SEVENTY ONE

AIDANThe building had no sign outside.No company name.No brass plaque.Nothing that would tell an ordinary person what lived inside those walls.It stood in the center of the financial district, polished glass and black stone rising into the grey morning like a monument to wealth. Men in tailored suits moved in and out through revolving doors with the kind of faces that never smiled unless profit was involved.My father always did like hiding rot beneath expensive things.I stepped out of the car and shut the door harder than necessary.The air was cold enough to sting my lungs. I welcomed it.I had barely slept after his call. Every time I closed my eyes I heard his voice again.It is high time you took your crown.As if I were a child late to dinner.As if crowns had ever interested me.As if he could summon me with a sentence and expect obedience.I walked through the lobby without speaking to anyone. Men at the front desk straightened the second they saw me. One reached for a p

SEVENTY TWO

DAHLIAThe apartment felt too quiet after Aidan left.Not the peaceful quiet.The wrong kind.The kind that made every small sound feel deliberate. The refrigerator humming in the kitchen. The hush of trees outside swaying to the wind. The distant rush of traffic far below.Even the clock on the oven sounded louder than usual.I had tried distracting myself for the better part of an hour.I folded one of Aidan’s shirts that did not need folding. I made tea and forgot to drink it. I switched the television on and stared at a cooking show without seeing a single thing. I opened the files again, then shut them just as quickly because every page felt like another trapdoor opening beneath my feet.So instead, I stood by the window and watched the city move.Rain threatened overhead. The sky had gone pale and swollen with clouds, the kind that sat heavy before evening storms. People crossed the street below with umbrellas tucked beneath arms. Cars moved in impatient lines. A delivery bike n

SEVENTY THREE

AIDANBy the time I got back to the apartment, my hands were still shaking.Not visibly.Not in a way anyone else would notice.But I could feel it in the way I gripped the door handle, in the way my jaw refused to unclench, in the way my thoughts kept circling back to that office like something unfinished had been left behind.Dahlia opened the door before I knocked.She must have been standing there.Waiting.Her eyes went straight to my face, scanning, searching, reading everything I hadn’t said yet.“Aidan.”Just my name.But it held relief and worry and something softer beneath both.I stepped inside and shut the door behind me, the outside world cutting off like a lie I didn’t want to hear anymore.For a second, I just looked at her.She was wearing one of my shirts. Sleeves too long, hem brushing her thighs. Her hair was loose around her shoulders, slightly messy like she had been running her hands through it without realizing.Home.That was what she felt like.Something in my

SEVENTY FOUR

Sylas didn’t remember letting go of the phone.One second it had been pressed to his ear, Dahlia’s voice still lingering in the silence she’d left behind, and the next it slipped from his fingers and hit the desk with a dull, final sound that echoed far louder than it should have.He didn’t pick it up.Instead, he leaned forward slowly and let his forehead rest against the cool wood, his eyes sliding shut as something heavy and suffocating settled over him.The man outside Aidan’s house.He hadn’t called him away not because he didn't want to but because he just couldn't. Because the truth, the part he had carefully carved out of the story before handing it to Dahlia, was that the man wasn’t just there for her safety.He was there for Sylas.To keep him out.To keep him away.To stand between him and the one thing his body was beginning to recognize as necessity.His mouth watered.The reaction was instant, visceral, humiliating.He lifted his hand and with the back of his palm, he w

All Chapters of MY ALPHA STEPBROTHER'S OBSESSION : Chapter 71 - Chapter 74

SEVENTY ONE

SEVENTY TWO

SEVENTY THREE

SEVENTY FOUR