My Stepbrother Wants Me-Chapter 202: Not On My Watch!

Julian’s POV

I didn’t stay in the hallway a second longer than I had to. The air felt toxic, poisoned by Richard’s parting threat. I turned and stormed back toward my room, my boots heavy on the floor. Catherine followed me immediately, her footsteps quick and light as she struggled to keep up with my pace. As we moved to the room, I felt her eyes on me. She was staring at us in a state of total confusion and grief, but I couldn’t explain to her now. I couldn’t stop to comfort her. My mind was moving too fast, fueled by a mix of adrenaline and a terrifying sense of urgency.

We made it into the room, and I slammed the door behind us, the sound that echoed made me realize I banger it too hard. I began to pace, my movements jerky like a caged animal. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the bruises on Gabriel’s knuckles and heard the cold, calculated tone of my father’s voice. My face was throbbing, the swelling around my jaw making it difficult to speak, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the rage boiling in my gut.

Catherine moved toward the ensuite and returned with a bowl of water and a clean cloth. She tried to step in front of me, to stop my pacing, her eyes filled with a desperate kind of worry.

"Julian, sit down," she urged, her voice soft. "Let me look at your face. You’re bleeding again."

"I don’t care about the blood, Catherine," I snapped, though I stopped pacing and let her lead me to the edge of the bed. "Did you hear him? He’s going to send Gabriel to the facility. He’s going to bury him just to keep the campaign from looking messy. He wants to deal with Gabriel like he’s a broken piece of equipment."

Catherine began to dab at the cut on my lip, her hands steady despite the chaos. "Do you think Gabriel will keep this to himself? Do you think he’ll actually go back and apologize?"

I let out a harsh, dry laugh. "Gabriel? No. He’s spent his whole life holding onto his moral high ground. It’s his identity. Seeing the two of us together... seeing the truth of what we are... it made his blood rise in a way I’ve never seen. He feels betrayed. He thinks he’s the only one in this house with a soul, and we just proved him wrong."

Catherine swallowed hard, her gaze dropping to the cloth in her hands. She looked shaken, her shoulders hunched. "He looked at me with so much disgust, Julian. Like I was filth. Like I was something he had to scrape off his shoe. I’ve never felt so... exposed."

I immediately reached out, ignoring the pain in my face, and held her head in my hands. I forced her to look at me, my thumbs stroking her cheeks. I needed her to see that Gabriel’s judgment didn’t define her.

"Don’t you dare feel that way," I said, my voice low and fierce. "Gabriel is hurting, and he’s lashing out because he can’t handle the fact that his perfect world is a lie. But you are not filth. You are the only good thing that has ever happened to me, and I won’t let his confusion make you feel small."

A soft, hesitant scratch at the door interrupted us. We both stiffened. I hurriedly pulled my hands away from Catherine’s face, bracing for another confrontation with Richard or a servant. But the door creaked open to reveal Lisa. She slipped into the room, looking terrified, her eyes darting around as if she expected the walls to have ears.

I stood up, putting myself between her and Catherine. "Lisa? What are you doing here?"

"Don’t bother hiding it, Julian," she whispered, her voice trembling. She looked at Catherine, then back at me. "I’ve known for a while now. A mother knows when her son’s heart has changed. I’ve seen the way you look at her when you think no one is watching."

Catherine’s eyes almost bulged out of her head. "What?" she yelled, her voice a mix of shock and fear.

Lisa moved further into the room, closing the door softly behind her. She looked aged, the stress of the night etched into the lines around her eyes. She didn’t look angry; she looked like someone who had already seen the end of the world.

"Richard and Lucy are in the study," Lisa said, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper. "They are planning something for the campaign launch. It’s not just about Gabriel. They are planning to save the family’s reputation by making us the villain, Catherine. They want to publicly shame us, to paint me as a bad wife and you as a social climber who manipulated the brothers. They want to get rid of us and ensure the Vaughn name stays clean. I knew this would happen but I didn’t think it would happen this fast."

I felt the fury spark in my chest again, hotter this time. It was a familiar tactic. It was Julian’s playbook.

"He’s doing it again," I said, the revelation dropping out of my mouth with bitterness. I looked at Catherine, my eyes dark. "I told you. This is exactly what he did to my mother. He used the same tactic. He painted her as unstable. He told the world she was unfaithful, that she was a danger to her own children, all to justify getting rid of her when she became a liability. He destroyed her reputation to save his own."

Lisa nodded, a tear finally escaping and rolling down her cheek. "That means... he uses all the women he marries? No! I can’t let him tarnish my image or my daughter’s."

"It’s not so easy. He won’t stop until he has total control again. He will destroy anyone who threatens the image of his power."

I looked at the two women in the room; the two people Richard thought he could discard like trash. Something shifted inside me. We couldn’t play defense anymore. We couldn’t wait for the blows to land. If Richard was going to use the campaign as a weapon to destroy us, then we had to be the ones to destroy the campaign first.

"I won’t let it happen," I said, my voice as hard as iron. I looked at Catherine, my gaze filled with a protective intensity. "I will make sure history does not repeat itself. I will protect you, and I will protect your daughter. Richard thinks he’s the architect of this family, but he’s about to find out what happens when you build on a rotten foundation."

Lisa, who had been trying to hold back her tears, finally let them out in a quiet, racking sob. The weight of all she had been silently enduring seemed to break all at once. Catherine didn’t hesitate; she hurriedly moved to her and pulled her into a tight, fierce hug.

"Don’t cry, mother. I will not let anything happen to you or Catherine. I let Richard do it to my mother because I was young but this time, I give you my word, he will not do anything to the two of you. Never. Not on my watch!"