Chapter 51

The SK players were all young. As soon as they finished ordering, the private room filled with chatter.

Most of it revolved around Elise.

Alger leaned toward her, practically buzzing. “What’s it like, beating your brother? We’ve all wanted to know. None of us has ever had the chance, though. The captain would never let us.”

Even when Theo held back during practice, he still won. This was the first time he had made it so obvious that he was letting someone win.

None of the players had ever beaten him in training.

Theo lifted his eyes and gave Alger a warning look.

He had thrown the match in plain sight. Elise wasn’t stupid; if she thought about it, she might figure it out. But having someone announce it at the table could make her feel awkward. What if she had genuinely wanted to beat him?

He took his time replying. “With the way you played today, you’d have a hard time beating anyone.”

Alger’s face went slack. He looked ready to cry. They were still eating, weren’t they? If the captain wanted to settle accounts, couldn’t he wait until their evening meeting?

He closed his mouth, looking miserable. The other players who had backed him up wilted, too.

When they all fell quiet, Elise glanced at Theo. His tone had sounded stern, almost angry. She decided not to say anything and lowered her head over her food.

Theo had something else on his mind. After a few bites, he set his chopsticks down and leaned back, one arm draped over the chair. He watched Elise eat.

He could imagine how hard things must have been for her: Vivian had been spoiled, and her brothers had overlooked her.

“I have an apartment that’s sitting empty,” he said. “It’s furnished, and it has all the appliances. Why don’t you move in?”

Their parents had left him a substantial inheritance. He had spent most of his adult life in the team dorm, where he needed little beyond the basics. The apartment was the only place he owned.

Elise still had a meatball between her teeth. She looked up at her third brother, unable to follow. “What?”

The corner of Theo’s mouth lifted. “Or, if you’re nervous about living alone, I could move in with you.”

“What? Captain, you’re moving out of the dorm?”

Theo had been with SK for years and had lived in the dorm that whole time. The training room was right outside his door, which suited him. He was a training fanatic, sometimes putting in ten hours a day. Living there made it easier.

Now he was suddenly talking about moving out.

Theo glanced at the players. His expression was casual, but they fell silent again.

Elise swallowed the meatball. “I’m doing fine at home. Why do you want me to move?”

“You’ve only been back with the family a little while, but you’ve probably figured out what it’s like. Some of your brothers are gone most of the time, and there’s an adopted daughter who took your place.” His voice stayed easy. “Why stay there and make yourself miserable? You’d be better off moving out.”

Elise stared at him. His information was badly out of date. Still, this Theo seemed to have changed, like her other brothers. Was he starting to care about her, too?

A strange thought came to her. Maybe he had moved out because he couldn’t stand living at home, either.

A trace of chill entered Theo’s eyes. He would deal with Vivian in his own way. First, he needed to get his sister out of that den of wolves.

Elise sighed and patiently corrected him. “Vivian already moved out. Julian found her birth parents, and she went to live with them.”

Theo blinked.

“And Julian, Adrian, and Miles have all been really good to me,” she continued. “Julian hired a driver just for me. Adrian wrote a song for me on his new album. And when I sprained my foot, Miles carried me to the school nurse.”

Theo blinked again.

He froze, trying to take it in. What had gotten into the others? In his previous life, they had ignored Elise and spoiled Vivian. Why had everything changed?

And Julian had found Vivian’s birth parents?

Theo’s brow furrowed. Was he not the only one who had been reborn?

Elise’s situation at home had changed, but he still felt unsettled. Before he came, he had planned how to convince her to live with him. He had even pictured what it would be like to share a home with his little sister. The more he had imagined it, the more he had liked the idea.

But if she was happy at home, did he have any reason left to persuade her?

He tapped a finger against the table, then softened his voice. “How about this? Move in with me, and I’ll take care of you.”

Elise received a monthly allowance of fourteen thousand dollars at home. He could give her ten times that. She wasn’t interested in money for its own sake, but she cared about her adoptive parents. She would want them to have an easier life.

Still puzzled by his persistence, Elise reached into her bag and set a bank card on the table.

The players had been concentrating on their food, but they’d been listening. Their eyes followed her hand and landed on the card.

Once they saw it, they couldn’t look away.

A black card.

Elise held up her hand and spread five fingers toward Theo. “Julian gave me an early share of the inheritance our parents left. Strictly speaking, I have five houses. That’s four more than you do.”

Theo had no answer.

This wasn’t at all how he had imagined the conversation going. Not even close.

Was she showing off?

Was this payback for scaring her during the match and teasing her about her short legs?

Elise lifted her tea with practiced composure, her feet swinging beneath the table. She looked thoroughly pleased with herself.

Being rich was nice. Especially since Theo had reminded her to think about it: she was actually richer than he was.

Theo’s plan had fallen apart, but the sight of her smug little smile softened his expression. He gave a quiet, amused huff. “Little rich girl.”

There was no reason left to convince her, and she didn’t seem to want to move. Seeing that she was doing well, he let out a faintly disappointed sigh.

Elise still didn’t understand. “Why do you keep asking me to move out?”

Theo lowered his gaze. His voice softened, and his answer was half serious, half a sigh. “Because your big brother gets lonely all by himself.”

Elise fell quiet.

Her eyes stayed on him. He was leaning back, looking relaxed, but something in his lowered gaze seemed unhappy. He kept running his fingers over his teacup, unable to leave it alone.

“Then come back home,” Elise said. “We can live together.”

Theo’s brows rose in surprise. He looked at her for a second, then tucked every expression away and said evenly, “Are you finished eating?”

Elise blinked at the abrupt change of subject, then nodded.

“Let’s go.”

When Elise got home, she walked slowly through the living room. It was empty. She had told her brothers she was going to watch the match and would be back late.

Her thoughts were still caught on what Theo had said.

He had always kept to himself. Julian had told her that Theo left home to compete when he was young. In her previous life, after the family fell apart, he had pulled himself together, then left again without a word.

How could someone like him be lonely?

It seemed as if there was nothing in his life besides the game. Elise could come home and be with her three brothers. Where would Theo go? To the team dorm, or back to the apartment where he lived alone?

A sudden sadness settled over her.

Julian heard her downstairs and rubbed the bridge of his nose, pulling himself out of work. He opened his study door just as Elise started up the stairs.

“Why the long face?” His voice carried into the hall.

Elise looked distracted. If he didn’t call out, she might not watch the steps and could fall.

She looked up and finally noticed him standing by the study. His brows were drawn together, and his eyes held a faint note of concern.

His voice was calm, but it left little room for argument. He lifted a hand. “Come here.”

Elise sat down in the study, unsure what Julian wanted. He took a large cardboard box from the desk and set it in front of her.

When she opened it, she found a jumble of snacks. Some were the ones she often ate at school.

Her eyes lit up. When she studied, she sometimes took a break and had a snack to relax. She kept a few in her backpack, too.

“How did you get all these?” she asked, delighted. She wondered if Julian liked snacks, too.

Julian returned to his desk and resumed working. Elise relaxed. She changed clothes in her room, then came back to the study and curled up on the sofa with the snacks.

He noticed how much more at ease she had become around him and smiled faintly. He had asked Nora what Elise liked to eat. Nora had given him a long list and explained her tastes. He’d bought everything to suit her.

Daniel had delivered the box only a short while ago. Julian had planned to take it to Elise’s room when she came home.

But seeing her face when she found the snacks changed his mind. Maybe keeping them in his study, where she could come to him for them, wasn’t a bad idea.

One worked, the other snacked. Time passed quietly, and the room settled into an easy calm.

Then Elise remembered something. “Julian, Theo’s back.”

Julian’s fingers paused over the keyboard. He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked at her, one brow lifting. “How do you know? Did you see him?”

Theo never told them where he was going. He had no reason to; he barely came home once a year. His brothers had grown used to him doing as he pleased. They were all adults, and Julian had no need to manage him.

Elise’s thoughts kept circling. She wanted Theo to move back in and for the whole family to be together.

But he didn’t seem willing.

She tried to bring it up. “Julian, maybe I’m imagining it, but you, Adrian, and Miles seem…strange whenever Theo comes up.”

Julian’s fingers stopped on the keyboard. He turned to her, surprised.

“And when I asked Theo to come home, he didn’t say no. He just changed the subject.” Elise hesitated, unsure if Julian would tell her why Theo seemed so distant from the others.

Julian understood what she was asking almost at once. After a pause, he said, “What do you think, Ellie?”

“I don’t know. I just want all my family together.” She stopped, remembering the look on Theo’s face. “And…he lives alone. That’s so sad.”

Julian was quiet for a moment, his brow drawing tight.

He didn’t believe a family had to live together. Being with Elise was enough for him; she was his sister, and he wanted to protect her. His other brothers had their own lives and needed space. He himself had barely been home in the past, and everyone had managed just fine.

Why did they need to be together every minute?

But Elise clearly wanted them all under one roof.

He sighed. “Don’t you remember that Theo left home?”

Elise stopped eating and nodded emphatically. “Yes.”

“From the time I was old enough to be educated, the family trained me to be its heir. I had my schoolwork, plus all the extra classes in business, foreign languages, and more. The other boys got the same treatment when they were old enough, though the rules weren’t as strict for them. At first it was only me. Later Adrian and Theo started taking the same endless classes every day.”

Julian continued, “Theo went through the motions, but he was secretly obsessed with games. He kept playing no matter how often we tried to stop him. He fought with our parents over it more than once. He skipped classes, ignored their rules, and eventually announced he was going to become a pro gamer and make games his career.”

“Our parents opposed it, of course. They were ashamed of him. In their eyes, gaming was a waste of time, especially for someone from our family, with so many people watching us. They smashed all his gaming equipment, froze his bank accounts, and forbade him from playing.”

“What happened after that?”

“He ran away from home. He left a note saying he was going to become a pro and prove himself to them.”

Elise fell silent.

“Six months later, our parents died.”

Elise’s hand tightened around the snack. She knew they had been overseas on vacation when they were caught in a tsunami.

Julian sighed. “The day I got the news, I tried to reach him, but I couldn’t. Later, I found out he was competing overseas. He’d cut off every way we could contact him so our parents couldn’t find him and stop him from gaming. Just as he wanted, even after they died, they couldn’t reach him. He didn’t arrive until late, at the funeral.”

Elise’s eyes lowered. So that was why Julian, Adrian, and Miles had drifted away from Theo.

They couldn’t understand that he had run away to play games. Then, when their parents died, he was nowhere to be found and only came to the funeral late.

Elise sat quietly before asking, “Are you angry with him?”

She couldn’t judge. She had seen Theo at the tournament, full of confidence and fire. It was no wonder his fans had screamed for him.

Julian pressed his lips together. His view was simple. Theo had chosen to leave home to become a pro gamer. It was also true that, when their parents died, they couldn’t reach him.

He had never agreed with Theo’s choice. How could games matter that much?