Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 94

Chapter 94

288 Vouchers

The other staff at the centre went from wary to accustomed pretty quickly.

The receptionist auntie started asking Ryder if he wanted tea every time he came through the door. One of the craft teachers asked Colton to carry an entire box of drawing paper, and he did it without complaint. I’ve been talking to them more and more lately.

One afternoon, I stood by the window and watched Ryder surrounded by three kids, each of them demanding that he show them whether the paper frog he’d folded could “jump higher than theirs.”

The corner of my mouth turned up before I could stop it.

I thought about the old days-the times we’d passed each other in hallways without making eye contact. The rules. The silence. The way I’d been treated like air.

Then I turned back and continued cutting the coloured paper in front of me.

I knew something had changed. Not because I’d forgiven them. But because I realised that living inside “not forgiving” was only exhausting me.

That weekend, Lily and I were eating takeout in the apartment when she looked up from her phone and said, casually. “Westbrook’s stock has dropped a lot.”

She read a few headlines from the financial news-“Restructuring rumours,” “Internal governance crisis,” “Shareholders demanding an emergency meeting.”

I bit down on my chopsticks and didn’t respond. Lily glanced at me. Then she turned her phone screen toward me.

“Do you want to… ask him how he’s doing?”

I looked down and kept eating my noodles. “He said he’d contact me when things settled.

Lily didn’t push.

But that night, I picked up my phone more times than usual.

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11.45

Chapter 94

Adrian’s POV

288 Vouchers

Under the same night sky, in another city, I had just walked out of a board meeting that had lasted four hours.

Westbrook’s stock had been falling for a week straight. The shareholders wanted a clear recovery plan. They wanted answers. I’d given them as many as he could without revealing the details that could compromise the investigation.

I stood in his office and looked out the floor-to-ceiling window at the city lights below. My tie was loosened halfway. On his desk. three documents waiting for my signature and a cup of coffee that had gone cold hours ago.

The intercom on his desk rang. His secretary ran through the day’s remaining items and then added casually. “Also, a message came through from that side. She’s back at the community centre. Everything normal. Her brothers have been there recently too.”

I held the receiver for a few seconds. Then I said quietly. “Got it.”

I hung up and turned back to face the window. I stood there for a long time. I looked down at my left hand. The gauze was gone. The burn was healing, leaving behind pale pink new skin.

I sighed. “Harper, I miss you.”

Harper’s POV

Ten days after Adrian left, I’d settled into a new rhythm.

Up at seven, at the Gadigal centre by eight. Back around four. Sometimes dinner with Lily, sometimes a quick meal alone.

Ryder had been coming by less often. His phone rang more and more frequently. Once or twice l’ d passed the balcony and caught fragments of his voice, lowered and tight-“valuation,” “settlement date,” things I didn’t ask about.

That evening I was in the kitchen cutting carrots, planning to make soup for one. Ryder walked out of the hallway wearing a suit, car keys in his hand.

He stood in the kitchen doorway for a while. His expression was tighter than usual.

I put the knife down and turned to face him. “What’s wrong?”

He was quiet for several seconds before he spoke.

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