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Chapter 31
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2025-05-19 09:45:26
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MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 35
Clara’s POV I hated the silence most. Not the shouting, not the accusations, not even the sound of my own voice cracking around the lies I kept telling. It was the silence. The kind that lingered after the door closed, after the lights were turned off, after Aaron stopped looking back at me. I used to think silence was peaceful. Now I know it’s punishment. I sat on the edge of my bed, staring down at a framed photo of Aaron when he was four. His cheeks were fuller then, his smile crooked like mine used to be before the world took it and sharpened it into something else. I used to brush his hair back every morning, pack his bag, kiss his forehead. He used to love me. He used to call me Mama. Now? Now he was at Alice’s and I wasn’t invited. No matter how many times I tried to replay the scene in my mind, the courtroom verdict played on loop. Final, clear and brutal. Alice wins. I lose. Aaron didn’t run to me when the judge spoke. He didn’t cry or even look confused. He ju
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 34
Alice’s POVI didn’t let go of Aaron’s hand until we were inside the car.Even then, my fingers stayed close, hovering in case he changed his mind.The courtroom had emptied slowly, like air leaving a balloon. One by one they left — Reeves nodding with that careful pride, Ryan watching us from across the aisle, Clara storming out like someone had stolen her crown and Victoria… well, she hadn’t said a word. Just that look. That silent venom that promised this wasn’t over but this time, I didn’t shrink. I didn’t flinch because Aaron chose to walk out with me.Mera was waiting in the backseat when we got to the car. She sat with her bunny in her lap, her legs swinging slightly like she couldn’t decide if she was nervous or excited.When she saw Aaron, her whole face lit up. “You came!”He gave the smallest nod.She shifted her bunny toward him, like an offering. “Want to hold her for a bit?”Aaron hesitated. His hands twitched in his lap, unsure but then, almost shyly, he reached out. “O
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 34
Victoria’s POVThe house was too quiet.It was the kind of silence that didn’t feel peaceful rather it felt like judgment, like the walls were whispering about everything I’d done, everything I’d twisted, buried, and rewrote to make this empire survive.To make my legacy survive.I stood at the edge of the stairwell, one hand on the banister, watching the marble floor below. I didn’t go down. I couldn’t. My heels were still wet from the rain outside, but I didn’t move to remove them. I stayed there poised and rigid like a statue carved out of denial.Clara hadn’t come back in.I noticed.I wouldn’t admit it out loud, but I noticed.The last time I saw that look in her eyes — that flicker of guilt, of weakness — it was years ago before I taught her better, before I shaped her into the weapon she needed to be.Now that weapon was splintering and I didn’t have a backup.I turned away from the stairs and walked to my study. The door clicked behind me — the only sound in the vast, echoing
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 32
Alice’s POVThe courtroom felt colder than usual maybe it was the marble floors, or maybe it was just the silence. That kind of stillness that presses into your ears until your own heartbeat becomes the loudest thing in the room. I sat with my hands clasped in my lap, palms sweating through the thin fabric of my dress. Across the aisle, Clara looked polished and smug. She always did. Her lawyer sat beside her, whispering something that made her lift her chin just slightly higher.Reeves leaned toward me, his tone low. “No matter what happens, remember—you’ve already won. You showed up. You fought.”I nodded. It wasn’t enough. Not yet.My eyes scanned the bench until they landed on Mera—safe in the back, coloring quietly under the watchful eye of a staff member. She didn’t understand what this meant. Not fully and maybe that was for the best but Aaron did.He sat beside Clara, head lowered, hands folded in his lap, almost too still for a child. He hadn’t looked at me since we entered t
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 31
Alice’s povThere was a quiet kind of terror in hope.Not the fear that came from threats or violence—that kind of fear was obvious, easy to name. But hope? Hope was dangerous, hope was waiting for something good and knowing, deep in your bones, that you might not get it. That they could take it from you again.I stood outside the courthouse with my fingers curled tight around the strap of my bag, the wind cutting across my cheeks like a warning. Reeves was late, and I hated that I noticed. The sky overhead was a smear of grey, and everything in my body felt wired and tight, like the universe had decided I didn’t deserve peace today either.Aaron had smiled at me yesterday.Just for a second. A real one.It had cracked something open inside me I’d kept sealed for five years.Now I couldn’t stop shaking.“You’re early,” a voice said behind me.I turned and it was Ryan.Of course.His coat was dark, and the collar was up, half-obscuring the bruised circles beneath his eyes. He looked li
MY STEP SISTER'S MARRIAGE: I AM HER SUBSTITUTE Chapter 30
Aaron’s povSometimes, I pretended my head was a spaceship.When it got too loud with Clara yelling, Victoria’s voice like knives, the rules I couldn’t keep straight I’d close my eyes and imagine I was floating far away. Past the moon, past Mars. Out to where no one could follow me, where it was quiet and safe.Today wasn’t quiet.Dr. Monroe sat across from me, legs crossed, notebook balanced on one knee. She smiled a lot, but not in the fake way Clara did when people were watching. It was soft and real but still made me nervous.I didn’t like being watched. Not when I was supposed to talk but she didn’t ask questions like the other grown-ups. She just said:“Tell me a story.”So I did.Not the one about school or the one about Clara’s house with the glass table I wasn’t allowed to touch.I told her the real one.About the boy in the spaceship.The one who got lost.The one who woke up one day and couldn’t remember where he came from but felt it anyway. Like music you heard once in a
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
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