All Chapters of Taken by my stepfathers: Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

210 Chapters

The sister

EdenThe safe house sat at the end of a gravel road, half-hidden by pine trees. I killed the engine and checked the magazine of my pistol. Twelve rounds. Not enough if things went bad.Silas touched my arm. "You stay in the car until I clear the perimeter."I looked at him. "No.""Eden-""She's more likely to come willingly if she sees a woman, not a man pointing a gun at her." I pocketed the spare clip. "And you're not going in alone."His jaw tightened, but he didn't argue. We'd been over this. Greta Voss had information we needed. Her brother had stashed her in witness protection two years ago, then decided she knew too much. We had maybe six hours before his people moved her somewhere else. Or silenced her.We approached on foot, sticking to the tree line. The house was a squat brick building with blackout curtains. A single light burned in the kitchen. I could see a figure moving inside. Female. Dark hair.Silas held up a hand. We stopped.He scanned the windows, the roofline, an

List

Eden's POVI stood at the library window, the cold glass pressing against my forehead as the black van rolled up the gravel drive. The headlights cut through the predawn mist like knives, and I knew before the doors even opened that something was wrong. Felix’s men moved first, boots crunching on the stones, their silhouettes sharp against the dim light.Then they dragged her out. Greta. Small and fragile, her nightgown clung to her body like a second skin, the fabric so thin I could see the goosebumps rising on her arms. She didn’t struggle. Not at first. She just let them pull her, her bare feet scraping against the driveway, her dark hair tangled around her face.Then she saw Felix.Recognition flared in her eyes, bright and immediate, like a match struck in the dark. And then—hatred. Pure, unfiltered hatred, the kind that burns hot enough to scorch. I felt it in my own chest, a mirror of her fury. For a second, our gazes locked through the window, two women separated by glass and

You wanted leverage

Eden's POVI stood at the library window long after the black van had disappeared into the mist, my forehead still cold from the glass. The house was silent around me, but I could feel them everywhere—Daniel's calculating gaze, Silas's protective shadow, Felix's dark intensity. They had claimed me, piece by piece, until I was no longer Eden the foster kid, Eden the survivor. I was theirs. And the worst part—the part that made my stomach twist with shame—was how much I wanted it.The church smelled of old wax and something sharper, like the ozone before a storm. I had chosen this place carefully, this neutral ground where neither the Schmidts nor the law could claim full ownership. The nave stretched before me, empty pews like ribs, the crucifix looming overhead with its painted agony. Voss stood beneath the stained-glass saints, his jaw set harder than the marble beneath my heels. He didn't turn when I entered, but I felt the shift in the air, the way his attention sharpened like a bl

We don't threaten each other

Eden's POVI didn't go back to the estate. Not directly.I drove Greta to the safe house myself—a Schmidt property off the books, a brownstone in Brooklyn with steel shutters and a panic room in the basement. Greta didn't speak the whole way, just stared out the window with hollow eyes, clutching the blanket I'd thrown over her shoulders."You're free," I said when we stopped. It sounded like a lie even as I said it. No one was free. Not really. Not in this city, not in this life. But Greta could run. Could disappear. The Schmidts would let her; they had bigger prey now.Greta turned, her hand on the door handle. "They're going to kill him, aren't they, Voss?"I met her eyes in the rearview mirror. "Yes.""Good." Greta got out. She didn't look back.I drove to the church. Not the one where I'd met Voss—another one, older, Catholic, with a graveyard that stretched back to the Revolutionary War. I called him from the parking lot, my voice steady, my hands shaking."I'll do it," I said.

The only thing that matter

Jonas's POVThe hallway floorboards didn't creak, but I heard her breathing before I saw her. I was sitting at the edge of my bed, the room bathed in the weak, blue light of a streetlamp filtering through the blinds. When she pushed the door open, she looked small. Tired. She didn't say a word, just slipped inside and crossed to the bed, her movements heavy with a bone-deep exhaustion I recognized.She didn't ask if she could stay. She just climbed in, pulling the duvet over her shoulders, and curled into a ball on the side closest to the wall. I stayed perfectly still, my back against the headboard, watching the way her chest rose and fell.I hadn't moved in two hours. My muscles were stiff, aching from the rigid posture I had forced myself to hold, but I didn't care. I couldn't risk waking her. I couldn't risk breaking this fragile peace.In the dark, the room felt different. It felt like a space that had finally found its purpose. I looked at her, at the soft curve of her neck and

She is Mine

Jonas's POVThe morning light hit the room with an unforgiving sharpness, slicing through the blinds and painting bars of gold across her skin. She was still asleep, but the heavy, dreamless stillness of the night was starting to fracture. I watched her lashes flutter, a subtle sign that the real world was clawing its way back in.I couldn't wait any longer. The stillness had become a wire pulled too tight, and the need to know she was actually real—not just a ghost I’d conjured to survive the dark—was burning through me. I moved before I could think, sliding off the edge of the mattress and hovering over her. She stirred, a small, soft sound escaping her throat as she shifted against the pillows. I didn't give her a second to blink the sleep from her eyes. I didn't want the polite morning, or the confusion, or the space. I wanted the immediate, visceral evidence that she was still here, still mine.I crowded her, pinning her to the mattress with the weight of my own body. She gasped,

Not Yours to Claim

Eden's POVThe morning news ran the story before Daniel could control it. Federal Agent Found Dead in Church Shooting, Investigation Underway. No mention of names beyond his rank. No mention of us. But it was out there now, a loose thread the Bureau would pull until something unraveled.We gathered in the war room before nine. Daddy at the head of the table, Daniel to his right with a folder of contingencies already half-drafted, Silas leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, his ribs still wrapped under his shirt. Jonas sat closest to me, quiet, watchful. Felix sprawled in his chair like none of this concerned him, ankle crossed over his knee, scrolling on his phone. Michael Voss stood near the door, still unsure if he was allowed to sit."They'll canvas everyone who knew him," Daniel said. "Coworkers. Informants. His ex-wife. Eventually they'll find Greta.""She's already been debriefed by the Bureau once," Silas said. "She'll know how to handle questions.""That's not the pr

Not Furniture

Greta's POVI'd had two years to get good at reading men like Felix Schmidt. Foster homes did that to you, and then witness protection did the rest, teaching you to clock the exact moment a man's smile turned into a leash. Felix's smile hadn't changed since the basement. That was the problem. He still thought he was the one in control of this conversation."Are you going to let us in, or are we doing this on the porch?" he asked, hands in his pockets, easy as anything."We're doing this wherever you're standing, because you're not coming inside." I kept the door at half-width, my body filling the rest of the gap. "Say what you came to say."His eyes flicked past me into the hallway, cataloging old habits, probably, the kind you don't shut off even when you're trying to be charming. "We need to talk about relocating you. Somewhere further out. New papers, a new face if you want one. Clean start.""No.""Greta—""I said no." I didn't raise my voice. I'd learned that screaming gave men l

Off Script

Felix's POVI didn't say much on the drive back. Eden noticed. She noticed everything now, some sharpened instinct she'd picked up since the church, since she'd learned what it cost to make the hard calls herself. But she didn't push, not right away. She just watched the city slide past the window and let me have the silence for a few miles before she finally broke it."You're quiet," she said."I'm always quiet when I'm driving; it helps me think.""You never think when you're driving. You sing along to whatever's on the radio and tell me terrible jokes." She turned her head, studying me in that way she had now, like she was cataloguing something for later. "Something's wrong.""Nothing's wrong.""Felix.""I said nothing's wrong." I didn't mean for it to come out as sharp as it did, and I caught the way she went still beside me, surprised, because I never snapped at anyone. Ease was the whole point of me. Ease was the costume that let me move through this family without anyone asking

Almost

Greta's POVI read through the folder twice after he left, sitting at the kitchen table with the coffee going cold beside me, and both times I came away thinking the same thing. It was good. Thorough. The kind of work that took real hours, real contacts, and real effort to put together, and none of it would have done him any good if I'd refused to take it.That was the part that kept catching in my chest. He hadn't needed me to take it. He could have left it on the porch and walked away with his conscience clear, and instead he'd stood in my kitchen looking like a man waiting for a verdict he wasn't sure he deserved.I'd spent two years learning to read men who wanted something from me. It was a skill you picked up fast in witness protection, in the years before that, and in every house that ever called itself temporary. You learned to clock the moment a kindness turned into a debt, the second a favor became a hook you'd spend months trying to work free of. Felix had never struck me a

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