All Chapters of Bound by Sin: The Heir & His Stepmother: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

The sweet-sour taste of the strawberry disintegrated, replaced by the salty taste of his skin, undisguised desire, and the contained fury that had always been the fuel between us. When our lips parted, breathless, he didn’t ask for permission. His hand wrapped around mine with a possession that made my bones tremble with anticipation.Without a word, he dragged me through the dark corridors. Not to his room — that would be too obvious — but to a deserted guest room, where expensive furniture would bear witness to our conspiracy.The door closed behind us, and the final click of the lock echoed like a starting gunshot for our madness.He pressed me against the solid wood, his body an inflexible block of heat and muscle crushing me against the surface. His hands — those hands I remembered bloody and young — now gripped my hips with a force that promised bruises.“I need to know…” His voice was a guttural growl against my swollen lips. “Does he put his hands on you? Does he touch this sk

The Delyon mansion woke with its silent ritual. I supervised the cleaning staff with an eye that saw everything, from a forgotten speck of dust to an unspoken tension in the air. Like today.Helga, the new girl in charge of the guest wing, approached with wide eyes and trembling hands holding a piece of black lace fabric. Very lacy. And torn in a rather… specific way.“Frau Müller…” she whispered, as if the item were a grenade. “I found this… under the bed in the blue room. The one for guests that isn’t used…”I took the piece of lingerie from her hands without changing my expression. It was the finest Italian silk. Black. And yes, clearly torn in a moment of… urgency. I recognized the model. I had personally ordered an identical set a few weeks ago, at Mrs. Aurora’s request.My heart — an organ I believed had fossilized after decades of service to the Delyons — gave a small leap. Not from shock, but from a deep and familiar exasperation. Young people. Even when they were killers, hei

Two weeks. Thirty-five days until the golden farce that would seal Tristan — my Tristan — to an empty porcelain doll. And every single one of those days had been meticulously orchestrated to be a private little hell.My hands were a testament to the torture. The fingertips, once sensitive enough to feel the purity of a raw stone, were now calloused and raw. A deep cut on the palm of my right hand, from forcing a particularly stubborn diamond clasp, throbbed beneath the thin layer of gauze that I changed myself every morning.These were a worker’s hands, not those of a jeweler. Cassius and Lena had succeeded: they had reduced my art to an assembly line of absurdity.“The tiara needs more presence, Aurora.” Lena’s voice cut through the silence of the atelier the previous morning like a stiletto through velvet. She was holding the sketch I had spent the night drawing. “Miss Meyer is the center of attention. The piece must reflect that. Something more… expansive.”Expansive. Her word for:

The taste of victory is always the same: cold, metallic, and expensive. Like the steel of a new rifle barrel. I had just closed the arms supply contract with Volkov’s regime. Five hundred million euros. A handshake, a signature, and the fate of thousands was sealed.Now, in the dining room of the Delyon mansion, the celebration was a spectacle of control. Baccarat crystal reflected the light of the chandeliers, the Limoges porcelain a white and immaculate stage for the family performance. Everything under my dominion. Always.On one side of the table, Aurora. My broken and patched-up masterpiece. She wore a wine-colored dress, her hair pulled into a severe chignon. She cut August’s food with precise movements, her eyes lowered — a docile wife and devoted mother. Sculpted perfection.On the other side, Tristan. My most dangerous creation. He wore a suit that seemed to absorb the light, his green eyes moving from me to Aurora with a disdain he believed was disguised. He thought his enga

The fireplace was cold, its ashes a silent echo of the fire burning inside me. The image of August’s confused face, the word “hesitated” echoing in my head, was a wound deeper than any bullet.They had used my son. They had stepped on the only piece of sacred ground I had to strike at me.As the last guests withdrew, I remained standing before the dead fireplace. The fury was an ice-cold liquid in my veins, not a blaze. I took out the encrypted phone. My fingers, steady as rock, danced across the screen.Me: “Someone has been digging through the filth of the East. Find the rat. And find who paid him.”Raphaël’s reply was almost instantaneous, a conditioned reflex from years of war.R: “The rat is a former intelligence analyst named Kessler. Now an ‘independent’ consultant. I’m already tracing the payments. We’ll have a name in hours.”A cold, humorless smile touched my lips. Raphaël. Always efficient. The shame they had tried to inflict on me was already transforming into pure fuel. T