Chapter 165/Argument over who will go

Chapter 165: 165/Argument over who will go

Chapter 165

Stephanie’s point of view

I completely froze. My hand paralyzed around my spoon, my eyes widening in sheer, paralyzing shock. A jolt of electricity shot through my spine. How in the living hell did Alexander know the exact time of the appointment when I hadn’t breathed a single word about it to him over the last few days?!

Out of the corner of my eye, I watched an absolute, monstrous rage violently possess Cedric’s features. The reaction was instantaneous and terrifying. The veins in his neck bulged, thick and nattering, and he clamped his jaw shut so hard I thought his teeth would shatter under the pressure. Then, he exploded from his chair with blind, overpowering violence, slamming his heavy palm down onto the wooden table.

The silver and porcelain rattled loudly under the impact as he roared, his voice wild with unhinged insanity and deadly promises. "You aren’t taking her anywhere, Alexander! Have you completely lost your goddamn mind?! Have you forgotten that she is pregnant with *my* twins, and that I am the only one who has any business being there?!"

Alexander turned his head toward him, his face a mask of lethal, icy detachment. He lifted his chin with a glaringly arrogant, narcissistic defiance. "Seeing as she is my wife, lives in my palace, and stays under my protection... they are, quite simply, my children by law, by name, and by society," he stated with chilling stability.

Cedric’s face flushed a deep, dangerous crimson, his features twisting in pure agony as his blood boiled through his veins.

Completely unhinged by a lethal, consuming jealousy, he lost his absolute mind right in front of Grandfather and Valentina, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "I am their real father! I am their biological father, and my fucking blood runs through their veins not your goddamn pieces of paper!"

Grandfather Victor slammed his priceless wooden cane against the floor with a deafening thud that shook the entire room. "Enough!" he thundered, his deep voice vibrating through the walls like a crack of thunder. "What the hell is wrong with you two?! Have you lost all sense of family honor?! We are sitting at a dining table in front of the goddamn servants!"

But Alexander didn’t flinch or back down a single inch under his grandfather’s wrath. Instead, he kept his razor-sharp gaze fixed on Victor, his tone absolute, rigid, and entirely unyielding. "Stephanie is my legal wife. She carries my name in front of the entire world. By what right does he think he can just show up at the doctor’s with her, Grandfather? In what social capacity would he even be standing there?!"

Cedric let out a bitter, strangled laugh, a dark, cynical sound that sliced through the room like a blade. He glared at his older brother, his eyes burning with total madness as he spat out a devastating truth. "Your wife on paper only, Alexander! A fucking meaningless piece of trash! Stephanie wouldn’t have even looked at your pathetic face, let alone married you, if I hadn’t been forced into that goddamn arrangement with Isabella at the time!"

In a fraction of a second, Alexander’s expression hardened into something lethal, as cold and rigid as a razor blade. His piercing blue eyes locked dead into his brother’s manic stare with a terrifying, calm confidence. When he spoke, it was a low, chilling hiss dripping with pure, mocking cruelty. "And who the hell told you with such absolute certainty that we are married on paper only, little brother?"

My breath was violently sucked from my lungs, and I instinctively recoiled, pulling my head and body back in total horror. An absolute, fatal shock washed over Cedric’s face, turning him as pale as a corpse. His pupils dilated in sheer terror as he stared at his fiercely confident brother. Slowly, stiffly, he turned his paralyzed, devastated gaze toward me his eyes dripping with a raw, agonizing bitterness and heartbreak. He choked out a breathless, fractured scream, turning his manic rage back to Alexander. "What did you just say, you piece of trash?! Are you... are you actually fucking my girl?!"

Alexander stood up to his full, towering height, his broad shoulders casting a dominant shadow as he faced him down with supreme authority. His voice boomed through the room, fiercely possessive. "She is my wife in my bed and in every single sense of the word! Do you get it now?! She belongs entirely to me!"

I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t handle this raging, suffocating hell for another second. It felt like the very walls of the palace were collapsing inward to crush me alive, my blood burning with the agonizing humiliation of this grotesque exposure playing out right in front of Grandfather and Valentina’s gloating eyes. I slammed both of my palms down onto the table with every ounce of strength I had left. The crystal glasses and porcelain plates shattered the air with a sharp, deafening ring.

"Stop it!!" I screamed at the top of my lungs, my voice tearing through my throat. "Stop it, all of you, for God’s sake!"

Every single head snapped toward me, locked in absolute, stunned silence. I rose from my chair, my limbs trembling violently beneath me, consumed by a wave of crushing degradation. My breath came in shallow, frantic gasps, a suffocating lump cutting off my dry throat. "I can’t take this vile, humiliating bullshit every single time we sit down at a table together! I am so damn sick of this! I am completely done, and I can’t stand the fucking sight of either of you!"

Cedric looked at me, his eyes swimming with a wild, shattered emotion, his tone thick with pure betrayal and heartbreak. "Stephanie... I’m their father. My babies are inside your body, and he genuinely believes, with all his arrogant, tyrannical bullshit, that he can just strip them and you away from me with this much cold indifference!"

I shook my head in utter, absolute despair, hot tears spilling uncontrollably down my contorted cheeks. "All of this... this entire fucked-up situation was a catastrophic mistake and a crime from the very goddamn beginning!" I choked out, broken. "This cursed marriage should have never fucking happened!"

"Since Stephanie is staying my wife," Alexander interjected with a rigid, narcissistic stubbornness, his eyes boring into me with absolute possession, "I am the only one who will be taking her to this appointment today."

That was the breaking point. Grandfather Victor intervened, his powerful, furious voice booming like artillery, cutting clean through the disgraceful noise. He glared at both brothers with a scathing, blistering reprimand. "End this pathetic brawling and these public scandals this instant! This absolute circus ends right now! Both of you can go with her to the doctor today, and I swear to God, I will not hear another fucking word at this table!"