Chapter 169/I’m Dead. We Are All Dead

Chapter 169: 169/I’m Dead. We Are All Dead

Chapter 167

Stephanie’s POV

The blood completely froze in my veins. It felt as though a jagged bolt of lightning had ripped through the ceiling of the room, tearing straight into my chest and leaving it hollow. My body began to shake with a violent, bone-rattling tremor, and every last shred of oxygen evaporated from my lungs. I spun around in a frantic, hysterical panic toward the sound, my features completely paralyzed by an absolute, suffocating horror.

The bathroom door was wide open, and stepping out with slow, calculated, and infuriatingly smug strides was that fucking bitch, Isabella. She stood at her full height, her face contorted into a mix of furious shock and utter disgust. Her eyes burned with a venomous, pitch-black satisfaction the kind of look that made me wish, with every ounce of my blackened heart, that this was nothing more than a horrific nightmare I would wake up from in a matter of seconds.

She pointed a trembling, hate-filled finger at us, her voice tearing through the silence of the room in sharp, breathless shrieks that sent my heart plummeting into a bottomless abyss. "What is this?! What in the absolute hell am I looking at right now?! You cheating, disgusting pieces of trash... what kind of low-class whoring are you people practicing behind locked doors?!"

Cedric released me with lightning-fast speed, taking a chaotic step back as his breathing turned ragged and erratic. For a fleeting second, I saw his sharp features harden and go completely pale from the sheer, jarring ambush before he instantly forced on his mask of stone-cold, ruthless mafia detachment.

He ground his teeth together so hard it made a sickening, terrifying sound. With a definitive stride, he planted his massive frame directly in front of me, using his height to completely shield my trembling body from her piercing, toxic glare.

I began to shrink backward, my legs failing under me, my eyes wide with raw terror until my spine collided with the hard wood of the locked bedroom door. I dug my shaking fingers deep into the fabric of my clothes, squeezing until my knuckles turned white. My mind was spinning in a frantic, helpless loop. Isabella was right here, in the middle of the room. She had seen everything every single godgoddamn detail.

She saw the heavy, burning kiss. She heard the possessive whispers and the secret promises passing between us. I’m dead. We are all fucking dead. This scandal is going to destroy everything.

"What the hell are you doing in my room, lurking inside my bathroom like a goddamn rat, Isabella?" Cedric demanded. His voice was a low, gravelly rasp, dripping with lethal intent and cold blood as he stalked toward her with the slow, predatory grace of a monster. "And who the fuck gave your feet permission to cross this threshold without my say-so?"

Backed by the sheer power of her own mafia family, she didn’t flinch or give an inch. Instead, a sharp, mocking laugh tore from her throat a sickening, ringing sound that echoed in my ears like a funeral knell dragging me straight to the guillotine. Her bulging, manic eyes flickered between the two of us with a sadistic, wicked glee.

"Oh... my honorable fiancé is suddenly deeply concerned with privacy and morals now?" she spat, her tone dripping with dark, bitter irony. "How fucking hilarious! I came up here like a goddamn fool to surprise you in your quarters, only to find my dear future husband cheating on me in cold blood. And with who? His own brother’s wife! Alexander’s precious little bride, writhing and melting in the arms of his younger brother! The sheer, filthy degeneracy living inside the walls of this cursed palace is absolutely pathetic!"

She spun around with whiplash speed, her hand darting out toward the brass doorknob to throw the exit open. Her face distorted into a sick, triumphant sneer. "I am going downstairs right now to fetch Alexander and your grandfather myself. Let’s see exactly how the great Mafia Boss reacts when he finds out his own brother and his cheating little whore are fucking each other and making love behind his back!"

A jolt of primal, paralyzing terror shot through my entire nervous system, a raw panic unlike anything I had ever experienced in my life. Losing all control and rational thought, I launched myself across the room in a frantic blur.

I threw both of my hands onto her outstretched arm, grabbing her fabric, hot tears finally spilling uncontrollably down my contorted cheeks. "Isabella... please! I am begging you, by everything you hold sacred! For God’s sake, don’t do this! There will be an absolute massacre in this palace blood will run through the halls! It isn’t what you think it is, I swear to God! Please!"

She violently yanked her arm out of my grasp with pure, unadulterated revulsion, screaming right in my face. "Get the fuck off me! Don’t you dare touch me, you pathetic, low-class whore!"

But before her fingertips could even brush the lock to open the door, Cedric moved like a merciless, blinding streak of lightning. His hand clamped onto her arm with a savage, crushing force, his steel grip squeezing so hard the bones in her wrist threatened to splinter beneath his fingers.

With a brutal, uncompromising shove that completely stole her balance, he violently hurled her body across the space, sending her crashing hard onto the mattress of the wide bed.

She landed against the sheets in a daze of pain and shock. Before she could even draw breath, Cedric was towering over her, his immense, broad-shouldered frame blocking out the light, casting a terrifying shadow of pure mafia dominance.

He bared his teeth, his voice dropping into a chilling, cold-blooded hiss that left no doubt about his homicidal intentions.

"If that goddamn tongue of yours utters a single word if you breathe so much as a fucking whisper outside these four walls I swear on the blood of the mafia and every drop running through my veins, your corpse will be dog food by nightfall. Your piece-of-trash father won’t save you from me, and your entire goddamn family won’t stop my bullet. Do you understand me perfectly, Isabella?! Did those words lock into your fucking brain?!"