All Chapters of PREGNANT AFTER MY STEP BROTHER KNOTTED ME: Chapter 21 - Chapter 30

36 Chapters

His Father's Return

KaelMy father walked through the door at nine in the morning like he was walking into a boardroom, not a house that had nearly fallen apart three days earlier."Kael." He set his bag down by the entrance without looking at me directly. "My office. Now."I followed him down the hall, past the bookshelf that hid the safe I still hadn't seen inside of, and shut the door behind us. He sat behind his desk, still in his travel clothes, and folded his hands the exact way he always did before delivering bad news to someone."Diego briefed me on the flight," he said. "Kane. Doyle. All of it.""Then you know why I did what I did.""I know you handled a decade-old secret by recording a confession in an abandoned warehouse instead of calling me the second the first message came in." His voice stayed level, but I could hear the edge underneath it, the same edge he used on competitors right before he destroyed them. "Do you understand how many ways that could have gone wrong?""I understand it wen

Last Updated : 2026-07-28

The Statement

ElaraKael showed up at my house before I'd even finished breakfast, phone already in his hand, face tight with the kind of tension I was starting to recognize meant something new had gone wrong."Kane made bail," he said, not bothering with hello. "He's holding a press conference tomorrow morning."My stomach dropped, the same familiar drop I'd felt too many times over the last week. "Saying what?""Diego's still digging, but his lawyer sent a preview to a few outlets. It's not about the extortion charges." Kael set his phone on the counter, screen up, some kind of press release pulled up on it. "It's about us."I picked up the phone and read it myself, and the words on the screen made my hands go cold.*Marcus Kane, longtime business associate of the Voss family, expresses concern regarding recently uncovered information suggesting inappropriate conduct within the household, including an ongoing relationship between Voss heir Kael Voss and his minor stepsister.*"Minor." I said the

Last Updated : 2026-07-28

On the Record

ElaraI stared at the ringing phone for a second too long before Mom reached over and took it out of my hand."Don't answer that," she said, already silencing it. "Not until we're ready, on our terms, with our statement out first.""How did they even get my number?""Kane's team, probably. Or someone at the outlet did some digging." She set my phone face down on the table, deliberate, like putting it out of sight would make the problem smaller. "This is exactly why we need to move faster than they are."Kael's phone buzzed again, and this time when he read it, something eased slightly in his shoulders. "My father says the statement's ready. He wants both of us to review it before it goes out, since our names are on it too."He turned the laptop so I could read alongside him. It was shorter than I expected, no more than a few paragraphs, and every line felt strange to read about myself in that careful, formal language.*The Voss family confirms that Elara Carter, age eighteen, and Kael

Last Updated : 2026-07-29

The Quiet After

ElaraThe days after the statement went out felt strange in a way I hadn't expected. Not calm exactly, but quieter, like the volume of my whole life had finally been turned down from screaming to something closer to normal conversation.School was the hardest part. Word had spread the way Lila warned it would, and I caught people looking at me in the hallways the first few days, whispering behind their hands the second they thought I wasn't paying attention. A few kids I barely knew tried to ask me questions between classes, fishing for details they had no business asking about.I mostly just kept walking."You're handling this better than I expected," Kael said one afternoon, picking me up from school the way he'd started doing every day since Kane backed off."I'm handling it because the alternative is falling apart in a hallway, and I already did enough of that this month." I climbed into the car and let my bag drop by my feet. "It helps that most people get bored of it after a few

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

My Father's Name

ElaraI read the email three more times before I said anything out loud."Elara." Kael's voice was careful, watching my face. "Who's it from?""I don't know. There's no name attached, just an email address." I turned the phone toward him so he could read it himself, watching his expression shift the way mine probably had. "My father. My biological father. I haven't heard anyone bring him up in years.""You never talk about him.""There's not much to talk about. He left when I was four. Mom never really explained why, just that it was better for both of us that he wasn't around." I stared at the email again, at the strange casual confidence in the way it was written, like whoever sent it already knew exactly how much this would shake me. "She's never once suggested there was more to the story than that."Mom came back into the kitchen just then, drying her hands on a dish towel, and stopped when she saw both our faces."What happened," she said, instantly alert in the way she'd gotten

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

Diego's Search

KaelI called Diego before Elara had even finished reading the last message out loud a second time."Not again," he said, when I explained it. "I thought we were done with countdown clocks for a while.""So did I." I paced the length of Elara's kitchen, phone pressed to my ear, watching her and her mom huddled over the laptop pulling up the email header. "Can you trace this one the way you traced Doyle's messages?""Send me everything you've got. Headers, the email address, all of it." I heard typing on his end, fast and familiar. "Give me a few hours. If this is connected to your father's old company the way you're describing, there might be records I can cross reference. Old employee files, accounts that got flagged around the time this Elara's father case supposedly disappeared.""How far back do those records go?""Depends what your father kept and what he didn't. Companies like his usually keep everything, just buried under enough paperwork that nobody bothers looking unless they

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

The Man Behind the Messages

ElaraI read Diego's message four times before the words actually landed."That's not possible," I said, even though some part of me was already turning it over, testing how it might fit. "He's been gone fourteen years. He never once tried to contact me. Not a birthday card, not a phone call, nothing.""Maybe he couldn't," Kael said carefully. "If he ran because he thought staying made him a target, maybe he thought reaching out would put you in danger too.""Or maybe he just didn't want to." The old bitterness came up fast, the kind I'd buried so deep I'd almost forgotten it was there. "Fourteen years, Kael. That's a long time to stay quiet if you actually cared."Mom hadn't said anything, just stood there with her hand pressed against her mouth, staring at the phone like it might change what it said if she looked hard enough."Mom.""I don't know what to say," she admitted quietly. "I always assumed he just left and never looked back. I never considered he might have been watching f

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

My Father's Truth

ElaraHe wrapped both hands tighter around the coffee cup, like he needed something to hold onto before he could start."Fourteen years is a long time to plan what you'd say," he said. "And somehow I still don't know where to begin.""Start with why you left."He nodded slowly, like he'd expected that to be the first question. "I worked for a company handling financial accounts, back when your mother and I were still married. One of those accounts belonged to a smaller business that was being acquired by the Voss empire. I found something in the books that didn't add up. Money moving in ways it shouldn't have been moving.""What kind of money?""The kind that gets people killed if they ask too many questions about it." He said it plainly, no drama in his voice, just a tired fact. "I didn't understand at first how deep it went. I just knew the numbers were wrong, and when I raised it with my supervisor, instead of an investigation, I got accused of stealing the money myself.""Mom told

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

What Diego Found

KaelI saw Elara's face change from across the diner and was already halfway out of my booth before she even waved me over."Diego found something," she said, phone in hand, her father watching me approach with wary eyes. "About the file. He said I needed to see it before we left."I sat down beside her, and her father studied me for a long moment, the kind of assessment I recognized because I'd been on the giving end of it myself plenty of times."You're the Voss boy," he said. Not quite hostile, but not warm either."Kael. Sir.""I know who you are." He glanced at Elara, something protective flickering across his face despite fourteen years of absence. "I also know what your family's capable of burying when it's inconvenient.""I'm not my father," I said, the same thing I'd told him weeks earlier, the same thing I was apparently going to keep saying to every person in this story who'd been hurt by him."No," he said slowly. "Maybe not. We'll see."My phone buzzed, Diego calling inst

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

Racing the Clock

KaelWe moved to Elara's mother's house within the hour, the four of us crowded around the kitchen table that had already seen so many of these conversations this month.Elara's father sat stiffly beside her, clearly uncomfortable being back in a space that had once been his own life, now rearranged around people he barely knew. Her mother kept glancing at him like she still couldn't quite believe he was real, sitting there after fourteen years of nothing."We have six hours," Diego said through the laptop speaker, his voice tight with focus. "I've pulled everything I can on the account activity, but I need something connecting the timing to an actual decision she made. A paper trail isn't enough on its own. I need intent.""What would show intent," Elara asked."Communication. Emails, texts, anything where she actually says what she's planning instead of just moving money around quietly." Diego paused. "Kael, does she keep anything at the house? A home office, files, anything she mig

Last Updated : 2026-08-06

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