Page 156 of Heartless Stepbrother

Blackmail.

The truth rolled through me like a riptide, ripping away oxygen, ripping away the momentary warmth of his attention, ripping away everything except cold, brutal clarity.

My pulse hammered against my ribs like it was trying to break free.

It was never about heat or chemistry or the way he looked at me like I was a puzzle he wanted to break open.

It was strategy.

He slid his hands into his pockets. “It’s good footage, by the way. Clear. Close. Slow enough to catch the part where you leaned in first.”

My stomach dropped again, a second free fall in the span of seconds.

“Riley,” I breathed, “you cannot be serious.”

“Oh, I’m serious.” His tone stayed light as sea foam, heartbreakingly effortless. “If you don’t do exactly what I tell you, when I tell you, I’m going to show them.”

I shook my head, numb. “You wouldn’t.”

He stepped closer. Not touching. Not crowding.

Just near enough that the night seemed to bend around him.

“Princess.” His pet name for me was a quiet, devastating blade. “You still don’t understand me.”

His eyes locked onto mine, and there was nothing warm in them. Nothing soft. Only cold certainty.

“I always do what I say.”

The ocean murmured at our feet. The bonfire hissed behind us. My pulse thundered in my throat.

If I disobeyed him, he would ruin everything.

Everything I cared about.

Everything my mother finally had.

Everything I had sworn I would protect.

He watched the knowledge sink into me, watched the panic bloom and choke, watched the realization tighten my breath.

Then he said it again, quietly, almost gently, sealing the noose with a whisper.

“Do what I want… or they see this.”

The wind caught my breath before I could steady it, before I could gather the pieces of myself he kept shattering.

My voice scraped its way out, small and raw, a sound I barely recognized as mine. “And what do you want?” I whispered.

The words trembled like I had handed him something delicate and breakable, something he could crush between his fingers without effort. I hated that he heard the fear braided inside the syllables. I hated more that he heard the pull too, the part of me leaning toward the darkness he offered like it was inevitable.

My heart thudded painfully, suspended in the space between us, waiting for the shape of his answer… and terrified of it.

Riley stepped closer, not touching me, but close enough that his shadow swallowed mine. His voice dropped to a low, devastating murmur that curled through the night.

“I wantyou,“ he said. “But what I want most of all is for you to stop pretending you don’t know exactly what that means.”

Their love… and their war… continue in book two ??