Chapter 168
“We have a serious problem.
Our financial models project that if Wescor pulls out of Zamford and reinvests in Valor Lante, we’ll lose nearly 40% of our stock value overnight.
That’s overnight, Kester.
Long term? It gets worse. Wescor holds 28% of our market shares. If they pull out and others follow–which they will–our board will start looking for alternatives. You already know what that means.
They’ll vote you out.”
More emails came in:
“Valor Lante just secured two new government contracts–both of which we were also bidding for.
“We have a PR nightmare brewing. Journalists are sniffing around our Scotland branch
situation.”
Every email, every fucking message, was like a hand tightening around my throat… Another shove toward the edge of a cliff I couldn’t afford to fall from.
Wescor pulling out.
Belinzo shutting us out.
Valor Lante taking everything.
My fingers curled into fists, my temples pulsing as I ground my teeth together. This wasn’t just competition. This was war. A well–calculated attempt to gut me from the
inside out.
Why?
Because I didn’t let him get my sister’s pussy?
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And the board–those spineless fucks–if the numbers took a sharp enough dip, they’d turn on me without hesitation. They’d vote me out and hand over everything I built to
some corporate puppet willing to play nice.
I exhaled slowly, pushing away from the bed where I sat. The very air I was breathing was thick with barely restrained fury.
I walked over to the table by the window, my fingers trailing over the flowers sitting in the glass vase perched at the edge.
It shouldn’t be there. Not so close to falling off the edge of the table.
But I didn’t move it. Neither did I steady it. Instead, I watched it, waiting to see if it would
tip over on its own.
I was just like that vase–balanced on the edge, one wrong move away from crashing. If nothing changed, if nothing was done, I’d fall and shatter. Just like it would.
But I left it there, letting it sit and decide.
Just like I was about to.
My jaw clenched as I reached for my phone, preparing to call Rhys in order to start. tearing through this mess, when the door slammed open with a violent crack.
I didn’t even have time to look before it was shoved closed with the same force, the sharp
bang ricocheting through the room like a gunshot.
“What the actual fuck, Kester?”
June.
Her voice grated on my nerves, adding gasoline to the flames of fury already brewing inside me.
Besides, when did June learn to be this angry?
She stood there, hair tangled, makeup smudged from the night before, still wearing yesterday’s dress. Her arms were crossed tight over her chest, nails digging into her skin
as she glared at me like I was the lowest piece of shit in existence.
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And for a second–a single second–I didn’t give a fuck.
“You left me in the goddamn car all night!” She said, and for another second, I still didn’t
give a shit. No wonder she still looked like yesterday.
I barely looked up from my phone. “You were asleep.”
“I fucking know that,” she snapped. “And when I woke up, I was still in the car! Alone! Do you have any idea how cold it got? How stiff my whole body feels?”
Silence.
“You don’t care, huh? You only care about whatever it is that’s on that phone, isn’t it?”
She scoffed.
I forced my jaw to stay locked, to keep my voice level. “You’re fine, aren’t you?”
She let out a humorless laugh. “That’s all you have to say?”
I was quiet.
“Answer me, Kester!” She yelled, a sob escaping her.
e storm
“Go and freshen up, June,” I said calmly, doing all I could to keep away. But she
was hell–bent on drawing it out.
“You are so unbelievable. You don’t have a heart, Kester… You…” She stepped closer, shaking her head in disbelief, “You don’t even feel guilty, do you? About anything? About how you treat people? About how you treat me?”
She moved closer, her perfume too strong, her presence too loud, her accusations too much.
Everything was just too much!
“I should’ve known. You’re incapable of caring about anyone but your goddamn selfish self
The snap was instant. Explosive. Shattering.
My arm moved before I even realized it–my fingers curled around the vase in a blind,
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vicious surge of motion.
It lifted from the table in a single, fluid arc-
And then it was flying.
A glinting blur of white lilies and glass filled the space before it slammed into the wall beside her.
Shattered.
The impact sent shards exploding in every direction, fine slivers of glass slicing through skin, embedding into soft flesh.
June gasped, stumbling back as thin, red lines bloomed across her cheek, her arm, and her
neck.
Silence rang louder than the impact.
For a moment, she just stared at me wide–eyed as if she hadn’t realized that the side of
her face was now covered in blood.
My chest rose and fell in jagged, uneven breaths. My fists clenched so tight that my nails. dug into my palms. “The next time to speak to me like that ever again, I swear to fuck, your face wouldn’t be the only thing I’d ruin.” I bit out ever so coldly, my eyes narrowing
to slits.
Then her fingers lifted, trembling slightly as they brushed over the fresh cuts on her face. A few pieces of glass clung to her skin, catching the light. Blood beaded at the edges, slipping down in thin, red trails.
She looked at her hand.
Then at me.
The terror in her eyes satisfied the fuck out of me.
Good.
I let her see it. I let her see the monster she was so desperately trying to end up with.
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Mated To My Obsessive Stepbrother
