Library

Search

Home / Romance / BROKEN BY MY STEPBROTHER / Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

All Chapters of BROKEN BY MY STEPBROTHER: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

23 Chapters

Chapter 11

Ryan's POV I had been staring at the ceiling for almost an hour, unable to sleep. Miles had been taken to the hospital. I had watched him fall. I had seen my teammates kick him. I had heard King shouting for them to stop, and I had done nothing quickly enough. I kept telling myself I hadn't meant for things to go that far. Miles had stolen my earrings. Kourtney had told me she saw him take them and hide them in his locker. When the earrings were found there, I had believed her. But maybe I shouldn't have hit him. Maybe I shouldn't have dragged him to his locker. Maybe I should have listened when he kept insisting he hadn't taken them. And maybe I should have stopped my teammates. I closed my eyes, but the image of Miles lying terrified on the floor returned immediately. For the first time, I couldn't ignore the truth. I had gone too far. A

Chapter 12

Ryan's POV That night, the house was quiet in a way that felt wrong. I noticed it the second I stepped off the last stair and my footsteps echoed back at me from the marble instead of being swallowed up by the usual clatter of pots and the low hum of the radio that the cook liked to keep playing in the kitchen while she cooked. There was no smell of garlic or roasting meat drifting out to meet me the way there always was by this hour, no warm light spilling from under the kitchen door, nothing except the dim glow of the hallway sconces and the strange, hollow feeling of walking into a house that should have been full of life but wasn’t. I told myself it was nothing, that maybe dinner was just running late, but by the time I pushed through the kitchen door and found it empty, spotless counters gleaming under the pendant lights with not a single pan out of place, I knew something had been decided without me.Marta was the one who finally came in from the pantry when she heard me movi

Chapter 13

Ryan's POV Thankfully, Kourtney was able to get food delivered to my house and I ate like a starving man. Truthfully, I was. After eating, I realized this couldn't continue going on. I had screwed up real bad and needed to fix things. I had to somehow convince Claire to come back home.The drive to the hospital was the longest twenty minutes of my life, because all I could think about the entire time was what would happen to me if my father actually went through with kicking me out over this. I’d grown up in that house, I’d never known anything else, and the thought of losing all of it, the money, the name, the future that had always just been sitting there waiting for me because of who my father was, made my hands tighten on the wheel until my knuckles ached. I kept running the numbers in my head, how long I could survive without access to any of it, and the answer kept coming back to nothing, not even a semester, and that terrified me more than I wanted to admit. Claire had to com

Chapter 14

Miles POVI was slowly gaining back my consciousness in pieces. I heard sound before anything else, and the first thing that registered was my mother’s voice, sharp and shaking in a way I had never once heard it in my entire life, telling someone to get out. I couldn’t place who she was talking to at first, my mind still thick and slow like it was wading through water, but then I heard the door open and close, heard her sobbing in that raw, wrecked way. I kept my eyes closed a moment longer, piecing together fragments of what I’d half heard drifting in and out of the dark, apologies, my name, the word divorce hanging there in the air, and it was that word more than anything else that finally pulled me all the way back into my body.I opened my eyes slowly, the fluorescent lights overhead too bright at first, forcing me to blink until the room came into focus, my mother’s face swimming into view above me still wet with tears she hadn’t finished wiping away. The second she realized I

Chapter 15

Mile's POV King and Giselle showed up the next morning carrying a bouquet of flowers that Giselle had clearly picked out herself, something bright and slightly overdone in a way that made me smile the second she set it down on the little table beside my bed.She came along with a basket of fruit that King insisted on holding onto until he could set it down properly, like it was some kind of ceremonial offering rather than just grapes and oranges from the hospital gift shop downstairs. They both lit up the second they saw I was sitting upright and actually looking like myself again, Giselle practically bouncing on her toes before she leaned down to hug me carefully, mindful of the bruising still fading along my jaw, and King clapped a hand on my shoulder with the kind of relief that didn’t need words to explain itself.“You scared the hell out of us, man,” King said, dropping into the chair beside the bed while Giselle perched on the edge of the mattress near my feet. “Like, actually

Chapter 16

Mile's POV My mother had turned into something like a hawk in the days since we’d come home. I mean that in the most literal sense possible, because there wasn’t a single hour that went by without her appearing in the doorway of whatever room I was in, asking if I needed anything, if I was in pain, if I wanted her to sit with me for a while, until I started to feel less like a recovering patient and more like a toddler who’d wandered too close to the pool. She refused outright to leave me alone in the house whenever Ryan was around, rearranging her entire schedule so that she was either home herself or had made absolutely certain some other adult was present, as if Ryan might snap the second her back was turned. I understood why she was doing it, I really did, but there was something exhausting about being watched over that closely when all I wanted was to feel normal again.Jack, for his part, had been trying every day since the hospital to earn back some measure of my mother’s t

Chapter 17

Mile's POV The following week finally, I was finally healthy enough to return back to school. I had already wheeled my bike out to the driveway that morning, adjusting the strap on my bag and mentally preparing myself for the ride, when Ryan appeared at the front door and called out for me to stop before I could even get one leg over the seat.“Get in my car,” he said, jingling his keys once like that settled the matter, already heading toward where it was parked.I stayed where I was, one hand still resting on the handlebars, eyeing him with the kind of wariness that hadn’t fully gone away yet, no matter how sincere that apology in my room had seemed a few nights earlier. “I’m fine, I've recovered enough. I can ride the bike to school.” I said to him.“You just got out of the hospital a few days ago, Miles, you’re not driving yhat to school.” He paused by the driver’s side door, watching me hesitate, and something in his expression shifted, like he understood exactly what I was thin

Chapter 18

Mile's POV Things really did seem to be getting better and I’d started to let my guard down just enough to actually enjoy walking through the halls without bracing for whatever cruelty might be waiting around the next corner. That sense of ease was still fragile, though, and it didn’t take long for something to come along and test it.I was at my locker between third and fourth period, digging through my bag for a textbook I’d forgotten to grab that morning, when I heard the unmistakable click of heels approaching and looked up to find Kourtney standing there with two of her friends flanking her, arms crossed, wearing the kind of smile that never meant anything good.“Well, look who’s back from the dead,” she said, tilting her head at me with exaggerated sweetness. “Guess getting your face rearranged wasn’t enough to keep you home, huh?”I didn’t answer right away, turning back to my locker, hoping if I ignored her she’d get bored and move on the way she sometimes did, but her friend

Chapter 19

Mile's POV I hadn’t intended to go out to the pool that evening, I’d just been restless after dinner, my mind still circling around what had happened at my locker earlier that day, and the fresh air seemed like a better option than lying in bed replaying it for the tenth time. The backyard was quiet except for the soft ripple of water, string lights casting a warm glow over the patio, and it wasn’t until I stepped further out onto the deck that I realized I wasn’t alone out there.Ryan was already in the water, midway through a lap, and he surfaced near the edge just as I came into view, pushing wet hair back from his forehead with one hand. I stopped where I was for a second longer than I meant to, taking him in without really meaning to, the water sliding off his shoulders, the easy, unselfconscious way he moved like he belonged wherever he was standing. There was something undeniably striking about him in that moment, lit up gold under the patio lights, and I felt a strange, un

Chapter 20

Mile's POV Saturday night came sooner than expected and it made me more excited than I thought I would be. Just as promised, King drove over with Giselle to pick me up and we went to the party together. The party was loud in a way that hit me the second we walked through Derek’s front door, bass thumping through the floor, half the junior and senior class packed into a house that suddenly felt much smaller than it probably was. Cups were scattered across every surface and the smell of spilled beer already thick in the air. King had disappeared almost immediately, swallowed up by a group of his basketball friends, and Giselle stuck close to my side for the first twenty minutes or so, pointing out people and shouting commentary over the music, until she got pulled onto the makeshift dance floor in the living room by a few girls from her art class and I lost track of her in the crowd shortly after.I found King again eventually, or rather spotted him, tucked into a corner of the kitche

PREV

NEXT

SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP

DMCA.com Protection Status