The Stripper Toy for My Hot Stepbrothers

Chapter 12

Lyra’s POV

The air in the library was thick and heavy. It smelled like old books, expensive whiskey, and anger. All of them were there. Caspian, Silas, Rowan, Raphael, Jeremy. A wall of muscle and rage surrounding my mother, who sat in a leather chair like she was at a tea party.

Caspian leaned over her, his knuckles white where he gripped the chair. "Last time, Iris. Who are you working with? Who paid you to poison my father?"

Iris smoothed her skirt, her face perfectly innocent. "How many times must I say it? I loved Marcus. I would never—"

"We found the bank transfers," Silas cut in, his voice like ice. He held up a paper. "Large payments. From an account we can't trace. Starting right after the wedding. Coincidence?"

Her calm face cracked, just a little. A tiny twitch near her eye. "I don't know what that is."

"Stop lying!" Raphael's shout made me jump. He stood by the fireplace, full of contained violence. "You were looking through pack files for weeks. We have records. What were you looking for?"

Jeremy was silent by the door. His eyes were on me, not her. I could feel his stare like a physical weight, and I hated the tiny, traitorous part of me that still wanted to run to him.

Iris's shoulders slumped. The act was falling apart. She let out a watery sigh. "You have to understand... I was backed into a corner. I had no choice."

"Everyone has a choice," Caspian growled.

"Not me!" she screamed, the sound shrill and sudden. The mask vanished completely, showing the raw terror beneath. "You don't know them! You don't know what they can do! They told me what to look for in your files! I was just... passing along information. For my daughter's safety!"

Cold dread started to fill my stomach. No. Don't.

"What information?" Silas pressed, relentless.

She was crying now, real tears running through her makeup. "I don't know! Codes. Names. Anything about project 'Aurora'! I just passed it along!"

Project Aurora. The words meant nothing to me, but the brothers exchanged a sharp, loaded look. It meant something to them.

"Who did you pass it to, Iris?" Jeremy spoke for the first time, his voice low and deadly.

She shook her head, sobbing. "I can't. They'll kill me."

"We'll kill you if you don't," Caspian promised, his face inches from hers.

The words tumbled out of her in a frantic, desperate rush. "It was years ago! It started years ago! They... they wanted a child. A specific kind of child. They told me where to be. When to be there. They made it look like a robbery."

The room tilted. The expensive rug beneath my feet felt like it was falling away. No.

"What are you talking about?" My voice sounded thin and weak.

She wouldn't look at me. She kept her eyes fixed on Caspian, pleading with him. "They wanted Lyra. They had theories... about her bloodline. They paid me a fortune. I just had to tell them when and where to find her. I told them the route we walked home from school. I told them the day... the exact day..."

The air left my lungs. It didn't come back. I was seven years old again, held tight in my mother's arms one second, and the next...

"Mommy!"

The screech of tires. The smell of stale cigarettes. Masked men. Her grip on me loosening. Her hand, actually pushing me toward them.

"Take her! Just take her and go!"

I screamed for her. I screamed until my throat was raw. She just stood there on the sidewalk. Watching the van drive away. Not fighting. Not screaming. Just... watching.

The memory wasn't blurry anymore. It was crystal clear. Every detail, sharpened by her confession.

My world didn't just shatter. It disappeared. There was no ground. No air. Just a howling, endless void where my life used to be.

A high, thin ringing started in my ears. My vision tunneled, the faces of the brothers blurring. I couldn't get a breath. It was like a giant hand was squeezing my chest, crushing my lungs. I clutched at my throat, my fingers numb and tingling.

"She can't breathe," someone said. The voice sounded miles away.

I was drowning on dry land. Sobs ripped through me, silent, airless things that made my whole body shake. I slid off the chair, my legs giving out. The carpet was rough against my cheek. Just let it end. Please, just let it end.

Strong hands rolled me onto my back. Orion's face appeared above mine, his usual coldness gone, replaced by sharp, professional focus.

"Lyra. Look at me." His voice was calm, absolute. An anchor in the storm. "You're having a panic attack. You are safe. You are not dying. Your body is lying to you."

I tried to focus on his eyes, deep blue and intense. My heart was wild and frantic, trying to beat its way out of my chest.

"Breathe with me. In... and out." He showed me, taking a slow, even breath. His hand was on my wrist, his fingers pressed to my pulse. "Your heart is strong. It's just scared. Breathe."

Tears streamed down my face into my hair. I tried to match his rhythm. A tiny gasp in. A shaking release.

"Good. Again." He never looked away. His gaze held me, kept me from breaking into a million pieces. In his eyes, I saw no judgment. No anger. Just understanding of pain. He saw it. He saw how deep the hole was that she had just carved inside me. And for a brief second, I saw something in him reflect it. A shared language of hurt.

His other hand came up, touching the side of my face, his thumb stroking my cheek. It wasn't a lover's touch. It was... steadying. Grounding. He held me like I was something fragile. Something precious that had been broken. The violence of my shaking began to slowly stop, replaced by a deep, bone-weary trembling.

The others were just shadows around us. I heard the distant sound of Iris being led away, her crying fading down the hall.

Orion helped me sit up. I was limp, boneless. He didn't let go of my arm. "She needs water," he said to no one in particular. "And quiet."

Jeremy was the one who brought it. He knelt beside me, a glass in his hand, his face pale. "Lyra..."

I turned my face away from him. I couldn't look at any of them.

The new room was nicer. Softer. A pretty cage is still a cage. The lock on the door was heavier. The guard outside more visible.

I didn't care.

For two days, I didn't move from the bed. I didn't eat the food they brought. I didn't drink the water. I just stared at the wall, tracing the patterns in the wallpaper. The numbness was back, but it was different now. It wasn't an empty space. It was a tomb, and I was burying myself inside it.

The door opened on the third day. I didn't need to look. I knew his footsteps.

Jeremy stood by the bed. "You need to eat."

I said nothing. I kept staring at the wall.

"Lyra, this isn't a choice. You will eat." His voice was hard, the club owner's voice. It had no effect on the void inside me.

"Why?" The word scraped its way out of my throat.

He was silent for a long moment. "Because I won't let you waste away in here."

I finally turned my head. I looked at him with dead, empty eyes. "You should have left me in that house. The one with the metal table and the wires. It would have been kinder than this."

He flinched like I'd hit him. His own eyes, so dark and possessive, filled with raw pain I'd never seen before. The control he always wore like armor shattered.

"Don't say that," he whispered, his voice breaking. "Don't ever say that."

"Why do you care?" I asked, truly curious. "You have your pack. You have your prisoner. What does it matter if I fade away?"

He sank onto the edge of the bed, his broad shoulders slumping. He reached for my hand. His fingers were warm. Mine were cold. "You think this is easy for me? Keeping you here? Seeing you like this?"

I pulled my hand away. "I think you do what serves Jeremy best."

The words broke him. He looked down at his hands, then back at me, and his eyes were completely devastated. "I knew," he said, the confession ripped from him. "I knew the second I saw you in that alley. The bond... it hit me hard. I felt it. You're my fated mate, Lyra. Mine. My body has known it since the beginning. My soul has known it."

The words should have meant something. They should have changed something. In another life, maybe they would have. In this one, they were just more chains.

I looked at this powerful, broken man confessing the deepest truth, and I felt nothing. Nothing but the vast, echoing emptiness.

"Fate is just another prison," I said, my voice flat. "Get out."

He stared at me, his face completely shattered. He opened his mouth to say something else, but no sound came out. Slowly, he stood and walked to the door. He looked back once, a man walking to his own execution.

The door clicked shut. The lock turned.

I rolled over and faced the wall again. The emptiness where my heart used to be was finally, perfectly complete.