The Farming Saint in the Starry Wasteland (Elizabeth Schofield) novel Chapter 350

Chapter 350 A Crack in the Door

Free Coint

Richard ran out of breath before he fan out of anger. He pressed a hand to his throbbing temple, eyes fixed on Claire with something close to hatred. “Do you understand what you’ve done? Because of your stupidity, every shareholder every entire Rhodes family name, all of it, is blacklisted along with NovaSea Transport Do you have any idea what that means? it mean we may have just lost our only shot at resources that could save lives. My life. And you handed that away like it was notting

Claire had gone pale, her whole body trembling. Every word landed like a blow, but it was that last part, the part about saving lives, that finally cut through. The scale of what she’d done was starting to take shape, and it was bigger than she’d let herself imagine.

“I didn’t mean for it to go that far,” she managed, hand still pressed to her cheek, tears Punning freely. “They provoked me. Her and that kid. If I hadn’t seen them, I never would have”

Richard cut her off with a sharp look. “Tell me about them. The woman and the bay.

What’s the history there?”

The report he’d seen only confirmed that the two were somehow connected to his son–in–law Elliot’s past, but the details had never come up.

Claire told him, haltingly, between sobs.

Not long after her wedding, a woman had shown up at the door claiming to be Elliot’s wife and that the child was his.

Claire, still wrapped up in the warmth of a new marriage she hadn’t wanted to jeopardize, had kept it from Richard.

Instead, she’d turned all of her fury on the mother and son, making their lives so unbearable they’d had no choice but to scrape by on a garbage planet. She’d assumed they were dead in some forgotten corner of the universe by now. She hadn’t expected to walk into a thriving farm and find them staring back at her.

Richard’s expression darkened further as he listened. When she finished, he said nothing for a long moment. Then, without another word to Claire, he reached across the desk and pressed/the communicator.

“Send Elliot to my study. Now.”

A few minutes later, a well–dressed man of middling years stepped in, his manner composed and quietly deferential, though something behind his eyes had always carried the look of a man carefully managing himself. Elliot, Claire’s husband, who bad married into the Rhodes family.

“Dad. You wanted to see me?” He gave Richard a respectful nod, then let his gaze drift briefly to Claire, her pear–streaked face still bearing the mark of Richard’s hand, and to Adrian, who looked genuinely frightened. Something shifted in Elliot’s expression, there and gone before anyone could name it.

Richard didn’t ease into it. He laid out Claire’s performance at the farm and its fallout in a few blunt sentences, then fixed Elliot with a steady look. “Elliot. The woman Claire mentioned. Abigail Turner, and her son. Do you remember them?”

Elliot went very still for just a fraction of a second. Then his eyes dropped and his voice came out level. “Dad, that was a long time ago. I was young and I made a mistake. I cut all contact afterward. Claire knows I’ve regretted it.”

Claire shot him a look that could have stripped paint.

Richard waved a hand. “I’m not interested in relitigating the past. What I’m asking is whether there’s any possibility of you approaching the boy. Paul. Acknowledging him. Or at the very least, opening some kind of channel.”

Both Claire and Elliot went still.

1/2

10:49 am Pppp.

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