[BL]Reborn as the Empire's Most Desired Omega
Chapter 133: Visitor.

Chapter 133: Chapter 133: Visitor.

The rest of the breakfast passed in silence, though silence was generous. It was more like the hush before a verdict.

Ophelia didn’t finish her coffee. She didn’t touch her toast. She just sat, still and small, until Serathine rose without ceremony and left the room, the soft tread of her heels echoing louder than it should have. The staff reappeared five minutes later. No one looked her in the eye.

It wasn’t until the afternoon that the summons came. A single knock on the door of her chamber, followed by the clipped announcement of Serathine’s steward.

"You may dress. The Duchess has granted your request."

Ophelia blinked. "What request?"

"To see your mother."

"You will have thirty minutes," the steward said, not unkindly, but without warmth either. "Lady Serathine will not accompany you. I’ve been assigned as your guardian. You have fifteen minutes to prepare."

Ophelia straightened. "I... now?"

"Yes." A pause. "If you still wish to see her."

She blinked. "Can I speak to her?"

"You may ask whatever you like." His expression didn’t shift. "No one will interfere."

There was no explanation offered. No promise of safety or resolution. Just a door opening with the kind of quiet that always felt like a trap.

Ophelia waited a beat. "Do I get to know why?"

The steward didn’t even sigh. "You have fourteen minutes." View the correct content at NovelFire.

Then he turned and left.

The door closed softly behind him, like punctuation.

She didn’t move at first. Not out of shock. Just... calculation. The kind she’d been taught at school, at home, at dinner tables where everything unsaid was louder than anything spoken.

So they wanted her to go.

They wanted her to ask. They weren’t forbidding it. They were hoping for it.

Which meant they wanted to see what Misty would say, if Misty would say anything, when the person standing in front of her wasn’t a prosecutor or a prince, but her daughter.

Fine.

Ophelia went to the mirror and pulled her hair back, tight and high. No ribbon. No earrings. She wiped the gloss off her lips and traded the pale blouse for something gray. Civil. Forgettable. Something you could walk into a prison wearing and not feel like a joke.

Her mother was many things, but she wasn’t stupid. Misty Kilmer had climbed higher than most women dared to look, and she hadn’t done it by smiling sweetly or waiting for a handout. There was steel behind the pearls, and calculation behind every kindness. Maybe prison had softened the shine. Maybe the last few years had bent her edges into something more palatable.

But Misty was never going to break.

They had all assumed Lucas would.

The docile doll. The quiet one. The child who had learned early to disappear when it mattered most. He had played the role to perfection—until the temple. Until something changed.

Ophelia didn’t know what happened there. No one talked about it. Not in words that made sense.

But after that, Lucas stopped being theirs.

And Misty had lost the only thing she couldn’t afford to: control.

—

The facility smelled like disinfectant and money—too clean to be cruel, too sterile to be safe. No screaming. No shackles. Just concrete corridors painted white, and walls that never bothered to pretend they had ears.

The steward led her wordlessly through two sets of security and one long, empty hallway. At the end, a reinforced door hissed open, revealing the visitation chamber. The glass was thick and one-way. The microphone was embedded into the edge of the console. The seat was bolted down. Misty was already inside.

She sat with her legs crossed, posture flawless, a pen between her fingers and a leather folder open in her lap. Her hair was pulled back. Her blouse was crisp. Her skin looked rested. No bruises, no shadows, no visible sign she’d spent the last month rotting in consequence.

She looked fine.

That was the second insult.

She didn’t react when Ophelia entered. Not a flinch, not a breath out of place. She just glanced toward the mirror like she’d expected someone else entirely.

Ophelia sat down on the opposite side of the glass.

For a moment, neither of them spoke.

Then Ophelia leaned forward and reached for the mic. Her fingers hovered for a second before she pressed the button.

"Mother."

Misty’s gaze sharpened—not soft, not surprised, just focused. She didn’t speak.

"I’ve missed him," Ophelia said quietly. Her voice didn’t tremble. Not yet. "Lucas. I haven’t seen him. Not even a letter. He’s with that man now. In Saha."

A pause.

Her expression folded delicately into grief. "He won’t even look at me. I’m all alone. The staff won’t speak. They keep me in the south wing like I’m contagious."

Still, Misty said nothing.

Ophelia blinked slowly. Let her lashes get wet. Just enough.

"Caesar left. Your fiancé. He dropped me at the gates like I was nothing." Her voice cracked, right on cue. "No one’s on our side anymore."

She pressed the back of her hand to her lips, like she was holding something in. "I tried, Mother. I really did."

And Misty, calm, controlled Misty, finally moved.

She leaned forward, hand reaching just slightly toward the glass, fingers brushing the air as if to touch her daughter’s cheek. Her expression shifted, just enough to seem maternal. Concerned. Soft.

But the glass didn’t yield.

It stayed firm between them

And Misty’s hand stopped just short, suspended mid-air like an apology too late to matter.

Of course she didn’t speak. She didn’t need to. The look on her face was well-practiced, something between sympathy and strategy. The kind of look that used to get donors to sign checks and judges to bend rulings.

But Ophelia saw it now. The calculation beneath the concern.

The pause before the performance.

The slight narrowing of her mother’s eyes, not in pain, but recognition.

"You’re lying," that look said.

Ophelia smiled. Just faintly. Just enough to admit it.

And Misty’s fingers curled back in.

She didn’t console her.

She didn’t accuse her either.

She just sat there, with that same calm she’d used for years, and let her daughter weep on one side of the glass, for a family neither of them ever really had.