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Chapter 28
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2025-05-16 04:18:06
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MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 29
Victoria’s povI hated being reactive but Alice had made it necessary.The leak, the whisper campaigns, Ryan’s sudden spine all of it had pushed this game into dangerous territory. So now, I moved the way a queen always should.Three steps ahead.I closed the folder Reeves’ assistant left on the bench near the judge’s chamber, my mind already sharpening the edge of the next lie.The courtroom wasn’t about truth. It was about narrative and believability and people still believed me.That was all I needed.Outside, Clara waited in the car, her phone clutched like a lifeline. She looked awful, thin, pale and sleep deprived. Her hair was thrown into a rushed knot, mascara flaking at the corners of her eyes. She wasn’t unraveling anymore—she was already unraveled.“You’re late,” I said, sliding into the back seat.“I was throwing up,” she snapped.“Save the drama,” I said. “You wanted to be me, remember?”Clara let out a shaky breath, staring out the window. “Aaron asked if he could stay l
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 28
Victoria’s povI always arrive early. It’s not habit. It’s dominance.If you’re already seated, they walk in thinking they’re late even when they’re not. It shifts the dynamic and gives me control. Most people are too foolish to realize how much of life is decided before a single word is spoken.The courtroom smelled like cheap paper and nerves. I preferred boardrooms, penthouse views and contracts written in ink and power but sometimes, war required dirt.And courtrooms? They were excellent battlegrounds.I sat with my legs crossed, gloves in my lap, watching the empty benches fill one by one. Reeves entered first—always wearing that pathetic quiet confidence, as if decency still won wars. Then came Alice.She didn’t look broken anymore.That was a problem.Her coat was black, tailored. Her chin lifted. No lawyer had to usher her in or direct her to her seat. She knew exactly where to go. She looked… dangerous.I hated that.I’d spent years reshaping her absence into something conven
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 27
Alice’s povI didn’t waste time.By 8 a.m. the next morning, I was back in Reeves’ office with the flash drive in hand and the entire weight of five years’ worth of silence burning in my chest.He looked up when I walked in. No small talk. He saw it in my eyes.“You found something.”I set the drive on his desk and said nothing just waited.He plugged it in, eyes narrowing at the file names. Then his brows pulled low.“Where did this come from?”“Don’t ask.”He studied me for a second, then nodded, dragging the cursor over a file labeled in old legal shorthand I didn’t recognize. When it opened, the screen filled with something ugly and familiar.My name, a diagnosis, forged signatures and a fabricated timeline that could have torn my entire life apart if I hadn’t survived long enough to see it with my own eyes.Reeves leaned back in his chair. “This is… damning.”“Will it hold in court?”“If we can prove the files weren’t manufactured by you, yes. And if we find the original source
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 26
Alice’s povI didn’t sleep. Again.The file Reeves gave me sat on the kitchen counter all night, unopened, but I didn’t need to flip it open again to feel the weight of it pressing down on my chest.They wanted me rattled.Clara wanted me to look unwell, to be unstable.Victoria wanted me to disappear again but this time, I had no intention of playing by their rules.At 6:14 a.m., I made coffee and stood barefoot in the kitchen, staring at the gray light bleeding in through the blinds. The city was just beginning to wake up.I already had a head start.Reeves had sent over a name last night before going silent. One of Victoria’s old assistants—a woman who had “quietly resigned” three years ago after some internal dispute no one could ever prove. Her name was Leila Hart, and according to the attached message, “She saw more than they realized.”I sipped my coffee and read the name over and over again.If Leila talked—even just a little it could be the thread I needed to pull the whole t
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 25
Alice’s povI didn’t sleep. Not really.I drifted in and out of something like rest, but my body never truly let go. My arms stayed wrapped around Mera like I thought someone might try and pry her from me in the middle of the night.It wasn’t just nerves. It wasn’t the upcoming court date or the mountain of evidence Reeves said we still needed to present.It was something else, something I couldn’t name, but I could feel it like a draft in a room with no windows open.By morning, the house felt heavier than usual. Mera yawned, stretched, and curled back into my side like a cat, warm and safe. I kissed the top of her head and let her stay tucked against me a little longer. She didn’t ask why I was up so early. She didn’t need to, she always knew when I was bracing for something.My phone buzzed on the table. I slipped away from her carefully and checked it.It was a message from Reeves.“Meet me at the office, something came up and I need to show you before they do.”No hello, no exp
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 24
Clara’s pov I slammed the bathroom door and leaned hard against it, locking it behind me. My reflection stared back at me from the mirror too pale, too angry, too exposed.Ryan was never supposed to look at me like that.He wasn’t supposed to doubt me. Not like that, not after everything I’d done for him, for Aaron, for us.My hands shook as I turned on the faucet and splashed cold water on my face. It did nothing to cool the rage burning beneath my skin.I had given him everything, I stood by him when Alice disappeared, I raised his son, I made our life look whole when it was anything but.And now?He was slipping through my fingers.No, she was pulling him.Alice.She walked into that courtroom like she’d never bled, like she didn’t have dirt on her soul, like she hadn’t abandoned them.And worst of all, she was convincing.I saw it. In the judge’s eyes and in Ryan’s and it made me want to scream.I slammed the heel of my hand against the counter, hard enough to sting. My pulse w
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 23
I had never hated silence until today. It settled in the car like a fog, thick and hard to breathe through. I hadn’t turned the engine on yet I just sat in the driver’s seat, keys dangling from my hand, staring at nothing.The courtroom had been quiet too, too quiet when Alice spoke like everyone knew what she was saying was true and no one wanted to be the first to admit it. That was the worst part, the truth was obvious, and I still didn’t know how I let it get this far.I rubbed my hands over my face her voice wouldn’t leave me.“I didn’t run. I was erased.”She hadn’t said it with bitterness not even with anger. Just… clarity like someone who had carried those words in her chest for years, waiting for someone to ask and I’d never asked.I’d believed them—Victoria, Clara, the reports all of it. Because it was easier, because it hurt less than thinking I’d failed her and failed us.I glanced at my phone, screen still dark. No messages, no calls, no updates from Clara or Victoria an
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 22
Alice’s povThe courthouse waiting room smelled like old paper and disinfectant everything was plain—plain walls, plain chairs, plain faces trying not to look too hopeful or too tired. I sat in the far corner, my palms pressed to my knees to keep them from shaking.I wasn’t nervous not exactly. I was holding everything too tightly for nerves.Ryan sat a few seats away from me, scrolling through his phone like the glow of the screen could shield him from the weight of today. Reeves hadn’t said much since we arrived, just handed me a coffee and nodded when I took it. That was enough words would’ve ruined the calm I was trying to fake. He’d gone over everything with me a dozen times. The documents, the photos and the testimony, I kept replaying it in my head.Aaron’s book and his voice. The look in his eyes when he handed it to me.I wasn’t just fighting for visitation anymore. This hearing meant more. It was a chance to shift custody, a chance to be seen again not just as the mother t
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 21
Alice’s povAfter the door clicked shut behind Ryan, I didn’t move.I stood there, hand still resting on the knob, my forehead lightly pressed to the wood. It was quiet again and still but not the same kind of stillness that used to follow silence. This one didn’t sting. It didn’t feel like abandonment, it felt like space.Space to breathe, space to think, space to feel whatever I needed to feel without explaining it.I listened to his footsteps fade down the stairs, then across the gravel until they disappeared completely. For once, he didn’t look back and strangely, I appreciated that. No lingering glances, no unspoken questions hanging between us. Just… presence. And now, absence. The clean kind.I walked back to the kitchen and poured the rest of my coffee down the sink. It had gone cold and bitter. I hated when things tasted like something they weren’t supposed to be.My phone buzzed. A message.Made it home. Let me know if you need anything.I stared at the text for a while, th
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