Forbidden Love with my stepbrother のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

ELARA'S POVThree days passed without anything catching fire and I started to believe that was going to keep being true.My shoulder healed steadily. The bandage got smaller every day. I slept without waking up to check my phone. My Mom cooked actual meals and we ate them at the table like a family that had time for things like that. We were getting to know Alexander better. Victor was still in prison, stuck behind bars.And Damien? He worked from home, taking calls about the company in the mornings and going quiet in the afternoons. I did not even ask what the calls were about. I just trusted he would tell me only what mattered.Mia came on the second day as promised. She brought food from the place on Fifth that I liked and she sat on my bed and talked for two hours about everything except the syndicate and the warehouse and the pictures. She talked about school and a film she had seen and something ridiculous that had happened to Jake involving a vending machine and a lost shoe. I

ELARA'S POV "You kept this from me all morning," Alexander said, turning the last page of the folder, eyes lifting to look at us.Damien leaned against the doorframe with his coffee, nodding his head in response. "I kept it from everyone all morning. I needed to think about it before I talked."Alexander set the folder on the kitchen table and looked at it for a moment. Then he looked at Damien. "I know this company. It is the Meridian Logistics. Victor came to me when he was considering the acquisition. I told him it was clean and worth holding. I did not know he went through with it.""Did you know he kept it separate?""No. But it makes sense. Victor always had an exit strategy. He just never used it." Alexander picked up his coffee. "It is a good foundation. There is a small fleet, wity three regional contracts, and even steady margins. Nothing glamorous but nothing that needs defending either."Damien looked at me across the table. I gave him nothing back. This was his conve

ELARA'S POV "You packed too much," Damien said to me from the doorway.I looked at the bag on the bed. Then at him. "I packed for four days."He made a tsk sound."You packed for four days and every possible weather event, Elara."I shurgged slightly."It is coastal. It changes fast."He crossed the room and unzipped the bag and pulled out two things without looking at what they were and set them on the bed. "Now you packed for four days."I looked at what he had removed. A spare jacket and a book I had not started and probably would not start. He was not wrong. That was the reason why I ignored him and zipped the bag after I picked it up before he could find anything else to edit.Mom was in the hallway when we came downstairs. She hugged me first and then looked at Damien in the way she had been looking at him much lately. Like she was still adjusting to how much space he took up in the good sense. "Four days," she said."Four days," he said. "Alexander has the office number. W

ELARA'S POV "Tell me what?" I said from the doorway because I knew that the only her he could be referring to was me.Damien set his phone on the table. He looked at me for a moment in a way that made me stop toweling my hair and actually pay attention. Not a threat kind. Something quieter and more careful than that."Sit down," he said."You have that look on your face," I said to him with a raised brow.He swallowed hard."Sit, please."I sat down. "Who was that on the phone?""Alexander." He pulled his chair around so he was facing me directly rather than across the table. Close enough that when he leaned forward his elbows were almost touching my knees. "I need to tell you something and I need you to let me get through all of it before you respond."My stomach tightened. "Okay.""The number from last night. Alexander recognised the format. It connected to a man named Daniel Voss." He watched my face. "He worked with Victor in the early years. Before the syndicate. Before any of i

Elara's POVWe left the coastal house on the fourth morning as planned. I packed the same bag Damien had edited on the first day and did not add anything back. The drive home felt different from the drive out. Quieter in a different way. Not the quiet of leaving things behind but the quiet of carrying something new and not yet knowing where to put it.Damien drove. I watched the fields come and go and thought about Daniel standing at the water's edge watching us walk away. The shape of his eyes. The way he had not made excuses for the twenty years, just stated them plainly and waited to see what I did with them.I had not decided yet. That was the honest answer."You have been thinking since the beach," Damien said."I have been thinking since before the beach.""Anything you want to say out loud."I looked at the road ahead. "I keep trying to be angry at him and it will not stick. Which makes me angrier at myself than at him, which is probably not useful.""Probably not.""He did not