Chapter 264: Spoiled by Design
Chapter 264: Spoiled by Design
When they separated, both of them looked satisfied.
Serena knew why Elias looked that way. In the life she had given him, her kiss was comfort, reward, proof that she still loved him. Of course he would smile. Of course he would look dazed and pleased, as if the world had returned to its proper place the instant she bent down for him.
Her own satisfaction came from a darker place.
She had hidden everything. The hypnosis. The kidnapping. The false childhood. The way she had cut away his past and replaced it with one where he belonged to her before he belonged to anyone else. Elias, the one being controlled, knew none of it. He sat there trusting her completely, smiling at her with damp lips and bright eyes, unaware of the hand around the core of his life.
That ignorance fed something in Serena that she rarely allowed herself to name.
Possession did not have to look like a locked door. Sometimes it looked like a boy waking up and calling her big sister as if he had never hated her at all.
Serena’s face revealed nothing by the time Elias looked at her.
He noticed no flaw.
He wiped the corner of his mouth with the back of one finger, then climbed off the bed and sat on the broad window ledge. The room looked out toward a strip of ocean darkening under late light, but Elias paid more attention to his own feet. He crossed one leg over the other, letting two pale, bare feet swing lazily in the air, and tipped them toward Serena as if presenting a problem she had failed to solve.
Serena watched him for a moment.
It was childish. Ridiculously so. He sat there with the natural entitlement of someone who expected to be served because the person in front of him loved him enough to do it.
Then confusion flickered through his eyes.
Elias lifted his right foot and nudged Serena’s calf. The kick was light, more demand than punishment.
"Big sister," he said, perfectly righteous, "put my socks on."
There was a trace of arrogance on his face now, not cruel, only spoiled. A young man who had been loved too much and knew it.
Serena’s eyes shifted.
After the little devil act from before, she adapted faster this time. If this was what hypnosis had made of him, then this, too, belonged to her.
"My fault," she said, smiling. "I should have thought of it sooner."
She found his socks, then crouched in front of him.
Elias held out one foot without the slightest hesitation. The motion was so natural it looked practiced, as if she had knelt like this for him hundreds of times in the history neither of them had truly lived.
For most people, kneeling to dress someone else would have felt humiliating. For Serena Blackwood, who had spent most of her adult life making rooms obey before she spoke twice, it should have been impossible to accept.
It did not feel that way.
Part of it was love, or what she had decided to call love.
Part of it was Elias himself.
His foot rested lightly in her hand, warm from the bed, the skin smooth and pale enough that the simple act of holding it felt less like service and more like touching something carefully kept from the world. His toes curled once when the fabric brushed over them, then relaxed as she drew the sock into place.
Serena put on the other sock with the same care.
Then his shoes.
When she finished, she stood and touched the top of his head.
"All done."
Elias looked up and smiled with excellent manners.
"Thank you, big sister."
[System Theta: ...]
Even System Theta needed a moment.
Elias, supposedly hypnotized into docile devotion, had somehow managed to make Serena kneel and dress him within minutes of waking. Worse, she had done it willingly, almost happily.
Elias smiled inside his head.
"Do you know why?"
[System Theta: Why?]
"Because this version of me is something she made with her own hands. No matter how many flaws I have, no matter how spoiled or difficult I am, she has to accept all of it."
His smile deepened.
"After all, I love her so much."
The last part was the most important. A person could forgive a lot from someone who looked at them as if they were the whole world. Serena had not created an obedient doll. She had created a dependent, clingy, adored little disaster. That was much more useful.
Elias stood on the window ledge, stepped down, and stretched.
Then he wrapped both hands around Serena’s arm as though nothing in the world could be more natural.
"Big sister, let’s go see the ocean now."
Serena froze for half a second.
Regret crossed her face quickly, though not quickly enough to escape Elias’s attention.
"I’m sorry, Eli." Her voice lowered. "Something happened at the company. We need to leave right away."
Elias looked at her.
"I’ll bring you back next time," Serena promised at once. "I swear. Next time, I’ll bring you here properly, and we can stay as long as you want. All right?"
He went quiet.
Serena braced herself. Judging by the last few minutes, she expected him to pout, argue, maybe accuse her of not loving him again. She was already preparing to coax him.
Instead, Elias’s lashes lowered. Disappointment settled over him, visible and honest, but he only nodded.
"Okay," he said. "Company matters are important."
Serena’s chest tightened.
The feeling came so suddenly that she almost forgot to breathe.
So he was not only spoiled.
He understood priorities. He acted difficult over small things because he trusted her to indulge him. When something truly mattered, he could set aside what he wanted and think of her instead.
This was not an empty dependent creature. This was the partner she had imagined in her most selfish hours: clingy when she could afford to spoil him, understanding when she needed him to be.
[Serena Blackwood’s favorability has increased. Current value: 90%.]
Serena restrained the rush of excitement with difficulty.
She bent and kissed Elias’s forehead.
"My Eli is so good," she said. "Let’s pack, then."
"Okay."
While Elias began gathering the few things laid out for him, Serena left the room.
The adjoining room was quieter, almost clinical in its neatness. Yvonne stood near a low table, her white coat already removed. Without it, she looked less like the doctor who had leaned over Elias beneath the lights and more like a composed woman waiting at the end of a private consultation.
Serena walked toward her and offered her hand.
"Dr. Quinn, thank you. You deserve your reputation."
Yvonne accepted the handshake.
Her smile was gentle, close to the one Serena used when she wanted to make frightened people trust her, but there was a professional ease to it that made it feel more approachable. A doctor’s smile. Warm enough to soothe, guarded enough to reveal nothing.
"You’re too kind," Yvonne said.
The politeness was smooth. Not weaker than Serena’s, only different.
A brief silence passed.
Then Yvonne asked, "Are you satisfied with Mr. Kane’s response?"
The question hardly needed an answer. Serena’s happiness had been visible the moment she entered. She had thanked Yvonne before discussing payment, logistics, or risk. Any ordinary observer could have read the result from her face.
Serena nodded. "Satisfied. Of course I’m satisfied."
From that single of course, the answer was clear.
Still, she paused.
"Only..."
Yvonne’s fingers rested lightly against her own wrist. Her expression remained pleasant. Her eyes did not.
"Only what?"
"His personality seems a little spoiled now." Serena looked at Yvonne, still smiling. "Is that normal? I’m not questioning your ability, Dr. Quinn. This concerns the person I love. Naturally, I want to understand why he has become like this."
The person I love.
Yvonne lowered her eyes for an instant.
How convenient.
When she looked up again, the colder thought had already disappeared.
"I did not give Mr. Kane a complete, over-detailed memory structure," Yvonne said. "Doing so creates weak points. False memory work is strongest when the mind receives a cause and an outcome. The brain fills the middle on its own. It creates tone, habits, ordinary details, and emotional logic to connect them."
Serena understood immediately.
"So his current personality is something he completed himself."
"Yes."
Yvonne adjusted the angle of her glasses with one finger.
"A young man who lost his parents, grew up depending on the older sister who raised and protected him, and then fell in love with her would naturally form intense attachment. He would obey you where it mattered. He would rely on you for stability. Around you, he might also show a small amount of spoiled entitlement."
Serena’s gaze sharpened with interest.
"That is exactly what he is like now."
"Then there is no problem," Yvonne said. "That personality matches the situation he believes he lived through."
"Of course."
Serena understood.
If Elias had truly been raised by her, spoiled by her, loved by her, and taught from childhood that she would give way to him in private, then his arrogance made sense. If he had woken as the same fragile, obedient boy from before, that would have been stranger.
This version of him belonged to the life Serena had chosen.
Yvonne’s smile held.
"However," she said, "there is something you should know."
Serena’s attention returned to her fully.
"During the next few days, Mr. Kane’s memories may become briefly disordered. He may show moments of confusion, emotional inconsistency, or delayed recognition. That is normal after a procedure like this."
Her tone remained mild.
"You do not need to panic."