Todos os capítulos de Beneath The Ice : Claimed By My Stepbrother : Capítulo 151 - Capítulo 160

Reina~A cup of tea sat cooling at the edge of the desk, untouched, the surface already forming a thin skin. Beside it lay the folder bearing the name of Theodore Morrison ’s father in discreet embossing. I had left it closed until the report was finished.One of my men stood across from me, voice steady, the cadence of someone who understood I required facts without decoration. I did not interrupt. I watched the city move beyond the glass while he laid out the architecture of a man who had spent years purchasing influence the way other men purchased property. Sports agents who owed him introductions. Sponsors whose contracts could be redirected with a single call. Journalists who knew which stories to pursue and which to leave unfinished. University board members whose favors had grown into quiet obligations. He rarely delivered a threat in his own voice. He paid others to carry the consequence, preserving the distance that kept him respectable.None of it surprised me. I had expecte

Jeff~ I sat in the stiff hospital chair beside Thea’s bed, the steady beep of the monitor the only sound filling the room. She stared out the window at the scattered city lights, her face pale but set with a calm that unsettled me more than any tears would have. I reached for something to say, anything to close the sudden distance that had opened between us, when her voice cut through the quiet. “I want a divorce.” I blinked, certain the exhaustion and the harsh lights had twisted her words. “What did you say?” “I want a divorce,” she repeated, turning to face me fully. Her eyes held no hesitation, only a quiet certainty that landed like a weight on my chest. I forced a short laugh, the sound brittle in the sterile air. “Thea, come on. You just fainted. You’re still coming out of it. The doctor said stress–” “I am perfectly aware of what I’m saying,” she cut in, irritation sharpening her tone. “I’m not asking for your understanding, Jeff. I’m telling you what I’ve decided.”

Theo~I woke the morning after my mother’s meeting with Reina still carrying the residual tension of everything that had shifted in the hospital and beyond, yet when Noah and I walked onto Blackwood’s campus together for the first time without any attempt at concealment, a strange lightness settled over me for a few brief minutes. Noah’s arm rested across my shoulders in a casual, unthinking way, and I did not shrug it off or glance around to measure who might be watching. For that short stretch of pavement the relief of simply existing beside him without calculation felt almost unfamiliar, as though some constant weight I had carried for months had finally been set down. Then the stares began. They were not the ordinary curious glances that followed any new pairing on campus. These lingered longer, slid away faster, and carried the distinct edge of recognition. Whispers moved between groups of students as we passed. One voice, low but clear enough, reached me with the words “That’s

Noah I was still standing beside him when the message arrived. Theo opened it without speaking, and the photograph filled the screen before either of us could look away. The image showed the two of us on the ice earlier that evening, framed from outside the facility at a distance that made the surrounding darkness deliberate rather than accidental. Whoever had taken it had not been passing by. They had chosen the angle, waited for the lights to catch us clearly, and held the position long enough to decide the exact moment worth keeping. I took the phone from his hand and studied the picture more carefully than he had time to. The distance ruled out chance. The height of the shot suggested the photographer had remained low, using the line of parked cars for cover. Both of our faces were visible, which meant the camera had been focused rather than hurried. Most telling was the timing. The anonymous messages had already arrived by then. This was not a reaction to the university’s deci

Theo~I arrived at school the next morning still turning over the photograph from the apartment window, the knowledge that someone had been close enough to capture us through the glass sitting heavy in the back of my mind. Fatigue made everything slower, yet something else pulled my attention almost at once. Joe was avoiding me. Across the hallway he stood with a few teammates, and the moment our eyes met he turned away and kept walking. Under ordinary circumstances he would have made a comment or found a way to pass too close. Today he left the moment I came near, and the pattern continued through the first two periods. Every time I approached a corridor he was already moving in the opposite direction.I mentioned it to Noah between classes. “He’s never been this careful. Joe doesn’t usually bother hiding what he thinks.”Noah listened and answered with the same measured tone he used when he was weighing risk. “Maybe he’s finally figured out there are consequences.”“Or he’s waitin