Semua Bab STEP BROTHER DEAREST: Bab 31 - Bab 40

Chapter 32The victory at the industrial complex had shifted the balance in ways that were subtle but profound. For the first time, the stepbrother — enigmatic, precise, and lethal in his own way — had shown hesitation. A crack in the armor, a small gap in the carefully constructed persona of omniscience.Ian, Madison, and I convened in the library at first light, the room buzzing with a mixture of excitement and tense anticipation. Our maps, notes, and devices were spread across the table, and for the first time, the strategy wasn’t just about survival — it was about understanding, anticipating, and exploiting the enemy.“He’s not invincible,” Ian said, tracing lines on the map where we had forced his reactions. “He adapts quickly, but he hesitates when he’s forced into positions he hasn’t accounted for. That hesitation… it’s a weakness. And that’s what we exploit next.”Madison leaned in, her eyes scanning every line and note. “But he’s unpredictable. If we push too far, too fast, w

Chapter 34The library felt different after the theater. The air carried a weight that wasn’t there before, like a hush following a confession. We hadn’t spoken much after cataloging the data, each of us retreating into our own corner of thought. The victory — if it could be called that — was too raw to celebrate.It wasn’t triumph. Not yet.It was proof.Proof that he could falter. Proof that we could make him falter.And that proof was more dangerous than any weapon we could carry.Madison sat near the far window, her profile outlined in the dawn light that bled through cracks in the blinds. She hadn’t moved for an hour, her gaze fixed somewhere beyond the glass. Ian had claimed the head of the table, papers spread before him, his pen scratching in sharp, precise strokes as he charted patterns.I stood between them, restless, pacing the length of the room. Every step stirred dust from the floorboards, the sound too loud in the silence.“He knows,” Madison said finally, her voice qui

Chapter 36The city moved like a wounded animal. Streets swallowed by fog, windows glowing faint in the distance, the silence too dense to be natural. Every night we slipped into its veins, and every night I felt more of the pressure folding inward.It wasn’t just him anymore. It was us.Ian worked like a man fevered. He slept in fragments, his face hollowed by sleepless calculation. Pages filled with diagrams and numbers sprawled across the library floor, so tangled even he had begun to lose track of his own connections.Madison grew sharper with each day, her silence heavier, her patience worn thin by his manic drive. She started pushing back against even the smallest assumptions, cutting through his plans with cold logic, sometimes not even looking at him when she spoke.And I — I was becoming the thread between them, stretched thinner every hour, the tension threatening to snap me in half.---It was two nights after the subway. Ian hadn’t stopped pacing since. He stopped only to

Chapter 38The night after the junction was endless.Ian didn’t come back to the library. Madison paced, her face drawn tight, and I sat at the table surrounded by scattered maps and broken threads of a plan that no longer made sense. The silence pressed down, heavier with each passing hour.Finally, Madison stopped. “We can’t wait. He’s unraveling out there.”I wanted to argue, to say that Ian was strong, that he always came back. But the words stuck in my throat, hollow and useless. Because I had seen his eyes when the stepbrother unmade him with a single hesitation.He hadn’t just lost. He had been exposed.Madison grabbed her jacket. “We find him. Tonight.”---The city was thick with fog again, the kind that muffled sound and blurred light into trembling halos. We moved through the streets like shadows, searching the places Ian would go when his rage and obsession outweighed reason.The rooftops where he had sketched our early plans. The alleys where he had tested angles of pursu

Chapter 40The chalk words glared at us from the wall, stark in the dim light:**“Hesitation is the labyrinth.”**Madison’s breathing was sharp, ragged, though her eyes stayed fixed and cold. She crouched, fingers grazing the fallen notebook, but she didn’t pick it up. As though touching it might confirm something she refused to believe.My chest was hollow. Ian’s cry still echoed in my skull — raw, cut short, unfinished. I wanted to call out, to scream his name, but the silence pressed against my throat like a hand.Madison stood, her voice brittle. “We leave.”I stared at her, stunned. “Leave? We can’t just—”“He’s gone,” she snapped. The word struck like a blade, final and merciless. “You heard him. You saw this.” Her eyes flicked toward the chalk, her lips curling with fury. “This is his mark. He’s playing with us. If we chase, we step exactly where he wants.”I shook my head, the ground beneath me shifting. “But if Ian’s still alive—”Her gaze pinned me. Cold, unflinching. “If he