All Chapters of In love with my step father in law : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

---Chapter 11: Mourning and invitation Six months had passed. Enough time for the bruises to fade, but not the memories. Ethan's trial concluded with a thirty-year sentence, no chance of parole. The courtroom was a theater of gasps, camera flashes, and cold stares. But none of that mattered anymore. We had survived. But survival isn't the same as peace. Christopher still woke up gasping some nights, sweat clinging to his skin like regret. I'd wrap my arms around him, whispering that we were far from that house now. Far from its poison. The ghosts were behind us. Mostly. ---We bought a place two hours from the city—a glass-paneled cabin near the lake. It was the antithesis of everything we'd known: open, sun-washed, surrounded by silence that didn't suffocate. Christopher spent his mornings sketching. I wrote again—stories, poetry, fragments of thoughts that no longer had to be hidden beneath floorboards or diaries. There was healing in creation. But also hesitation. Becau

---Chapter 13: Ashes from the sandThe morning arrived cold and still, the kind of silence that presses against the skin and settles deep in the bones. Isla moved through the quiet house like a ghost—her footsteps muffled, her breath shallow. The letter from last night lay heavy on her mind, but worse was the memory of that shadow by the trees, a silent figure watching from the dark.She reached for the coffee, hoping the bitter warmth would anchor her, but it tasted strange—flat, like it had lost its strength along with her resolve. The walls of the house seemed to close in, shrinking the room around her, making every sound louder in the oppressive stillness.Christopher was already there, seated at the kitchen table, staring at his laptop with a furrowed brow. He looked up as she entered.“I called a contact,” he said, voice low. “The trust is real. It’s been in place for almost ten years, since before you even knew what it was.”Isla frowned, pouring the coffee she didn’t want. “Wh

.---Chapter 15: Stranger in the shadowThe message on Isla’s phone burned in her mind like a brand. She read it again and again, chest tightening with a rising panic she couldn’t shake.She left more than a will. You’re not the only one she marked. —EThat name. Ethan. The man she hadn’t thought about in years. Her mother’s second husband. The almost-stepfather who vanished without a word after the funeral, leaving behind silence thick with unanswered questions.And now—he was back.Her fingers curled tightly around the phone, knuckles whitening.Christopher stirred beside her on the couch, the soft morning light casting a calm glow over his face. His arm was draped protectively around her waist, but the warmth she’d felt just hours before had slipped away, leaving a cold knot in her stomach.He noticed her stillness. “What is it?”Isla hesitated, swallowing the lump in her throat. “A message. From Ethan.”Christopher sat up straight, tension sharpening his features. “What does it sa

Chapter 17: Echoes Beneath the SurfaceIsla lay awake in the darkness, the weight of the night pressing against her chest. Next to her, Christopher’s steady breathing was a faint comfort—warm and familiar—but her mind raced, tangled in the questions that wouldn’t let her rest.That photo haunted her still—the child’s face, the eyes so much like her own. It felt like a secret screaming just beneath the surface.She slipped out of bed, careful not to disturb him, and pulled on one of Christopher’s oversized shirts. The fabric smelled faintly of him, grounding her as she moved through the silent hallways of the estate. The house felt too quiet, as if the walls themselves held their breath, whispering names and memories she barely understood.In the library, she found the black-bound journals, the ones Aurelia had hidden away. These weren’t the neat, polished stories meant for public eyes — these were raw, stained with grief and fear. Tucked inside was a note, like a warning:“Some memorie

---Chapter 19: The Memory of FireThe fire began with a whisper.A single spark in the server room—silent, almost reverent—before the flames unfurled across steel and glass, licking their way through the laboratory like a reckoning. The chemicals hissed as they caught, feeding the blaze with everything that had been hidden. Smoke rose in slow spirals, curling through the air like it had come to collect what the past was too cowardly to keep.Isla didn’t move.She watched the compound burn with her arms folded tight across her chest, as though holding herself together was a conscious, necessary act. Not from the cold—though the snow bit into her bones—but from the quiet collapse inside her.Her truth, it turned out, was manufactured.She hadn’t been born.She had been assembled.A sequence. A schema. A vessel shaped to resemble humanity, then filled with memories like fragile glass—too easily shattered.And still, she felt. God, she felt.The fire reflected in her eyes, but all she cou