The Stepbrother’s Secret Offer 의 모든 챕터: 챕터 11 - 챕터 20

"Mother!"​The phone receiver nearly slipped from Chloe’s numb fingers as horror seized her chest. Her world spun, the sound of the distant flatline alarm blaring through the small speaker of the landline phone like a death knell.​"Get the chopper ready!" Lucas thundered into his lapel comms, his voice cutting through the room like a crack of thunder. "Clear the airspace directly to St. Jude’s rooftop helipad! Now!"​Without waiting for a response, Lucas grabbed Chloe’s wrist and dragged her out of the soundproof office. He didn't care about the hundreds of elite guests still lingering in the grand ballroom, nor the flashing cameras of the lingering press. He shoved through the heavy double doors, shielding Chloe against his chest as they sprinted toward the private helipad at the top of the island fortress.​"She can't die... Lucas, she can't!" Chloe sobbed, her silk dress catching against the wind as they mounted the helicopter stairs. Rain had begun to pour over the dark ocean, ma

The room seemed to freeze. Outside the hospital window, the morning rain tapped against the glass, but inside ICU Room 1004, the heavy silence was deafening.​Chloe stared at Lucas, her mind reeling from his words. Her father's death five years ago had been ruled a tragic, high-speed car accident during a stormy night. She had been nineteen—suffering from severe head trauma and selective amnesia that wiped out her memories of that entire fatal evening.​"My father's death..." Chloe whispered, her voice trembling as she slowly released her mother's hand and stepped toward Lucas. "It wasn't an accident? And I was in the car?"​Lucas’s dark obsidian eyes held a depth of pain and regret she had never seen in him before. He stood tall, but his shoulders carried a visible, crushing weight.​"You were in the passenger seat, Chloe," Lucas admitted softly, his voice gravelly with raw emotion. "Your father was driving you home from the Sterling Annual Gala. But someone had cut the brake lines o

The heavy black hard drive felt ice-cold in Chloe’s palm, its subtle weight carrying the brutal truth of five agonizing years.​Matriarch Evelyn’s eyes narrowed into slits of pure, venomous ice. Her hand tightened on the golden lion’s head handle of her cane until her knuckles turned ghostly white. "You fool, Lucas," she spat, her controlled composure cracking for the first time. "You are handing her the weapon to destroy us all."​"I am handing her what was always hers," Lucas replied without a second of hesitation. He didn't look at his grandmother. His dark, intense gaze remained locked on Chloe, unwavering and completely vulnerable. "Do whatever you want with it, Chloe. Expose the Sterling Group, turn it over to the authorities, or burn it. I won't stop you."​Chloe looked down at the encrypted drive, then back at the formidable old woman who had controlled everyone’s lives like pawns on a chessboard.​"You thought you could buy my silence with twenty million dollars and a forced

Chloe!"​Inside ICU Room 1004, the sudden red flashing of the hospital’s emergency lights sent a wave of icy panic straight through Chloe’s heart. The continuous blare of the building alarm echoed down the corridor, followed by the muffled thuds of heavy boots and sudden gunfire outside the heavy floor doors!​BANG! BANG! BANG!​"Mom, stay down!" Chloe shouted, instantly reacting. She pulled her mother out of the raised hospital bed, guiding her frail body behind the reinforced concrete bathroom partition just as the glass window panel of the ICU door shattered inward!​The chief of Lucas’s private security detail threw open the door, bleeding from a shoulder wound as he fired his sidearm back down the hallway.​"Miss Vance!" the chief yelled over the deafening alarms. "Mercenaries dressed as tactical responders have breached the 10th-floor perimeter! The main elevator lines have been cut!"​"Julian sent them?!" Chloe asked, her chest heaving as she locked the heavy oak door and dragg

The howling wind and rain outside the broken glass spire seemed to fade into a gentle hum as Lucas opened the small black velvet box.​Inside rested a breathtaking, custom-cut emerald-diamond ring—glistening under the emergency lights of the ruined 80th floor. The emerald at its center was deep, vibrant, and pure, flanked by two flawless platinum bands.​Chloe’s breath caught in her throat. Her hand trembled as she looked from the ring up to Lucas’s dark, intensely passionate eyes.​"This emerald... it belonged to your father, Chloe," Lucas revealed, his deep voice thick with raw, long-suppressed emotion. "Five years ago, after I pulled you from the wreckage, I found a rough emerald stone in your father's coat pocket. He had bought it in Geneva, planning to have it set into a necklace for your twentieth birthday."​Tears filled Chloe’s eyes anew, shimmering like liquid glass in the dim light. "My dad..."​"I kept it safe for five years," Lucas continued softly, taking her soft, trembl