All Chapters of Taken by my stepfathers: Chapter 201 - Chapter 210

Felix's POVI went back three days later with nothing in my hands. No folder, no coffee, no reason I could point to if anyone asked why I kept finding excuses to cross that bridge. I'd run out of gifts that let me avoid actually showing up as myself, and some part of me understood, even before I knocked, that today was the day I didn't get to hide behind one.Greta opened the door without the chain this time. She looked at my empty hands, then at my face, and something in her expression settled, like she'd been waiting to see if I'd come without an offering attached."No folder today," she said."No folder today.""Come in, then." She stepped back, and I followed her into the kitchen, where the same table sat between us, bare now except for two mugs she filled without asking if I wanted one. She set mine down across from her and sat, folding her hands in front of her like she was preparing for something neither of us had said out loud yet."I want to talk about the room," she said.I

Eden's POVMichael picked up on the second ring. "You alone?""I'm alone." I'd taken the stairs down to the wine cellar, the one room in the estate I trusted to be free of cameras, a holdover from when Daddy still kept his oldest bottles somewhere even his own family couldn't watch him visit. "Tell me.""It's not nothing." His voice had lost the careless edge he usually wore, the one he'd built fast in the weeks since he'd talked his way into this family with a body on a church floor as his entry fee. "Greta's been receiving wire transfers. Small ones, broken up so they don't trip anything automatic. Six deposits over the last month, each one under the reporting limit.""From who?""That's the part that took me longer than it should have." A pause, the sound of papers shifting somewhere on his end. "The account routes through three shells before it lands anywhere traceable. But I followed it back far enough to get a name on the original transfer. Daniel Cross."The name didn't mean an

Felix's POVI picked the restaurant carefully, the small Italian place two blocks from her brownstone, nothing flashy, nothing that announced itself as a date because I wasn't entirely sure that's what this was, and I didn't want to put a name on it before she did. I got there early. Sat at a table near the back, away from the window, the kind of seat a man picks when he's trying to prove to himself he's not performing for anyone, not even the version of himself that usually needs an audience to feel like he exists.Greta showed up four minutes late, in a dark green sweater that made her look softer than I'd ever seen her, her hair down instead of pulled back the way she usually wore it like armor. She slid into the seat across from me and looked at my hands first, an old habit by now, checking that I'd kept my promise."No folder," I said, holding them up. "Told you.""I see that." But something in her face didn't quite match the lightness of her voice, a tightness around her eyes th

Eden's POVI waited in his room all night.The sheets still carried his scent when I slipped between them, clean and familiar, the one I’d come to associate with safety and warmth in this chaotic house. I wore one of his old t-shirts, the hem brushing my thighs, and stared at the ceiling for hours. I’d come here to talk. Really talk. Things between us had felt… off lately. Distant in a way I couldn’t quite name. I wanted to ask him what we were missing, what I wasn’t giving him, and where our connection had started to fray. Because I loved him. Because he was one of mine, and I was one of his.But the hours stretched on, and Felix never came.I must have fallen asleep eventually, because when I woke, pale morning light was filtering through the curtains. The other side of the bed was still untouched. Cold. My stomach twisted.Then I heard the door open.Felix stepped in, hair messy, clothes from yesterday slightly rumpled. The moment he saw me sitting up in his bed, something flashed

Daniel's POVI sit behind my large oak desk for what feels like an eternity after Felix leaves my study. My right hand still throbs from the sharp slap I delivered across his face moments earlier, the skin warm and slightly red. But that minor physical discomfort is nothing compared to the intense storm of emotions swirling violently inside my chest.There is hot, burning anger at his reckless stupidity. There is heavy disappointment in my brother for failing so spectacularly. And above all, there is a deep, protective concern for Eden, who is somewhere in this house right now, undoubtedly alone and devastated by what he has done. I cannot remain seated here any longer while she suffers in silence.I push my chair back forcefully and rise to my feet, despite the fury still simmering just beneath the surface. I walk out of my office and proceed down the long, quiet hallway toward Eden’s room. The entire house feels unusually still, as if the walls themselves sense the serious fracture