Chapter 5

"Make some room and keep the air flowing!"

With a life on the line, Cyrus couldn't care less about Selene's status. He darted to the wheelchair in one quick stride.

He pressed his right index and middle fingers together, placing them on an acupoint in the center of Harrison's chest. With a steady rhythm, he kept pressing and kneading that spot.

At the same time, his left thumb pinched down on the acupoint on the inside of Harrison's left wrist, applying firm stimulation. His movements were brisk and decisive, without a trace of hesitation.

"What are you doing?"

Selene's voice shook, half from panic, half from tears. But when she saw the intense focus on Cyrus' face, she didn't force him to stop. She just watched him, tense and terrified.

Cyrus didn't have the bandwidth to answer. All of his attention was on what he could feel with his fingertips and Harrison's labored breathing. He adjusted the force of his hands in sync with each shallow inhale. He pressed, kneaded, and pressed again in a steady, grounded rhythm.

Selene and Albert both had their hearts in their throats. They held their breath, staring without even blinking.

A few seconds later, Harrison's frantic, gasping breaths eased. The rhythm slowed and lengthened, turning deeper and more even. That frightening bluish pallor on his face visibly faded, and a hint of color slowly crept back into his cheeks.

He let out a long, heavy breath. The deep furrow between his brows finally eased up a little.

"Grandpa!"

Serene's voice trembled with lingering fear as relief crashed over her. She quickly steadied Harrison in his wheelchair.

Albert hurried over as well, bringing water and a fast-acting heart medication pill to Harrison's lips. Harrison waved him off weakly, signaling that he didn't need it for now. His gaze was full of surprise as it landed on Cyrus.

Seeing the color return to Harrison's face, Selene turned to stare at Cyrus in astonishment, too. "You know traditional medicine?"

But the moment the words left her mouth, she regretted them. Asking something like that basically advertised how little she really knew about Cyrus.

Cyrus gave an embarrassed little smile. "Back in the day, I got lucky and ended up learning a bit of emergency stuff from an experienced traditional medicine practitioner. He told me that if you hit these acupoints at the right time, you can buy someone enough time to get them to a hospital. I didn't expect it to actually come in handy today."

Harrison studied him for a long moment, his gaze inquisitive. Then, he said, "Thank you."

"Grandpa, you're being way too polite. I only did what I should've done," Cyrus answered quickly.

"Selene, go to my study and organize the acquisition report. Bring it to me when you're done," Harrison suddenly said.

Selene was no fool. She could tell he was deliberately sending her away. But if she left Cyrus here alone, he was bound to slip up.

"Grandpa, you should really get some—" she started.

"Go." Harrison's voice wasn't loud, but it was clear there was no room for argument.

Selene looked at him, then at Cyrus. She pursed her lips and finally nodded. "Okay. I'll go now."

On her way out, she shot Cyrus a look that clearly told him not to say anything he shouldn't.

The living room fell silent, leaving only Cyrus and Harrison facing each other. Cyrus didn't seem rattled, though. His expression stayed calm.

Harrison leaned back in his wheelchair and looked straight at him. "You don't seem nervous around me at all, young man."

He had held power for many years. Authority clung to him like a second skin, and he radiated a pressure that made most people stiffen up the moment they stepped into his presence.

Forget someone as young as Cyrus—even seasoned middle-aged executives tended to fidget and sweat in front of him. And Cyrus was supposed to be a nobody at the bottom of the food chain.

That alone made Harrison curious.

Cyrus blinked, caught off guard by the question. He hadn't expected Harrison to come at him head-on like that.

"It's not that I'm not nervous, Grandpa," he said with a sheepish smile. "I was just so focused on treating you just now that the nerves kind of disappeared. Now that you're pointing it out, I'm starting to get nervous again."

He ended with an awkward little chuckle.

Harrison nodded, then continued his line of questioning. "Those acupressure moves you used just now were fast, precise, and steady. Even your rhythm was right on mark. That kind of skill isn't what you call just picking up a little here and there, is it?"

Cyrus' heart gave a hard thump. The old man had eyes like an eagle.

"Your instincts are spot-on, Grandpa," Cyrus admitted respectfully. He chose to come clean. "I used to serve in the military, and I spent a few years as the personal guard for a retired commander with the last name Quill. He was a master of traditional medicine.

"Whenever he had some time to spare, he loved teaching us kids some emergency moves—acupoints, techniques, that kind of thing. I watched him for years and ended up learning a good bit of it for real. It was mostly so that if anything happened on a mission, we could step in and at least hold the line."

"The military? You were a soldier?" A flicker of understanding flashed through Harrison's eyes. "No wonder. The way you carry yourself shows a kind of stubborn grit that only comes from being beaten into shape in the army. That explains it."

Then, without warning, his tone shifted. "Now, tell me the truth. What's really going on between you and Selene? I know her too well. She's not the type to act on impulse and do something this reckless."

Cyrus wasn't surprised to be called out. Nothing got past a man like Harrison. Compared to him, his and Selene's little cover-up looked like a joke.

He decided not to dance around it. In just a few sentences, he laid out what had happened the day before—the whole melodramatic mess, from start to finish.

Harrison listened in silence, his face unreadable. A cold glint only flashed in his sharp eyes when Cyrus finished.

"Hmph. In a way, this saves me the trouble. I never liked that Zeller boy. His mind's never been in the right place, and he's been getting a little too cozy with Bart lately," he grumbled.

His gaze returned to Cyrus, but this time, there was a hint of appreciation there.

"Young man, want to hear about Selene's story?" he asked.

Cyrus was taken aback, not quite following the sudden turn. But since Harrison had brought it up, all he could do was nod. "I'm listening."

"Selene's had a hard life. Her parents died in an accident when she was still very young. I was the one who raised her from when she was a baby to adulthood. She's my only granddaughter, and she's the future head of Moore Group."

Harrison motioned for Cyrus to wheel him over to the floor-to-ceiling windows.

After years of delivering food all over the city, Cyrus had long since learned how to read the room. He immediately moved behind the wheelchair and pushed it forward smoothly.

"These old bones won't hold out for much longer," Harrison went on. "I've felt myself getting weaker by the day. And Bart… he's been making moves, little by little. They all think Selene is nothing but a woman who can't shoulder the Moore family's legacy, so they've been trying every trick they can think of to pull her down and take her place."

"Bart?" Cyrus frowned.

"Bart Moore, my second son and Selene's uncle."

Cyrus swore silently. Was this the sort of rich family power struggle that people always saw on TV? Had he walked straight into the live-action version?

"The Zeller and Moore families have been close for generations. That much is true. Unfortunately, David Zeller has sky-high ambitions and none of the abilities to match. There's only one reason he's been clinging to Selene for years—he's after the Moore family fortune."

Harrison's voice grew colder. "I even suspect Bart has been backing him in secret, promising him who-knows-what in return. Look at how things have turned out now. Selene went and married you out of nowhere, blindsiding David. Do you think he'll swallow the humiliation? And Bart's definitely going to seize this chance to make a scene.

"Selene might look cold and composed on the outside, but she's under crushing pressure, carrying the entire Moore family on her shoulders by herself. Now, on top of everything, she's ended up in this mess. I'm worried that she…"

His voice caught. He took a sharp breath and forced himself back under control.

Cyrus felt a heavy weight settle over his heart as he listened to all of this.

These waters ran way too deep. A small fry like him could dive in and vanish without so much as a splash. The grudges and schemes of the rich and powerful were the kinds of things that got people killed.

Right then, Harrison suddenly lifted his head. His eyes were deadly serious, even tinged with something like pleading, as he locked his gaze on Cyrus.

"Cyrus, I have a shameless request…" he said slowly.

Every alarm bell in Cyrus' head went off at once.

"Grandpa, please don't—" His instinct was to refuse on the spot.

"Listen to me first," Harrison cut in, not giving him a chance. "I know this isn't fair to you. You're just a bystander, and I'm at fault for insisting on dragging you into this. But things are already in motion. David's retaliation, Bart's methods… it won't be long before all of it comes crashing down on you and Selene."

Cyrus wasn't dumb. He understood exactly what Harrison was implying.

"That's why I'm begging you to stay by her side," Harrison said. "Stay as her husband in name and as the shield standing in front of her. Protect her. Help her block the bullets and knives, the ones you can see and the ones you can't. Can you do that?"

He turned the wheelchair so he faced Cyrus directly, then bent at the waist in a deep bow.

"Grandpa, please! Don't do this!" Cyrus scrambled to stop him, feeling lost.

His brain felt like it had short-circuited. How had things escalated this fast?

He had gone from a temporary stand-in to full-time bodyguard cum live target in a billionaire family feud. His scalp tingled, and a cold sweat broke out down his spine.

"Grandpa, it's not that I don't want to help," he said. "I'm just an ordinary guy—a food delivery guy. How am I supposed to go up against the big shots you're talking about? It's a hopeless situation. It's suicide."

"I'm not asking you to fight them head-on," Harrison said quickly. "All you have to do is stand beside Selene. Your status as her husband is already her best protection. A man of unknown background who convinced Selene to marry him in a flash—that alone will make Bart and David hesitate. They'll think twice before they act.

"And I can tell that you've got courage. You've got a sense of responsibility. There's strength in you. When it really counts, you're someone people can rely on."

As Cyrus listened to him, something suddenly clicked. All the questions that had been spinning around in his head snapped into place, and everything became clear.