Lahat ng Kabanata ng Bound by Sin: The Heir & His Stepmother: Kabanata 81 - Kabanata 90

The dressing room door opened with a creak, and my mother’s face appeared in the gap. Pale. Watery-eyed. Trembling.My heart plummeted.He didn’t come. The wedding is over. The humiliation will be complete.“Mom?” My voice came out low, as fragile as the crystal in the jewels weighing on my neck. “What happened? He…”“He arrived.” The words came out like a sigh, as if my mother were releasing the breath she had been holding for the last few hours. “Tristan is at the altar. Waiting for you.”My legs went weak.I had to lean on the chair to keep from falling. The makeup artist, who was still adjusting a detail on my veil, held me by the arm, preventing me from collapsing onto the polished wooden floor.“He is…” I tried to repeat, but my voice failed.“He is.” My mother entered the dressing room, her eyes shining with tears that were no longer of despair, but of relief. “He’s there, Erika. I saw him myself. The black suit, the upright posture… he’s waiting.”He is there. He came. He didn

The black car glided along the dark roads, leaving behind the big city, the illuminated suburbs, the sleeping villages.The landscape changed gradually — the buildings gave way to fields, the fields to hills, the hills to mountains covered with black pine trees against the starry sky.August slept the entire time in my lap, his small body warm and soft, his breathing calm and steady. The sedative Edda had given him kept him unconscious of the horrors we had left behind — and of those still to come.I was grateful for that. At least one person in this story deserved peace.Mateo was driving now, in complete silence, eyes fixed on the road, hands steady on the wheel. Edda, in the passenger seat, maintained a silent vigil, her eyes scanning the rearview mirrors, the sides, and the sky. The other man, whom I learned was called Zahir, sat beside me, monitoring a tablet that showed maps, coordinates, and, I assumed, Tristan’s position.None of them spoke. None of them needed to.What was th

The darkness was deep and heavy, a leaden mantle that pulled me downward, into a place without pain or thoughts. I floated in it like a corpse at the bottom of the sea, arms open, eyes closed, mind empty.But something was pulling me back.A voice. Distant at first, an inaudible whisper among the dark currents. Then closer, clearer, more insistent. Like a rope tied to my chest, pulling me inch by inch, making me rise slowly toward the surface.Pain was the first thing that reached me.It wasn’t a sharp pain, the kind that makes you scream. It was a dull, deep pain that came from the bones and spread through the muscles like slow lava. Broken ribs. Torn stitches. Fever. Infection. My whole body was a battlefield, and I was the fallen soldier.Alive. I’m still alive.The thought came with surprising clarity, cutting through the dark fog like a blade.Consciousness returned in layers. First, touch. The softness of something beneath me — sheets, not the hard stretcher from the Arsenal. Th

The weeks in the cabin stretched like a fever dream, a suspended time between what we had been and what we were becoming. Tristan healed slowly — the stitches on his abdomen dried and fell away, the broken ribs stopped hurting with every breath, the fever finally broke. But there was something in him that did not heal. Something I didn’t know if I wanted to heal.The beast. The other face of the man I loved.On sleepless nights, when August was asleep and the silence of the mountain wrapped around us like a heavy blanket, Tristan cooked. It wasn’t ordinary cooking, the kind learned from recipe books. It was instinctive, almost brutal. The hands that had held rifles and pulled triggers now sliced onions with the same lethal precision, seared meat in the pan as if executing an enemy, seasoned broths with the meticulousness of an alchemist preparing poison.“How did you learn to cook?” I asked one night, leaning against the counter of the tiny kitchen, watching him stir a pot of soup. Th

The apartment where I was hiding on the outskirts of Salzburg was small, dirty, with walls that smelled of mold and dampness. I lived on canned food and tap water, the money running out, the fake documents feeling more and more fragile. With every siren in the street, my heart raced. With every knock on the neighbor’s door, I held my breath.Cassius won’t find me, I repeated to myself, like a mantra. He’s too busy with Tristan. With Aurora. With the wedding scandal. He’s forgotten about me.What a fool I was.The sound of the door being forced open ripped me from the deepest sleep. I woke with a scream stuck in my throat, eyes wide, body rigid. Shadows invaded the room — large men, uniformed, armed. Not Cassius’s usual guards. These were different. Quieter. More lethal.“Lena Von Strauss?” The voice was deep, without inflection.“I’m not… I’m not…”The slap came fast and precise. My head snapped to the side, the taste of blood flooding my mouth.“Don’t lie. We don’t have time for lies