Alle Kapitel von Stepdad’s Pet, His Son’s Plaything : Kapitel 81 – Kapitel 88

EMMA’S POVThe echoes of the front doors slamming shut downstairs still vibrated through the heavy walls of the house. Jordan hadn't moved from the staircase. He stood there, unclad, a bitter, miserable shell of the man who had ruled this house until only three days ago. I stepped closer to him, my own skin cold, my chest heaving with a mixture of frustration and a desperate, frantic need to anchor him back to me now that my mother was gone.Before I could reach out to touch his arm, the sudden, shrill vibration of my phone cut through the heavy silence.I jumped, the sound grating against my raw nerves. I lunged back into the master suite, snatching the device off the nightstand. The screen illuminated the bedroom’s shadows.Janet.I stared at her name, my throat tightening. I didn't want to talk to her. I didn't want to talk to anyone. I swiped to decline the call, tossing the phone back onto the mattress. But the moment the screen went dark, it lit up again.A flood of messages be

REIGN’S POVThe phones never stopped. Even with the volume clicked off, the screens of our devices lit up the dark, cramped interior of the car like distress beacons. Every major news outlet, every fake friend from the country club, and every corporate lawyer in the city was trying to claw their way through the digital static to get a piece of the wreckage my father had made.Ruth sat in the passenger seat, curled tightly against the door, refusing to look at them. I didn't blame her. I kept my foot heavy on the gas, bypassing the main, well-lit entrances of the city, keeping to the shadows until I pulled into the rear lot of the boutique hotel downtown—the quiet, discreet place where she had booked a room after walking out of the house the first time.We slipped through the side entrance, collars turned up against the chill, faces cast downward to avoid the wandering eyes of the late-night staff. I kept my hand firmly on the small of her back, feeling the tremor running through her s

TONI’S POVThe four walls of the high-rise penthouse felt less like a sanctuary and more like a beautifully curated death row. For months, the atmosphere in this house had been toxic, thick with the suffocating scent of my husband’s hypocrisy and the rot of a marriage that had been dead long before I ever let Jordan Blackwood into my bed.I sat at the edge of the Italian leather sofa, my fingers white-knuckled around a crystal glass of amber liquid that did absolutely nothing to calm the cold, calculating rage vibrating beneath my skin.Before I ever sat under those blinding studio lights and tore the world down, I had tried to settle things. I wasn't a fool; I knew the empire was fracturing. I had gone to my husband behind closed doors, offering a quiet, clean exit. A discreet dissolution of our marriage. No public scandal, no corporate bleeding. Just a mutual parting of ways that would allow me to walk away with my sanity intact.But he had laughed in my face. The bastard didn't ju

RUTH’S POVThe international airport’s terminal was a vast, echoing cavern of glass and steel, entirely detached from the city we were leaving behind. We sat in the dim corner of an exclusive airport lounge, our twin first-class tickets to Europe resting on the polished table between us.We had stayed inside that boutique hotel room until the ink on the divorce papers was dry. Once the legal ties were severed, the reality of our situation had settled in like a heavy, suffocating fog. The city had become a hunting ground. Every sideways glance from a stranger, every muted whisper from a hotel staff member, and every headline flashing on the airport monitors was a reminder that we were marked. The Blackwood stigma was an infection, and it followed us everywhere.The video Emma did with Jordan changed the narrative and made me the bad guy in the story. The bad guy who left her husband vulnerable and heartbroken. Reign suggested we did something to counter the narrative but I was not int