My Stepbrother My Ruin のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 51 - チャプター 60

The drive back across the bridge was silent.Brianna watched the lake slide past, gray and flat under the morning sky. Carlo's words were still in her ears. Your mother. She's on the list. She knew where he'd be. She had not cried. She had not screamed. She had walked out of that small hotel room and gotten into the car and sat here, watching the water, feeling nothing and everything at once.Dawson parked in the hotel garage. They walked to the elevator without speaking. The doors opened. They stepped inside. He pressed the button for their floor.She looked at his reflection in the polished metal. His face was tight, his jaw set, his hands shoved into his pockets. He was waiting for her to break. She could see it in the way he held himself, the way his eyes kept drifting to her face, checking, measuring.The elevator stopped. The doors opened.They walked to the suite. Dawson swiped the card. The lock clicked. He pushed the door open and stood aside for her to enter.The room was th

The morning stretched on.Brianna sat on the couch, her coffee cold, her eyes on the window where the sun had climbed over the mountains. Dawson was in the bathroom, the door closed, the sound of water running. She could hear him moving in there, the soft clink of things being set down, picked up, set down again.She had not moved since he left.The meeting was at nine. The man with the folder, the trade, the list. But first, there was this. This room. This waiting. The thing that had shifted between them in the night.The bathroom door opened.He came out in a cloud of steam, a towel over his shoulder, his shirt in his hand. He was not wearing it. His chest was bare, his skin still damp, his hair darker where the water had touched it.She had seen him without a shirt before. In the doorway of his room, that first morning. In the kitchen, when she had barged in with the note. But she had not looked. Not really. She had been too afraid of what she might see.Now she looked.His chest w

The lamp flickered once, then held steady.Brianna felt the shift before she understood it. The weight of his head against hers. The warmth of his hand still holding hers. The way the silence between them had changed from something tired into something else. Something awake.She lifted her head.He was looking at her. Not the way he looked at her across a table, or through a window, or past a crowd. He was looking at her like she was the only light in a room that had been dark for years.Her breath caught.He moved slowly. His hand left hers, came up to her face. His fingers traced her jaw, her cheek, the corner of her mouth. Like he was memorizing her. Like he was afraid she would disappear."Dawson."His name came out soft, barely a whisper. She had not meant to say it. It had just come.He pulled her closer.The space between them vanished. His chest against hers. His breath on her lips. His eyes, gray and open, holding hers.The air was thick. She could taste him, the coffee from

The alarm on Dawson's phone pulled her from sleep.Brianna opened her eyes to pale light and the smell of coffee. The couch was empty. The blanket was folded. His pillow was gone. She sat up slowly, her body remembering the night before in flashes. His hands. His mouth. The way he had said her name.He was in the kitchenette, his back to her, pouring coffee into two cups. He was dressed. Black pants, black shirt, hair combed. He looked like he had been awake for hours.She stood. The gray dress was on the chair where she had left it. She pulled it over her head, smoothed the fabric, walked toward him.He handed her a cup without looking at her."Marco sent a message. The meeting is at nine. He has the names."She wrapped her hands around the warm ceramic. "All of them?""Enough to start."He walked past her, toward the window. The rain had stopped. The lake was gray, the mountains hidden in clouds. He stood with his back to her, his coffee untouched.She wanted to ask. About last nigh

The stairwell swallowed them.Dawson pulled her through the door and it slammed behind them, the echo bouncing off concrete walls. The lights were off. The only glow came from a single bulb somewhere above, flickering, dying.Brianna's lungs burned. Her legs screamed. She had not stopped running since the warehouse, since the men with guns, since the shot that had hit the railing inches from her hand.Dawson was ahead of her, his hand gripping hers, pulling her up. Not down. Up."Why are we going up?" she gasped."Because they expect us to go down."The stairs were metal, rusted, each step groaning under their weight. She could hear the door below crash open. Voices. Shouts. Feet on the stairs.They were coming.Dawson pulled her faster. Her shoes slipped on the metal. He caught her, his arm around her waist, lifting her, pushing her."Almost there.""Almost where?"He did not answer.The stairs ended at a door. Red. Steel. A push bar across the middle. Dawson threw his weight against