All Chapters of Stepdad’s Pet, His Son’s Plaything : Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

REIGN’S POVThe morning air was a biting, clinical contrast to the humid, suffocating atmosphere I had left behind at the mansion. I had slipped out before the sun could even fully crest the horizon, the silence of the house still ringing in my ears. Behind those marble walls, my father was busy weaving a cocoon of lies to pacify his wife, using his body and his silver tongue to buy another day of safety. But I knew the foundation was cracked. I hadn’t slept; my body still carried the phantom tension of the "bike accident" I’d staged to save Jordan’s skin.My destination was the university. I had a singular, cold-blooded mission: I was going to find Emma and hammer some sense into her head. The leash she had on Jordan was tightening at a dangerous velocity, and the fallout from Ruth’s office visit yesterday proved that the family was one wrong move away from total, scorched-earth incineration. Emma was a wildfire, and I was the only one who knew how to build a firebreak.I pulled my

REIGN’S POVThe drive from the university parking lot to Emma’s off-campus apartment was a blur of cold calculation. The adrenaline from breaking Mark was still humming in my veins, a dark, rhythmic pulse that made the steering wheel feel like an extension of my own grip. I pulled up to the curb, the black sedan idling like a predator as I stared at the building. I had come here to lay down the law, to be the sentinel that stood between her and the fire she was so determined to play with.When I entered the apartment, the air didn't smell like the incense or vanilla I usually associated with Emma. It smelled like movement.Suitcases were splayed open on the designer rug, half-filled with the expensive silks and tiny garments that made up her wardrobe. Emma was moving between the bedroom and the living area with a frantic, rhythmic energy I hadn't seen in months."What is this?" I asked, my voice a low rumble that stopped her mid-stride. "Where are you going?""Home," she said, not lo

RUTH’S POVThe dining room was bathed in the deceptive, golden glow of the afternoon sun, the heavy crystal chandelier overhead refracting the light into a thousand sharp diamonds across the table. For a moment, the tension that had gripped my chest since dawn seemed to loosen. We were all here. The table was set with the fine bone china, the silver was polished to a mirror finish, and the scent of roasted chicken and herbs filled the room, masking the underlying scent of old wood and secrets.Before the children had walked through the door, the air between Jordan and me had been a fragile thing—a thin membrane of forced normalcy. He had spent the morning trying to weave a net of comfort around me, his hands lingering on my waist and his voice dripping with that smooth, rhythmic reassurance he used so well. He wanted me to believe that the world outside—Toni Donald, the firm, the whispers of betrayal—didn't exist. He had been so attentive, so desperate to ground me in the "us" he cl

JORDAN’S POVThe air in the study wasn't just thick; it was a physical weight, a humid, cloying soup of Emma’s expensive floral perfume and the raw, salt-heavy musk of the transgression we had just finished. I stood behind my heavy mahogany desk, my fingers trembling with a frantic, fine motor tremor as I tried to force my polo-shirt into something that didn't scream of chaos. My pants were wrinkled, my skin was slick with a cooling sweat, and my pulse was a violent thud against the walls of my throat. Every time I closed my eyes, I could still feel the ghost of her—the searing heat of her skin, the way she had utterly dismantled the man the world called a Saint.The tension had been a living thing since she stepped foot back into this house, a high-tension wire humming between us that finally snapped with the force of a gunshot. She hadn't come in here to find a ledger. That had been the lie for Ruth, a thin veil for the predator she had become. The moment the heavy oak door had c

RUTH’S POV"Is this what you were 'handling' at the office, Jordan? Is this the 'legacy' you were so busy protecting while I sat here playing the dutiful wife, the silent partner, the fool?" My voice was terrifyingly calm, a cold, crystalline contrast to the frantic, humid heat still radiating from the bathroom behind him. I felt like a ghost inhabiting my own skin, an impartial observer watching the man I had worshipped as a "Saint" wither and decompose under the pale, flickering glow of the phone screen. The air in the master suite was thick, charged with the ozone of a dying storm, and every breath I drew felt like swallowing powdered glass.I held the device out toward him like a holy relic turned into a profane curse. On the screen, the image of him and Toni Donald was frozen in a grotesque, rhythmic display of betrayal—a choreography of infidelity that played out in high definition. The silence in the room was absolute, a heavy, suffocating weight broken only by the ragged, un