Chapter 196/My Sister’s Darkest Secret

Chapter 196: 196/My Sister’s Darkest Secret

Chapter 195

Stephanie’s POV

I jolted in hysterical terror, a ragged, suffocating shriek tearing from my constricted throat as my entire body convulsed atop the bed. I snapped my eyes wide open. The sticky, suffocating darkness that had been swallowing me just moments ago began to dissolve, replaced by the familiar, dim morning light of my usual bedroom. I blinked in rapid succession, my frantic breathing hammering against my chest. The same dark velvet curtains framed the windows; the same large, expansive silk bed cradled my frame.

I turned with a breathless, cautious jerk to my side, my eyes landing on the massive frame of Alexander. He lay there in absolute composure, his eyes closed in total relaxation, deeply asleep. The suffocating fog of terror slightly retreated from my chest, taking with it the cold, metallic dread that the cursed injection had left behind in my delusion. I let out a long, shuddering exhale, my jaw trembling slightly as my body sank back into the pillow. My faint voice miraculously slid from my dry throat: "Thank God... it was only a nightmare."

My words had barely faded into the quiet of the room when Alexander’s massive hand shifted slowly, gently and affectionately wrapping around my trembling fingers. In a deep baritone thick with the familiar warmth of sleep, he murmured: "Stephanie, sweetheart... what is wrong?"

I swallowed hard with immense effort, dry tears still clinging to my eyelashes, as I answered in a shaky, unstable thread: "A horrible nightmare."

He automatically cleared a space for me with his broad arm, offering a warm, sleepy invitation: "Come into my arms."

I didn’t hesitate for a single second. I threw my entire exhausted frame against his broad chest, burying my pale face in the warmth of his neck, listening to the regular, heavy thud of his heartbeat the only real anchor saving me from the brink of absolute madness.

I tightened my fingers against his back and asked in a pleading whisper, desperately searching for a truth to obliterate the cruel words he had spoken in my dream: "Do you love me?"

His lips moved against the damp strands of my hair, printing a soft kiss as he answered instantly with all of his familiar devotion: "Of course I love you."

I squeezed my eyes shut, surrendering to his warm breath, and whispered automatically: "I love you too."

His voice dropped back into a low murmur as his eyelids drifted shut again: "Go to sleep now."

Despite the absolute warmth enveloping me, and despite his massive arms locking me in, sleep refused to find its way back to my eyes. My pupils remained wide, staring blankly into the shadows as my mind hysterically retraced every detail of that cursed white room the maid’s face, the long medical needle, and his cold voice denying the existence of the children in my womb. The nightmare continued to claw at my sanity like a dark omen that refused to be dismissed.

I monitored the steady rise and fall of his chest. Once Alexander’s breathing slowed into a deep, rhythmic pattern, indicating he had fallen back into a deep sleep, I slowly backed my body away so as not to wake him. I slipped out of bed, taking silent, bare steps across the floor. I walked toward the nightstand, my eyes catching the silent hands of the clock; it was 5:00 AM, and the first golden threads of dawn had not yet begun to break.

My throat felt painfully dry, as if the desert sands had settled inside my chest from the sheer magnitude of the terror.

I walked quietly toward the door, stepping out of the room without making a single sound in the dark hallway. I carefully descended the wooden stairs, surrounded by the dead, suffocating silence of the house, until I reached the kitchen on the ground floor. I reached for a glass, pouring water with hands that still carried a faint tremor, and drank it down in frantic gulps to quench the burning fire in my throat.

Once I set the glass aside, the silence reclaimed the room, and my thoughts began to drift in a suspicious direction. I remembered Valentina’s presence in the house; the guest bedrooms were located on this ground floor, not very far from the kitchen. My hesitant feet carried me toward the corridor leading to her room, driven by a strange urge to check on things.

I approached her door slowly, extending my trembling hand toward the cold metal handle only to pull back sharply at the last second. I withdrew my hand in deep annoyance, my grimacing features reflecting my inner turmoil: "What is your business with Valentina, Stephanie? What do you care?"

I turned back immediately, ascending the stairs with much faster, urgent strides. I honestly don’t know how or why my thoughts suddenly veered toward Cedric’s bedroom. Driven by a mixture of curiosity and lingering anxiety, I walked down the upper hallway, approaching Cedric’s door, and raised my hand to push it open

*Thud!*

I froze solid in my tracks, my pupils dilating in sheer shock. The sound hadn’t come from Cedric’s room; it was a heavy, muffled sound, exactly like a massive weight crashing onto the hardwood floor... and it had originated from inside Grandfather Victor’s room.

In a split second, a dark reel of memories flashed before my eyes; I remembered that cursed day he had collapsed in his study, completely helpless in his old age. An instinctive, protective fear for him surged inside me, and I sprinted frantically down the hall toward his door.

I didn’t think to knock, nor did I wait a single second; I grabbed the handle and violently shoved the door open, letting it crash against the wall with a loud bang only for the words to freeze solid in my throat. My heart completely stopped beating from a shock that utterly shattered everything I had ever experienced in my entire life.

The sight paralyzed my brain. My eyes stared in pure, unadulterated horror at the space separating the old man’s antique bed from the cold wooden floor.