All Chapters of MY ALPHA STEPBROTHER IS OBSESSED WITH MY SECRET IDENTITY : Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

🌸VIOLET🌸Morning warm-up bled into its usual cooldown, my lungs still burning from the last set of sprints, sweat sliding cold down my spine despite the early hour. The other recruits were still giving me that same weird look, sidelong glances that dropped the second I caught them, whispers that died fast whenever I walked close enough to actually hear the words attached to them.Bryce stood at the center of it as always, arms crossed, jaw still faintly bruised in a yellow-green ring from a fight I'd technically lost, and the expression he wore whenever his eyes landed on me made my skin crawl every single time, something between hatred and disgust that never once cooled no matter how many days passed.I worked twice as hard just to prove I belonged here as a warrior, not as some pampered stepdaughter riding on a family name I never asked to carry. Every drill, every rep, every drop of sweat stinging in my eyes, I pushed myself past the exact point my muscles wanted to quit, my thig

🌸VIOLET🌸 The forest exploded into chaos around me. Recruits scattered in every direction at once, boots tearing hard through underbrush, shouts and crashing footsteps swallowing whatever calm had existed thirty seconds earlier, and I ran too, my legs carrying me deep into the trees before I'd fully processed the order myself. Branches whipped hard and stinging against my bare arms as I pushed further into the undergrowth, my boots tearing through wet leaves and loose, dark soil, my breath already coming ragged and uneven. I didn't look back once. That was the first rule of survival I'd taught myself long before this academy ever existed, the same rule that had kept me breathing on nights walking alone to the club, on nights fleeing loan sharks through unlit alleys. Never assume you're safe simply because you can't see whoever might be chasing you. My lungs burned hard within minutes, a deep, tearing ache spreading through my ribs with every gasp. My pulse hammered loud enough th

🌸VIOLET🌸 I didn't know who had thrown those knives. I didn't know why Jack had wanted me dead. And I definitely didn't know whether Xavier had been anywhere near that clearing when it happened. But I knew one thing for certain. I needed one more flag. I forced myself to look away from Jack's body, my stomach twisting violently hard enough that I tasted bile at the back of my throat. I had seen people die before, but never this close, never like this, never with someone's blood still warm enough to shine wet and dark beneath the moonlight while I stood there trying to convince myself that what I'd just witnessed hadn't actually happened in front of me. My fingers went instinctively to my own throat, and the skin felt tender and swollen beneath them, already beginning to ache where Jack's fingers had squeezed hard enough to steal the air clean out of my lungs. I swallowed once, and pain shot sharp down my neck at the motion. "Fuck." The word came out barely above a whisper, shaki

♣️XAVIER♣️ The recruit's throat gave way easier than most, a soft, wet crack under my palm, and I let him drop the second the fight left his body entirely. He'd been on top of her, hands wrapped around her throat, and something in me had gone quiet and cold and absolute the moment I registered what I was looking at through the trees. Not rage. Rage was loud, messy, something I'd trained out of myself years ago. This had been simpler than that. He was already dead the second I decided he was. I didn't leave right away. I stood in the dark a few feet off, watching her check her own throat with shaking fingers, watching her curse under her breath, watching her force herself upright and start searching again like a body hadn't just cooled ten feet from where she stood. Someone had died in front of her less than a minute ago, violently, and she was still hunting for her fifth flag like the forest owed her nothing else but that. “Violent.” I muttered it under my breath, half amusement,

🌸VIOLET🌸 I arrived late, which came as no surprise whatsoever given the general trajectory my morning had already taken. Nothing quite draws unwanted attention to a person like walking into a training ground full of exhausted, battle-worn recruits several minutes after everyone else has already assembled into neat, orderly rows. I slowed my pace the moment I got to the entrance, and my stomach performed some complicated, unwelcome maneuver the second I spotted him standing at the front of the formation, his back turned partially toward the entrance, his voice carrying low and steady across the assembled recruits. Then he turned, and his eyes found mine almost instantly, as though he had already known the precise second I would walk through that gate and had simply been waiting for confirmation. Our gazes locked hard across the yard. My stomach clenched painfully in response. Nothing on his face shifted at all. No amusement flickered anywhere behind his eyes, no smirk pulled at