Chapter 156/What if He Finds Out?

Chapter 156: 156/What if He Finds Out?

Chapter 156

Stephanie’s point of view

He snapped his head toward me with lightning speed, making a blatant attempt to soften his sharp, furious features and wipe away the traces of rage and bloodlust. He spoke in a tone he tried to make calm and soft to soothe my trembling heart: "No one important, my love... Come on, get out now and go inside the house quickly to sleep and rest."

I anchored myself in my seat stubbornly, looking anxiously toward the car engine which he hadn’t turned off yet, its steady roar continuing. I asked with a cautious question: "Aren’t you coming with me?"

Shifting his gaze and entire body completely toward the windshield, he answered in a decisive, cold voice that tolerated no debate or review: "No... I have urgent and important business outside that I must finish right now."

A deathly coldness seeped into my veins like poison. I stared at his stern features for seconds, while images of armed men, blood, corpses, and dark deals flooded the surface of my mind violently like a storm. I leaned my body toward him slightly, whispering two words that left my mouth laden with the weight of the bitter truth I had long run from: "Mafia business?"

His features stiffened for a second. He exhaled a hot, heavy breath filled with helplessness and annoyance at my questioning, then said in a tone carrying a suppressed reproach and a slight roughness: "Are you going to comment on this matter and interrogate me every time I go out to finish business, Stephanie?"

My brows knitted in genuine distress and heartbreak. I turned my face away from him toward my dark window, saying with a bitterness that sliced my throat: "I do not like this bloody, terrifying situation at all, and I will never in my life like living under threat."

He turned his entire body toward me, leaning in. His warm palm extended to pat my knee with profound tenderness, attempting to absorb my justified anxiety and terror. He spoke in a low voice: "Do not occupy your mind with these matters and difficult files outside, my love... Just take care of yourself, your health, and the health of the twins inside."

I turned to him with a sudden surge of emotion, my eyes scanning his stern features with a terror whose deep roots had planted themselves in my heart: "And how can I not occupy my mind, for heaven’s sake?! What if something happens to you out there?! What if you are lured by deception into a deadly ambush by enemies and you don’t return?!"

His facial features relaxed with absolute confidence and strength. A reassuring, cold half-smile appeared on his lips, indicating his power and influence, as he said with certainty: "Nothing at all will happen to me, Steph... I promise you this."

His intimate promise was severed by the sharp, loud ringing of the phone echoing through the car cabin for the second time with a terrifying, annoying urgency that signaled the danger of the situation outside. Alexander ground his teeth in raging anger, his eyes catching fire. He snatched the phone impulsively, pressing the answer button violently, and spoke fiercely: "Yes, Cedric... talk!"

He fell silent for seconds to listen, the veins in his neck protruding and tensing from sheer rage and menace: "I am warning you severely, Cedric... do not do anything to him or kill him at all before I arrive! Wait for me at the site... I will be with you immediately, within minutes!"

He ended the call with a violent tap on the screen. I turned to him with rapid breaths and fear, saying: "Cedric is involved in this too?! For heaven’s sake, what exactly is happening?"

He shoved the phone into his jacket pocket with finality, lightly turning the steering wheel to prepare to take off and loop back toward the gate. He said in a dry tone he tried to soften to avoid panicking me: "Nothing truly important that calls for fear... just a filthy spy who was embedded among our men, and we just discovered and caught him in the trap."

I felt a deathly chill pierce my body, bare from the cut of the dress. I whispered in a voice trembling like a reed: "Are... are you going to kill him?"

He looked deep into my eyes with intense focus. His large, heavy hand extended to encircle the back of my neck with a warm, possessive tenderness, pulling my face toward him slowly as he whispered with extreme sweetness to detach me from his dark reality: "My love, Steph... go on, go down safely and go to sleep. It’s already late."

He leaned in quickly and pressed a long, warm kiss to my lips, filled with powerful promises and vows that I wished from the depths of my heart would be true this time so I wouldn’t lose him. I pulled back slowly with hesitant steps, opening the car door to let the cold, rainy night breeze rush into my face.

Then I stepped down and walked toward the mansion entrance, my strides weighed down by worries and terror of the unknown.

I stepped into the large mansion lobby with extreme caution, glancing right and left with apprehension and fear that someone might catch me off guard. However, signs of relief and comfort clearly surfaced on my face the moment I found it completely empty and dark. To my miserable fortune’s benefit tonight, that wretched Valentina wasn’t around the halls or corridors to spew her venom and malice over my head.

I climbed the steps of the grand staircase with slow, stumbling, and semi-conscious strides due to the consecutive shocks, and entered my private room on the upper floor. I shut the wooden door firmly behind me, leaning my entire back against it for seconds to catch my lost breath, before moving with stiff limbs toward the nearby velvet couch and throwing my exhausted body over it in complete surrender and total fatigue.

I buried my face between my trembling hands, breathing with immense difficulty while trying by all means to gather the fragments of this terrifying, ill-fated day that had passed over my soul like a series of endless, suffocating nightmares. My scattered mind flatly and completely refused to believe what had happened in that locked restroom at the restaurant; how did Vincente dare and find the nerve to kiss me in that brutal, harsh, and violating manner that destroyed my dignity as a woman? How did he allow himself, while he is my boss at work and I am merely an employee of his at the company, to cross all boundaries of decency with this lowlife insolence?

And what was even uglier and viler than all of that... he was filthily accusing me of trying to seduce him with the dress and pursuing him just to catch his grand attention! The muscles of my stomach contracted with violent force, and the nausea of fear and tension attacked me powerfully once more the moment the most terrifying, destructive idea crossed my mind: *What if Alexander discovers this matter and the kiss in the restroom?*