The Stripper Toy for My Hot Stepbrothers

Chapter 10

He crossed the room in three long steps. He didn't touch me, just stood over the bed, his shadow covering me completely. The air felt thick and hard to breathe.

"I want the truth," he said, each word sharp and cutting. "No more lies. No more acting helpless. I want to know everything."

"I've told you everything I know."

"Bullshit." He leaned down, putting his hands on either side of me, trapping me. The clean, sharp smell of his cologne mixed with something wild, something dangerous. "Why are you and your mother really here? What do you want? Money? The whole estate? Did you think you could just walk in and take what belonged to our family?"

His anger pressed down on me like a physical weight. I tried to pull away, but there was nowhere to go. "We're here because my mother married your father. That's it."

"That's it?" He let out a harsh, mocking laugh. "You expect me to believe that? A woman like Iris, with a daughter who strips for money, just happened to win the heart of a man like Marcus Sterling? You're either a liar or incredibly stupid."

The words were meant to hurt, and they did. They cut right through me. I felt the first crack inside, a break in my control.

"Don't talk about my mother," I whispered.

"Why? Because it's true?" He was enjoying this. I could see it in the cruel twist of his mouth. "What was the plan, Lyra? Distract us? Me? Jeremy? Raphael? Get us all so caught up in you that we wouldn't see you and your mother poisoning our father?"

"I didn't poison anyone!" The words tore from my throat, raw and desperate.

"Then talk!" he roared, so sudden and loud I flinched. "Tell me something that makes sense! Because right now, all I see is a liar covered in my father's blood!"

Something broke inside me. The wall holding back years of darkness finally shattered.

The room tilted. The fancy furniture, the expensive paintings—it all blurred. I wasn't in the Sterling mansion anymore. I was back in the dark. The cold, damp dark.

The concrete is rough under my bare knees. A masked man grabs my hair, yanking my head back. "Wake up," he growls. "We need you awake for this."

"You want to know about my mother?" My voice didn't sound like my own. It was flat, hollow, empty. Dead. "You want to know why we're here? We're here because we had nowhere else to go."

Caspian's angry face flickered, just for a second. He stayed quiet, watching me.

The words started pouring out. I couldn't stop them. "I was seven when men in masks, They broke into our house. They... they took me from her arms and threw me into a van. It was so dark." I was shaking now, a trembling that started deep in my bones. "She screamed my name to save me. I screamed for her. It didn't matter because I was kidnapped and threw me in human trafficking."

All vision was reflecting my eyes, like I was living my nightmare again.

A different room. A metal table. Wires. The sharp, burning smell of fear. A man’s voice, calm and cold. “The pain will awaken it. Just let it in.”

"They kept me. For years." I was staring past Caspian at the wall, but I wasn't seeing it. I was seeing the other children. The ones who didn't make it. "They... they did things. To see if they could... awaken something inside me. They said I was special. They used pain. They used fear. They tried to break me open to find it."

A sob caught in my chest. I wrapped my arms around myself, trying to hold the pieces together. "There were others. Kids. They... they didn't survive it. I did. I don't know why. I just did."

I finally looked at him, my vision blurry with tears. "And my mother? When I finally got out... when the police found me and brought me to the hospital... she was there. She looked at me. She looked at this broken, dirty, scared thing they handed back to her... and she was annoyed. She signed the papers. She took me home. And she never, ever spoke of it again. She pretended it never happened. She dismissed it. She dismissed me."

My breath came in ragged gasps. "So that's my past, Caspian. That's why I'm 'a woman who works on her back'. It was the only place that felt... real. The only thing that made the numbness go away for a few minutes. And that's why we're here. Because she married your father for money and safety. And she dragged me along because she doesn't know what else to do with the damaged goods she got back."

I finally ran out of air, out of words. I sat there, shaking, completely exposed. I had just handed him every broken piece of me.

Caspian stared at me. His anger was gone, replaced by something else. Something worse. Disbelief. Disgust. He took a step back from the bed, his lip curling.

"You expect me to believe that?" he said, his voice dripping with scorn. "A secret facility? Torture? That's the most insane story I've ever—"

The door, which had been left hanging open, was suddenly pushed wider.

Raphael stood there. I hadn't even heard him come. His face was pale, his usual anger gone. His dark eyes were fixed on me, wide and unblinking.

"Caspian," he said. His voice was quiet. Too quiet.

Caspian turned on him, frustrated. "What? She's making up some ridiculous story to win sympathy. Can you believe this?"

Raphael didn't look at his brother. He took a step into the room, his gaze never leaving my face. It was the first time he'd looked at me without cold hatred or bored indifference. Now, he just looked... stunned.

"No," Raphael said, his voice still that low, eerie calm. "Stop."

"Stop? She's obviously lying!"

"She's not." Raphael finally turned his head, looking at Caspian with a look I didn't understand. "I can hear it. Her heartbeat. Her breathing. The way her body is reacting. She's telling the truth. Every word." He looked back at me, and a strange, painful look flashed in his eyes. "She's telling the truth about the trauma. No matter how impossible it sounds."