All Chapters of A Night With My Stepbrother : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The slam of the door still echoed in the hollow spaces of the house, a phantom vibration in the floorboards beneath Isabel’s knees. She remained crumpled on the cold foyer tiles long after the roar of Alessandro’s engine had faded, swallowed by the indifferent hum of the city. His words ricocheted in her skull, each one a fresh laceration: You played me. I bet that pregnancy is fake. How much do you want? The flash drive lay where he’d dropped it, a small, obsidian scar on the cheap wooden table. Proof. His absolute, unshakeable conviction resided on that tiny piece of plastic. Proof that had turned the man she’d loved into a vessel of pure, icy contempt. Proof that branded her a whore, a liar, a schemer who would fake a child for profit. A raw, shuddering sob finally tore free, doubling her over. She clutched her stomach, the tiny life within a frantic flutter against her palm – real, so real, and now irrevocably tainted by Alessandro’s cruel dismissal. Just another prop.

The musty scent of old paper and dust hung heavy in the deserted back corner of the university library. Isabel hunched over a scarred wooden table, the only light coming from the harsh glare of her laptop screen. Rain lashed against the high, narrow windows, mirroring the storm raging inside her. The cracked remnants of her phone lay discarded beside her like broken promises. Jenna’s words – “He’ll never believe you… you’ll be alone… with nothing but that bastard child”– echoed like a poison in her mind, but beneath the horror, a new sensation pulsed: a cold, hard kernel of resolve. She wouldn’t let Jenna win. Not for herself. For the tiny heartbeat flickering against her palm where it rested protectively on her abdomen. The flash drive Alessandro had thrown at her felt like a physical weight in her pocket. His "proof" was a web of lies, but within its digital entrails lay the real evidence. She’d spent hours poring over the files, the fabricated emails, the financial annotation

“You need to listen.” Isabel’s voice, raw but unwavering, hung in the charged silence of the penthouse foyer. Rain lashed the panoramic windows behind Alessandro, casting shifting grey patterns over his stunned face and her determined one. Marco stood frozen nearby, the landline receiver still crackling with the distant, furious voice of Charles Thorne. Alessandro stared at her. The girl – no, the woman– standing before him was a stranger. The pale, trembling figure he’d confronted in her father’s house was gone. In her place stood someone carved from resolve, her eyes burning with a fierce, exhausted fire. The USB drive in her hand seemed to pulse with accusation. The cacophony of the unfolding scandal – the ringing phones, the plummeting stock price, the Chairman’s tinny demands – faded into a dull roar at the edges of his consciousness. All that existed was Isabel, standing on his threshold, demanding his attention amidst the ruin she was supposed to have caused. He steppe

Dr. Aris Hollis’ words, delivered hours ago in that same calm, clinical tone, echoed in the cavernous space. “The Wellness Center is a fortress, Alessandro. HIPAA laws are not suggestions. Without a court order or her written consent, accessing her medical records is impossible. I’m sorry.”The refusal had been a door slamming shut. The silence, Isabel’s silence, had become a physical presence, a void threatening to consume him. He had paced for hours, the polished concrete floors cool beneath his bare feet, the ghost of her scent—a faint mix of jasmine and rain—still clinging to the air, a cruel mockery.His gaze swept over the immaculate lounge, the scene of their last confrontation. The couch where she had sat, her posture defiant yet brittle. The spot on the floor where she had stood, delivering her ultimatum. His eyes narrowed, focusing on the deep grey velvet of the sofa. Logic, cold and ruthless, began to override the churning mess of his emotions. Dr. Hollis couldn’t acce

The air in the De’Luca Enterprises boardroom was thin, cold, and tasted of expensive coffee and quiet panic. Sunlight streamed through the floor-to-ceiling glass walls, not with warmth, but with a harsh, interrogative glare, illuminating the tension etched on every face around the massive, polished ebony table. Alessandro sat at its head, his posture rigid, his hands clasped on the cool surface to keep them from betraying the tremor that ran through him. He was the king at the center of a siege, his castle walls shaking. Murmurs rippled around the table, a low, discontented hum from the twelve men and three women who held the fate of his empire in their portfolios. They were sharks who had feasted on decades of prosperity, and now they smelled blood in the water. His blood. Charles Thorne, the board’s chairman and a man whose face was a roadmap of old-money disdain, cleared his throat. The murmuring ceased instantly. “Alessandro,” he began, his voice deceptively calm, a thin vene