Alle Kapitel von I AM MY STEPBROTHER'S OBSESSION : Kapitel 121 – Kapitel 130

We were careless for maybe thirty seconds, and that was all it took.The side street by Luca’s building was half-dark, one of those quiet spots between a streetlight and a doorway where you tell yourself nobody is watching. His hand was on the back of my neck. My mouth was on his. Not a quick peck. A real kiss. The kind that carried the weight of the whole day—tired, hungry, a little reckless. I had been stupid enough to believe the night could just be a quiet night.Then a voice cut right through it.“Well. Look at that.”We pulled apart too fast and not fast enough. Richard was standing on the sidewalk about ten feet away. His phone was already coming down from his chest. The screen glowed for a second against his face and then went dark. My stomach dropped like a stone. I didn't actually see him take the photo, but I saw the angle of the phone and the calm, certain look on his face, and I just knew.Luca stepped in front of me immediately. “You’re not supposed to be near her.”“Pub

The street felt wide, cold, and far too exposed the moment he vanished around the corner. A car passed by, its headlights sweeping across us, and my hands were shaking so violently that I had to shove them deep into my coat pockets to hide the tremors. Luca turned to me immediately, his face pale beneath the streetlight. “I’m calling Reid right now.” “He has a picture,” I whispered, staring at the empty pavement where Richard had just been standing. “I know.” “He stood there and said all those awful things to my face, and I just let him.” “You stood your ground because he’s a dangerous, unpredictable man on a dark street, and you were doing everything you could not to escalate it,” Luca said firmly, grabbing my shoulders. “That isn't weakness, Nyra.” I shook my head, unable to shake off the dirty, suffocating feeling resting heavy under my ribs. “He made it sound like I calculated the whole marriage just to use it as a bridge to get to you. He made it sound like the bruise

Luca blinked. Something genuinely hurt flickered across his face before he nodded once, took a step back, and gave me the hallway. I hated myself the second I saw the flinch in his eyes, but I still walked past him straight into the bedroom, pressing the phone against my palm like a fresh burn. Under the heavy blankets, I pulled up the photo one more time and forced myself to look at it without blinking. The reality of it didn't change just because I hated it. We had been careless and he had been ready and waiting. And now he wanted payment in the form of my relationship, neatly gift-wrapped as moral obligation and a sudden, touching concern for Luca’s corporate future and my mother’s fragile nerves. Another message chimed at 12:19 AM. Richard: You don’t have to answer me tonight. Just sleep on it. Ask yourself if you really want to be the reason his name becomes a running joke in this city. If you actually love him the way you pretend to, you’ll do the hard thing now before I’m fo

There was a heavy breath on the other end of the line, shaky yet tightly controlled. “I opened it while I was standing in the kitchen,” she said quietly. “George was in the other room. I had to sit down on the floor, Nyra. Do you understand that? I sat right on my own kitchen floor and looked at my daughter in a photograph sent by the man who put her in the hospital. And the photograph wasn't from a hospital ward. It was you and Luca on a dark street, acting as if you had forgotten the rest of the world has eyes.” My eyes burned, and a tear slipped down my cheek. “He’s trying to hurt me, Mum. He’s been...” “I don’t care about his strategic motives right now!” she cut in, her voice cracking with a sudden, sharp grief. “I care that the very thing I begged you to walk away from is now a digital file sitting on a phone, moving around without your permission. I care that if George sees that picture, the shock might put him right back in a hospital bed with wires strapped to his chest. A

“Is that what you need to hear?! I was ashamed! He made me feel like some cheap, dirty secret...like the bruises I wore were just a handy excuse so I could keep sleeping with you without looking at what we really are to the rest of the world! I didn't want to stand in front of you looking small and contaminated by his voice! I wanted just one night where I didn't have to be the woman in that photo before I had to face her!” “I have already seen you small!” he yelled, his voice cracking with equal parts grief and fury. “I’ve seen you marked by his hands! I’ve seen you shake in the dark, and I stayed! You do not get to invent some fake version of me that only accepts you when you’re polished and whole! That’s your own terror talking, not my terms!” “And your anger is so wonderfully clean, isn't it?” I snarled, hot tears streaming down my face. “You get to stand there and play the high-and-mighty judge of trust while I’m the one whose mother has a picture of my body sent to her phone b