Semua Bab Bound By Blood: The Step-Brothers' Temptation: Bab 181 - Bab 190

_Author’s POV_The door slammed open so violently that it ricocheted off the wall, startling everyone inside the room. Nico stood in the frame, soaked from rain and breathing like he’d run through hell. His hair was plastered to his forehead, his hands stained with something darker than mud.Matteo looked up from the corner, where he’d been hunched over a table covered in half-deciphered documents and chemical analyses. Luca didn’t even move from Amelie’s bedside. His hand still rested over hers, and his gaze stayed fixed on the rise and fall of her chest—weak, mechanical, shallow.He couldn't bring himself to do anything else. His brothers seemed to have it all under control.“You went to find Doctor Sanders? She is she?” Matteo asked immediately, his gaze falling behind his brother. His lips turned in confusion when he didn't find anyone walking in after in. “I found her,” Nico rasped. His voice was hoarse, edged with adrenaline. “Sanders. Or what’s left of her.”Matteo stood slowl

_Author’s POV_The room fell into stunned silence after Amelie fell back unconscious.It had taken Luca a while to get it all into his head. He had been leaning over her, forehead nearly pressed to hers, whispering apologies into her skin for hours. But that one sentence knocked the breath out of his lungs. His hand trembled where it cradled hers.“She’s still awake?” Matteo’s voice cracked across the space, somewhere between hope and disbelief.Hope that maybe she had stayed awake longer this time. Hope that maybe she didn't leave them once again. But he knew not to hope.“Just for a second,” Nico said, his voice sharper, but not unkind. He had seen it too—her lashes fluttering, her lips moving. “She’s not lucid. She’s barely staying conscious. But it’s something.”“She’s fighting,” Matteo murmured, stepping closer to the bed.Luca didn’t speak. He looked like someone who had just watched the dead breathe.“She forgave me,” he whispered, almost like he couldn’t believe it. Then, aga

_Author’s POV_The second antidote was ready. Or at least, as ready as desperation would allow this second time. The lab smelled like antiseptic, melted rubber, and exhaustion. Matteo hadn’t slept in nearly two days. Nico’s eyes were red from lack of sleep and the chemical fumes that clung to everything. Luca hadn’t left Amelie’s side since the last attempt failed.The first formula had nearly killed her.She’d flatlined for seven terrifying seconds. Her body had gone ice-cold and still, as if it had finally given up the fight. It had taken every bit of strength Matteo had not to fall apart while watching the monitors scream. Only sheer force of will had kept him from shattering every beaker in the room.Now they were trying again.They could have gotten a lab to do all these, but you never know who plays for Santiago or not.Nico stood at the edge of the steel table, arms folded across his chest. “I’ve recalibrated the stabilizer compound. Less neuroshock, more metabolic pacing.”Ma

Third Person POVThe silence after her whisper was so fragile it felt like the entire room held its breath with her.“I think I love you.”The words hung in the air like smoke—impossible to hold, impossible to ignore. She hadn’t even said it to one of them. She hadn’t chosen. She just… offered it, soft and broken and half-alive, like a flame flickering in a windstorm.And they didn't know who was supposed to take it. Then her eyes fluttered closed.The machines kept their rhythm. Gentle beeps. Steady pulse. The rise and fall of her chest.She was asleep again.Luca didn’t move. His hand was still tangled with hers, thumb brushing over the delicate bones of her wrist like he was afraid she’d vanish again.Nico leaned back in the chair and blew out a slow, quiet breath. “Did she really just say—?”“Yeah,” Matteo said, voice hoarse. “She did.”They couldn't believe it, but it was there. The weight of it pressed against the three of them like gravity had shifted. Something about those w

Amelie’s POVThe worst part wasn’t the pain. Or the nausea. Or the strange, heavy exhaustion that refused to leave my bones.It was the silence in my own mind. The part of me that couldn’t remember when I’d last felt like myself. The part that kept wondering what I’d missed while I was… gone.Gone but not dead.I hadn’t died. But it felt like I’d disappeared.I know they said for a few seconds I had flatlined, and I am glad they fought for me. Glad they didn’t let me die. Now I was back, piece by piece. Waking up had felt like climbing through mud, and even now my muscles trembled with the effort of sitting up. But every hour, it got a little easier. The fog cleared. My fingers stopped shaking. I could drink water without help. They hadn’t let me walk yet—Matteo said another twelve hours of rest before trying—but I could feel the strength returning in tiny fragments.The room was quiet now. Luca and Nico had gone downstairs. Liana had stormed out not long after her outburst—her goodb