Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bound by Sin: The Heir & His Stepmother: Kabanata 31 - Kabanata 40

The smile was nailed to my face like a plaster mask. It hurt the muscles in my cheeks. It hurt the soul. I circulated among the wives of Cassius’s associates, an elegantly dressed specter in navy blue amid a sea of screaming silks and jewels that shouted empty wealth.“Darling Aurora, your dress is… so discreet,” commented Frau Schneider, the wife of Cassius’s main shareholder. Her eyes traveled over my body with the coldness of a cattle appraiser. Her fingers, covered in emerald rings, toyed with her champagne glass. “But it suits you. It conveys a certain… sobriety.”Translation: It’s cheap and dull, just like you.“Thank you, Frau Schneider,” I replied, my voice a fluid, expressionless honey. “I believe true luxury doesn’t need to scream.”She laughed, a sharp, false sound. The other women around her laughed too, a chorus of perfumed hyenas.“Speaking of luxury…” intervened Frau Vogel, younger and crueler, wife of one of the new ambitious partners. “Erika’s necklace is simply divin

The Arsenal at night was a different place. The darkness of the warehouse was cut only by the cold lights of the monitors and the bluish glow of the server fans. The air smelled of reheated coffee, machine oil, and the electric tension of my own impatience.In front of me, the DNA sequencer — a device the size of a high-tech toaster — hummed softly. It was processing the two strands of hair that the Shadow had brought. Two strands that could trigger an earthquake in the most powerful — and most dysfunctional — family in Germany.“Mon cher, Raphaël, you’re quieter than a mouse in a cathedral,” Anya’s voice filled the silence of my earpiece, a seductive and irritating honey. “Are you nervous? Worried about our little genetic secret?”She was in the control room, just a few meters away, but she might as well have been on my shoulder.“I’m concentrating, Anya,” I replied, my fingers flying over another keyboard as I breached the firewalls of a server in Singapore. Routine work. “Some of u

Breakfast was wrapped in icy silence. Cassius’s words still hung in the air like gunpowder smoke. Hermann Richter. Found dead. Throat slit.My stomach twisted. My fingers, wrapped around the handle of the teacup, trembled slightly. I didn’t look at anyone, but I felt the weight of Tristan’s gaze. And Cassius’s. It was a silent chess game, and the pieces were made of flesh and bone.August, sitting beside me, swung his legs under the chair, oblivious to the tension.“Mom, what does ‘degolado’ mean?” he asked, his clear voice cutting through the heavy silence.Cassius looked at him with impatience.“It’s something that doesn’t concern children, August. Eat your cereal.”The boy wrinkled his nose but obeyed, turning to Tristan with admiration in his eyes.“Onkel Tristan, are you going to work? You’re really strong, like a superhero.”Tristan, who had risen from the table, paused for a moment. His gaze settled on August, and something indecipherable crossed his face — something softer, al

The smell of grease and hot metal was the only perfume that didn’t disgust me.Here, on the assembly line of Delyon Armaments, everything was pure logic. Part A fits into Part B. Pressure X results in projectile Y. Predictable. Controllable. Unlike the rotten tangle that was my life.The rage that the situation with Hermann created in me triggered a memory that invaded my mind with the brutal clarity of a punch to the stomach. It wasn’t just a recollection — it was a physical sensation: the metallic taste of anger in my mouth, the bowstring tension in my muscles.A reinforcement of my purpose in this hell.…We were in the courtyard, a pack of bored and spoiled heirs, me at the center as always, enduring court out of pure social obligation. The conversation was pointless until one of them, an idiot named Frederik whose father was a minor partner of mine in a steel company, let out a dismissive comment.“The new scholarship girl isn’t bad, is she? Aurora,” he said, with a stupid, lewd

Lena’s call still echoed in my ears, a metallic and impersonal sound.“Cassius expects the first sketches of the Bridal Collection by the end of the week, Aurora. There’s no time for artistic musings. Efficiency and brilliance. Those are the guidelines. And to ensure you have total focus, Matilda will take care of August fully during this period. You will not be disturbed.”You will not be disturbed.The phrase sounded like the closing of a cell door. They weren’t just stealing my time — they were stealing my son. The only true light in this darkness. Panic froze my blood. How could I survive without his embrace? Without his laughter to remind me that there was still innocence in this world?And efficiency and brilliance? As if creating jewelry to celebrate the engagement of the man I love to another woman was a mechanical task. My hands, which normally danced across the paper with ideas, felt heavy and empty. The humiliation was a bitter taste in my mouth.It was then that Johann, th