All Chapters of Bound by Sin: The Heir & His Stepmother: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

Cassius’s office still smelled of his power and his expensive whiskey. I had just received the order. Increase surveillance on Aurora. As if the cameras, the drivers, and the very walls of the mansion weren’t enough. He wanted a pair of human eyes, dedicated, glued to her.He called her “bait and trap.” To me, she had always been nothing more than an obstacle. The legitimate wife. The jewel in the display case that I could never be, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how many times I lay down with the man who held the keys to the world I coveted.Sitting at my own desk — smaller, but still with an impressive view — I made the call. I didn’t use the company phone. I used one that couldn’t be traced back to me, or to Cassius.“I need a crow,” I said when the line was answered. My voice was soft, professional. “Female. Discreet. Intelligent. Someone who can pass as a personal assistant, with impeccable credentials. The job is to observe. Report every movement, every conversation, ever

The air in the Delyon Armaments server level had a metallic, sterile taste, like breathing inside the very skeleton of a great sleeping predator.I was leaning against a server rack, watching Zahir work. The man was a masterpiece of silent efficiency. His fingers danced over the keyboards, a choreography of intrusion so smooth it barely disturbed the sleep of the security systems.Meanwhile, my tablet displayed a cascade of code, a real-time translation of what he was extracting.“The old man is organized, I’ll give him that,” I commented, my voice echoing softly in the cold space. “But organization is just laziness in disguise. It creates patterns. And patterns are like footprints in the snow for someone like me.”Zahir didn’t reply. He rarely did. His concentration was absolute. Instead, a new set of files appeared on my screen, marked with the old Delyon Armaments logo. Decades old.“Look at this,” I murmured, enlarging one of the documents. It was an acquisition proposal. A small

The magazine lay on my desk in the arsenal, a stain of glossy paper and artificial colors in the sober environment of the Arsenal. *Berliner Gesellschaft*. On the cover, the “perfect” Delyon family. Cassius, with his satisfied predator smile. Aurora, beside him, a frozen portrait of resignation. And me. With my hand on the boy’s shoulder.August.My attention, which had initially fixed on Aurora — on the way her emerald dress enhanced her eyes, on the almost imperceptible tension in her smile — was irresistibly pulled toward the child beside me. Toward us.There was something there. Something that had disturbed me since the photo session, an unease I had ignored, attributing it to anger, to the discomfort of the situation.I had seen him as a detail, my father’s son, one more link in the chain that bound Aurora to this hell. Now, under the raw light of the lamp in my sanctuary, something different was happening.It wasn’t the features. It wasn’t anything so obvious. It was… the postur

The distant sound of August laughing, followed by Matilda’s patient voice insisting that he stop moving so she could finish combing his hair, reached my room.The dinner was tonight, and the air in the mansion was already filled with that peculiar silence that precedes great events — a silence made of hurried footsteps and tension.The black silk box with the dress Thaïs had given me lay on the bed like an accusation. A deep navy-blue satin slip, a cut that was a challenge. Beautiful. Bold. Everything I needed to be tonight and that felt absolutely impossible in that moment.But first, a more repulsive task. Cassius’s order echoed in my mind.“Choose a piece for Erika.”I went down to the atelier, my sanctuary that, in those moments, transformed into a torture chamber. The soft light from my work lamps seemed to cut into my eyes as soon as I entered. The pressure was already beginning, a dull pain in my temples, the familiar warning.I opened the armored safe where I kept the finished

The flashes were an assault. Each burst of white light against the darkened glass of the Bentley served as a reminder of the spectacle that was about to unfold. Outside, the press swarmed like vultures hungry for a piece of our farce.The car stopped in front of the Goldene Saal, the most exclusive and ostentatious restaurant in Munich. Before the driver could get out, I glanced at the velvet box on the seat beside me. The necklace. The diamond heart that Aurora had been forced to choose.“Wait,” I said, my voice cutting through the silence inside the car.I picked up the box. The lid opened with a soft click. The diamonds sparkled, cold and empty. A perfect symbol for the night we were about to endure.The door opened. The flashes exploded in a blinding barrage. I ignored them, my face a mask of polished indifference. On the other side of the car, Erika Meyer stepped out, dressed in a shocking pink that defied good taste. Her smile was wide for the cameras, but her eyes were hungry.