Mated To My Obsessive Stepbrother

KESTER.

SIX MONTHS LATER.

It was late afternoon, and the rain outside was heavy.

Dr. Ansel leaned back in his chair with his legs crossed neatly as usual, pen resting on the edge of his yellow notepad, and his ugly glasses resting on the bridge of his nose.

Me? My arms were locked tight across my chest, like I was holding something broken inside me together.

“So that’s it,” I muttered in a flat but tight voice. “Six months. I showed up. I talked. I didn’t throw a chair through your window. I didn’t burn the place down. I’m still standing. That should be good enough.”

Dr. Ansel studied me the way a surgeon studies an open wound with curiosity, patience, and a little too steady for comfort.

He tilted his head, calm as ever. “Is it good enough for you?” he asked.

I didn’t answer. I looked toward the rain dripping down the glass like the sky was leaking secrets it never wanted to share.

“I didn’t come here to cry on couches or to get soft,” I muttered. “I came here to get my shit together. To get back in control. To stop waking up angry at a world that didn’t give a damn when I wanted. To stop cursing the woman who called herself my mother. To stop thinking I’m one wrong move away from failing my wife… or my kids.”

I exhaled hard, my shoulders dropping a fraction. “So yeah. I’m better. Better than I was. So why the hell do we need to keep digging?”

Dr. Ansel slowly shook his head and adjusted his glasses, “Because you’re not finished, Kester. You’re just learning to live with the silence after the gunfire. But that silence isn’t peace. The war inside you hasn’t ended. It’s only waiting.”

A dry, bitter laugh escaped me. I’m tired of bleeding on a couch. I thought six months would be enough. Turns out healing doesn’t care about my deadline.”

“Exactly,” he said gently. “And that isn’t failure. That’s honesty. For years, you survived by running faster than the shadows behind you. Therapy… this is the first time you’ve stopped

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Chapter 410

hear your own

skin, burrowed deep. I clenched my jaw, fighting

away.

you here. Imagine

rain hit harder outside, as if the

man who still twitches in his sleep and snaps

shoulder.” Dr.

long time, I sat there, staring at the rain. My hands slowly

open on my

Not even to myself. But

Ansel’s pen scratched against the pad. Then he

said quietly. “Then let’s

FIVE YEARS LATER.

KASMINE.

that rang so pure and

until even the silence

Claira tumbled across the living room floor,

Their

it made my chest

in. “Here they are, our little partners in crime!” Norlan boomed as he and Brie stepped in with wide smiles, with

while their boy toddled straight into