Semua Bab Bound by Sin: My Stepbrother’s Obsession: Bab 91 - Bab 100

Sage.I hear the tires before I see the car, gravel crunches slowly, deliberately, the way Wolfe always drives when he is nervous or trying not to show excitement. I’m already at the door, my fingers curled around the edge of the frame like if I let go, something might slip through me.Maya stands just behind my shoulder, Theo warm and heavy in her arms. He smells like milk and soap and that soft sweetness babies carry, the kind that makes your chest ache if you breathe it in too deeply.Ella is there too, she is perfect, as always, her hair smooth, her posture straight, a polite smile fixed in place. Andre’s fiancee. The word still feels foreign in my mouth, like a language I never learned but am somehow expected to speak fluently.The car door opens and my mom steps out slowly, carefully, like the ground might tilt beneath her feet if she moves too fast. My mother looks thinner than the last time I saw her, her cheeks slightly hollow, her skin pale but warm with life again. She lean

Andre.The door barely closes behind us before everything I have been holding in snaps.“What the hell was that, Ella?” My voice echoes through the living room, sharp and loud and completely out of control. I don’t even bother kicking off my shoes. My chest feels tight, like there isn’t enough air in the house for the anger burning through me.She spins around to face me, her eyes blazing, her hands already on her hips. “What was that?” she shoots back. “That was me sharing our news. The news we have been sitting on for weeks with your family.”“You didn’t tell me you were going to do that,” I say, raking a hand through my hair. “You didn’t tell me you were going to announce a pregnancy and a wedding next week? at my parents’ dinner table. You just sprung it on everyone. Including me Ella.”Her laugh is short and bitter. “I thought your stepmother being in the hospital was the reason you wanted to wait,” she fires back. “That and the excuse that it wasn’t the right time to tell your

Sage.The morning sun is soft when it finds us, the kind of gentle warmth that makes everything feel temporarily forgivable.My mother is already seated on the patio when I step outside, her back straight in the chair, her face turned toward the light as if she is soaking it in after weeks of being denied it. She looks peaceful like this wrapped in a light cardigan, hair pulled back loosely, alive in a way that still feels miraculous to me.Theo squirms in my arms, making a small, impatient sound, and that’s when she turns and smiles.“Bring him here,” she says immediately, holding out her arms and I do. I hesitate for half a second out of habit, then lean forward and place Theo carefully against her chest. He settles almost instantly, his tiny fingers curling into the fabric of her sweater like he’s claiming her.“He is growing up too fast,” Rosa murmurs, her voice thick with emotion as she studies his face. “Every time I look at him, he has changed, now he can sit.”“I know,” I sa

Andre.The study smells like leather and old books mixed with power, it always has.Even as I step inside and close the door behind me, that familiar weight settles on my shoulders, the same one I carried as a kid whenever my dad called me in here.This room has never been about comfort. It’s about judgment. About expectations. About never quite measuring up to whatever standards he wanted in a son, it was a reminder of how much I was failing at being the perfect son perfect heir of his kingdom.“Hey, Dad,” I say, forcing casual into my voice as I move farther in. “What’s up that couldn’t wait?”I drop into one of the chairs across from his desk, crossing my ankle over my knee like this is just another conversation. Like my stomach isn’t already tight, like my pulse isn’t hammering but he doesn’t answer.He is standing by the window, his back to me, hands shoved into his pockets. The sunlight frames him in sharp lines, making him look bigger somehow, more immovable. He doesn’t turn. D

EllaAndre doesn’t slam the door when he comes back in, and somehow that’s worse.The house absorbs him, his footsteps sharp on the stairs, his presence heavy, familiar in the way a storm feels familiar right before it breaks. I’m standing in the hallway pretending to scroll through my phone when he passes me without a word, his jaw clenched, his shoulders rigid, his eyes looking straight ahead like I am not even here.I don’t need a genius level IQ to know exactly where that anger came from, Sage.It’s always Sage who manages to get him this angry. I follow him upstairs. I don’t rush, don’t announce myself. I have learned that if I come in too hot, he shuts down. If I come in too soft, he walks all over me. So I hover in that careful middle space, the one I have been perfecting my whole life.He is in our bedroom, his back turned to the door, a phone in his hand like it might explode. His reflection in the mirror catches my eye before he notices me, his face flushed, his eyes wild,