One Night Mistake… Now I Carry the Mafia Heir

Chapter 96: 96/The Ultimate Betrayal

Chapter 96

Stephanie’s Point of View

Never in my most terrifying nightmares did I imagine such a violent clash would unfold right before my eyes. I felt vertigo gnawing at my head, and my breath grew so tight that the walls of the luxurious room felt as though they were collapsing over me to crush me. Staring at Cedric with a deathly pale face and terrified eyes, I whispered in a faint, heavily trembling voice: "Cedric... please, what are you saying?"

He locked his harsh gaze, blazing with madness and jealousy, directly into my eyes, his athletic frame convulsing entirely with a suppressed rage like a volcano on the verge of eruption. In a sharp tone, he snapped: "You understood perfectly every single word I said, Stephanie... don’t play stupid now!"

At that fatal moment, Alex turned his entire massive, imposing frame. He took a wide, menacing step toward Cedric to reassert his dominance, gripping his jaw with excessive force and violence as he delivered in a dry, low, and chilling tone: "Cedric... get out of the room right now, and do not push this any further!"

But Cedric did not retreat a single inch this time. Instead, driven by madness and recklessness, he lunged forward directly into him until their broad chests collided, screaming as the veins in his neck bulged terrifyingly: "This woman is my lover! She is the mother of my children! She belongs to me, Alex, and you cannot take her away from me!"

Alex’s powerful palm extended, and with a swift motion and no warning, he shoved Cedric back with immense violence until Cedric staggered several steps, his back slamming into the table. Alex roared in a thunderous voice that rattled the very foundations of the room: "Enough! I am entirely sick of this nonsense and childish behavior... Stephanie was my lover before she was yours, or before you even knew her fucking name!"

The moment Alex uttered those shocking words, the blood froze entirely in my veins. I felt my knees give out, betraying me from sheer terror and panic. Oh my God... Alex is going to confess everything now! He will expose our past relationship and destroy everything between us!

Cedric froze in his place in absolute shock and total paralysis. His eyes narrowed in fatal bewilderment as he stared at his older brother’s features, asking in a halting, shaken voice: "What... what are you saying? What past love are you talking about?"

Alex took a deep breath to regulate his fury, straightening his posture with his usual regal, mafia pride. With rigid, solid features entirely devoid of hesitation or fear, he said: "Stephanie... I have known her and adored her for more than six whole years."

My stomach clenched in genuine dread. My hand extended subconsciously, pulling the cotton sheet higher up to my chest as I turned toward Alex with tearful eyes, screaming in a choked, pleading voice: "Alex... please, shut up! Don’t say anything else, I beg you!"

Cedric turned toward me with a chilling slowness, his body completely rigid. His eyes were burning with the fires of betrayal and resentment, and he spoke in a sharp, harsh voice that shook my entire being: "What is this bastard saying?... Is this true, Stephanie? Tell me!"

The words froze completely in my throat, my tongue tied by the horror of the situation and the monstrosity of the exposure. I couldn’t speak or utter a single syllable to save myself from their gazes fixed upon me.

Alex turned back toward Cedric coldly, detonating the ultimate catastrophe with absolute indifference: "The girl you saw me embracing six years ago... the student I once told you I loved and could never forget... she is the exact same Stephanie standing before you right now."

Oh my God! Alex had told Cedric about me in the distant past without mentioning names? And now, how will Cedric react after learning the full truth, realizing that the woman he lusts after is the eternal love of his older brother?

Cedric moved toward me with unsteady, heavy, and stumbling steps, like a man who had taken a bullet straight to the heart. He looked at me with shattered features, a deep wound marring his handsome face, and said with a burning, soul-crushing bitterness: "All this time, you would come to me saying I wasn’t sincere with you, blaming me because I didn’t tell you I was engaged to Isabella... while you... you didn’t tell me a single word about being my brother’s ex-lover!"

My grip tightened on the white sheet until my fingers nearly tore the fabric. I lifted my head with a wounded pride, trying to gather what remained of my dignity and defend my stance, saying in a wavering voice: "There was no reason or cause to tell you and ruin our lives... My relationship with Alex ended completely in the past and became ashes!"

Cedric scoffed with a bitter, sharp laugh that contorted his jaw. Pointing his trembling hand toward the shared bed we slept on, he spat: "It is blatantly obvious that it ended, Stephanie! Sleeping wrapped in each other’s embrace and you say it’s over?"

"Cedric!" I screamed in frustration, my breath quickening frantically. "You cannot hold me accountable or judge me for a past you weren’t even a part of!"

He took a violent step toward the bed, slamming his powerful palm onto the wooden frame. His entire body was shaking, and his dark eyes pierced through mine as he roared in a terrifying voice: "The past is my brother, Stephanie! My brother who has now married you with an official contract, and whose room I just entered only to find you sleeping safely and peacefully in his warm embrace!"

Alex intervened immediately, stepping his broad frame forward to act as an impenetrable barrier between me and Cedric’s burning gazes. He spoke with a firm, authoritative voice, trying to end this eruption: "Cedric, calm down... you are overcomplicating things and creating unnecessary drama."

Cedric turned to him with features dripping with disgust, resentment, and betrayal. Looking at both of us with a helpless, broken expression, he muttered: "Both of you... both of you were looking directly into my eyes and lying to me in cold blood as if it were nothing... while I was like a fool, an idiot between you, feeling absolutely nothing!"

I summoned my courage again, lifting my head with wounded pride to repel this ugly accusation, and said through rapid breaths and a trembling voice: "I didn’t lie to you about anything, Cedric! I simply couldn’t tell you that your older brother was my ex-lover. The situation was extremely complicated and sensitive."

Cedric took another step back, his feet heavy as if shackled in chains. He looked at me with shattered features filled with intense disappointment and rage, saying with endless bitterness and reproach: "Really? You couldn’t? But you could quite easily treat me like a fool and play me... couldn’t you?"

Alex’s massive frame stiffened. He took another step forward to completely shield me from his brother’s impulse, his jaw clenching violently as he delivered in a dry, cutting, and definitive tone: "Enough of this bullshit and futile arguing, Cedric! Get out now!"

Cedric snapped his head toward his brother, his eyes narrowing into a pitch-black darkness as the veins in his neck bulged insanely. He bellowed: "Alex... is that the fucking reason you were always ordering me and telling me to stay away from Stephanie and not go near her? Were you doing that just so the coast would be clear for you to get her in the end and marry her?"

Alex held his ground majestically, commanding and terrifying as always. He looked directly into Cedric’s eyes with rigid features devoid of hesitation or remorse, answering in a husky voice and with an absolute confidence that shook the room: "Stephanie is mine, and it has been my right from the very beginning... long before your foot ever stepped into her life."

Cedric took one final, violent step toward the bed, his entire body trembling secretly from the sheer magnitude of the rage and burning jealousy consuming his insides. Pointing his shaking hand at me, he screamed into Alex’s face with defiance, cruelty, and pain: "But she doesn’t love you... she loves me, Alex! She loves me!"