Chapter 125: Suspicious Billionaire
The morning sun bled through the cab’s grimy windows in thin, fractured beams, painting soft streaks of gold across Eliana Bennett’s face. She sat stiffly in the back seat, her slender fingers worrying the frayed hem of her sky-blue blouse. At twenty-four, Eliana carried the kind of quiet scars that didn’t always show. Her mother had disappeared from her life when she was barely old enough to speak; her father—a gentle soul with failing health—had done his best to raise her in a house where love was abundant but money was not. Even when a fleeting brush with inherited wealth knocked at their door through her adopted grandfather, poverty still clung to them like an unshakable shadow.
Now she was unemployed, heart bruised by so many betrayals, and dangling from the thinnest thread of hope. A sheen of nervous sweat clung to her warm brown skin. Her deep, expressive brown eyes flicked restlessly toward the blur of the city beyond the cab window. Towering skyscrapers rose like cold, indifferent titans, their mirrored faces reflecting a world that had never truly let her in.
"Please, God," she whispered, barely audible over the rumbling engine, her lips trembling with quiet desperation. "Let this meeting with James go well. Let him listen. Let this be the bridge back to Rafael."
The cab lurched over a pothole, the sudden jolt snapping her upright. But her thoughts were miles away—caught in a whirlwind of the heartbreaks and hard lessons that had shaped her into the woman she was now.
Across town, four hours earlier, the sprawling Vexley estate gleamed like a fortress carved from old money. Inside, Rafael Vexley, at twenty-nine, sat in the muted light of his study, simmering beneath the weight of suspicion that had become second nature. He had rebuilt his grandfather’s empire sweat by ruthless sweat—tech, real estate, pharmaceuticals—a kingdom forged by brilliance and brutality. But beneath that glittering empire lay a secret that burned like acid: there was no love in the world meant for Rafael Vexley. Not even a tiny bit.
His dark wavy hair was styled with precision, not a strand out of place, and even seated in his sleek black wheelchair, Rafael radiated command. The sharp lines of his tailored suit framed him like armor, but inside, he was a storm of betrayal and sadness. Rafael Vexley hated his life.
Yesterday had been the tipping point. He’d overheard James—his trusted secretary and friend, the one man left in his crumbling inner circle—speaking in hushed, fractured tones over the phone. Rafael’s razor-sharp hearing caught his own name, wrapped in a conversation that reeked of secrets.
"Not James too," Rafael had thought, the words a blade twisting in his chest. "He’s all I have left."
For years, people had circled him like vultures—waiting, scheming, striking. Everyone had wanted something. His father, stepmother, and her children had tried to take his fortune. Others, his control. And Eliana... Eliana had taken his heart and shattered it with the truth of the blood that ran through her veins.
Trust wasn’t just a risk anymore. It was a death sentence.
Rafael’s fingers tightened around the armrest of his chair, knuckles whitening. In his world, betrayal was currency—and it seemed everyone had learned to spend it well.
To make matters worse—and far more suspicious—James had asked Rafael that same yesterday for the day off today, spinning a neat little lie about picking up a few things for his mother. It was almost convincing. Almost. But Rafael remembered the voice he’d overheard on the phone the night before: clipped, cautious, whispering in a way that carried not the softness of family, but the edge of secrets. It hadn’t sounded maternal. It had sounded like a conspiracy breathing through the cracks.
"Bullshit," Rafael had muttered into the dim silence of his study, the corner of his mouth curling in a bitter half-smile. Sarcasm was his armor, razor-sharp wit his only shield against the bruised trust that lived like a scar beneath his skin.
So this morning, before the sun had properly claimed the sky, he decided to act. "Driver," he commanded, his voice low and velvety, carrying the weight of a man accustomed to obedience. "Take me to James’s house. And keep it discreet."
The black SUV glided through the sleeping city like a predator in the fog. They parked a short distance away, cloaked by the shadows of an old elm, its branches swaying gently in the cool morning breeze. Rafael sat in the back seat, watching the quiet street with a hunter’s patience. The world outside was painted in muted silver, the air cold enough to bite.
Hours later—just after nine—James finally stepped out of his building. His pace was brisk, almost nervous, a duffel bag slung carelessly over his shoulder. He didn’t notice the dark vehicle watching him like a silent witness. When he raised his hand to hail a cab, Rafael’s jaw tightened, and he gave a subtle nod to the driver.
The SUV peeled away from the curb with practiced ease, slipping into traffic a few cars behind the yellow taxi. Rafael leaned forward slightly, his gaze narrowing. He wasn’t just following a man—he was tracing the outline of a lie.
By 9:30 a.m., the city had fully awakened. Horns blared in impatient chorus, street vendors barked their morning pitches, and the air was thick with exhaust, caffeine, and ambition. They wove through the chaos like a shadow, unnoticed. Finally, James’s cab slowed in front of a quiet corner pastry shop, its fogged-up windows glowing with the soft amber light of morning. The scent of freshly baked croissants and strong coffee drifted through the open door.
Rafael’s lips pressed into a thin line. James wasn’t with his mother. He was meeting someone.
And Rafael intended to find out who.
"Help me into the wheelchair," Rafael instructed his driver, a burly man named Marc, his voice laced with feigned vulnerability. Marc obliged, wheeling him to a hidden alcove behind a cluster of potted plants and parked cars, where they could observe without being seen. Rafael’s heart pounded beneath his stoic exterior, his grey eyes—sharp and seeing—scanning the entrance. "Who could it be?" he pondered silently, his mind a storm of paranoia. "Another schemer? Someone after my secrets?" He adjusted his dark sunglasses, maintaining the charade of blindness, his athletic build tense in the chair.
Inside the pastry shop, James sat at a corner table, nursing a black coffee. He was a lanky man in his mid-30s, with wire-rimmed glasses and a perpetual look of mild concern. Unaware of the eyes on him, he checked his watch, sighing. "This better be worth it," he muttered to himself. "Eliana sounded desperate on the phone. Poor girl—Rafael’s been a mess without her too."
Outside, Rafael’s impatience grew. "Anything yet, Marc?" he asked, his tone clipped, pretending to rely on the driver’s sight.
"Not yet, sir," Marc replied, peering through binoculars. "Mr James is inside, alone. Looks nervous."
Then, a yellow cab rolled up to the curb with a hiss of brakes. And from it stepped Eliana—the last person Rafael expected to see. She moved with that familiar, unforced grace, her hips swaying lightly as she hurried toward the pastry shop. Her heart-shaped face was flushed with nervous color, her long curls tumbling down her back like ink spilling in the sun. Her chest rose and fell with shallow breaths; the kind of anxious energy that wrapped around her like invisible thread.
She spotted James almost immediately, and for a heartbeat, her stride faltered. But then something in her spine straightened, and she approached him—hesitant, yet determined, like someone walking toward a door they weren’t sure they’d be welcomed through.
In his hiding place, Rafael felt the ground shift beneath him. A white-hot fury surged through his veins, hitting him like a flash fire. He knew that figure—every line, every delicate gesture. That poise had once softened the walls around his guarded heart. Now it only poured salt into old wounds.
’How dare she?’ His thoughts cut through him like glass. ’First me. Then her precious new boyfriend. And now James? She’s playing us all. One by one.’
To be continued...