet, dragging a trembling hand across his mouth. The shock was a physical weight. Those silver eyes, once arrogant, were now a frantic swirl of spite and terror.
Olivia hadn’t moved. She stood with her arms crossed, a spectator at her own coliseum. A chilling smile played on her lips—the look of a puppet master watching the strings dance toward a crescendo.
The hallway felt suffocating. The contrast was an insult: Sylvester, with his ethereal beauty and golden hair, looked like a discarded doll; Matthias was a wall of muscle and scarred leather, his eyes burning with a hatred so dense it felt like a blow. The air stank of sweat and the iron tang of blood.
"Oh," Sylvester whispered, his voice cracking. He rose slowly, dabbing at his mouth with silk, his eyes narrowing. "You’ve brought a pet, Olivia? I hadn’t realized your tastes had regressed to such... feral breeds."