Chapter 194/The White Prison Beneath

Chapter 194: 194/The White Prison Beneath

Chapter 194

Stephanie’s POV

A faint, continuous buzzing echoed in the deep recesses of my ears, a familiar baritone piercing through my shattered memories, repeating itself with a persistent, heavy gravity: "Stephanie... Stephanie."

I opened my eyelids with agonizing slowness, my vision completely blurred at first before the prominent, rigid features of Alexander stabilized directly before my eyes in the immediate present. I blinked exhaustedly, desperately trying to absorb the intricate details of his sharp face and his piercing blue eyes, which carried a deeply enigmatic depth. My voice slid from my throat in a faint thread, barely audible: "Yes, Alex."

He extended his massive hand, letting it rest with an uncharacteristic lightness and gentleness over my trembling face, while speaking in his familiar, calculated composure: "Take off these clothes, shower, and rest."

I nodded my head in absolute silence, entirely surrendering to the terrifying weight shackling my limbs and freezing my ability to think. I stood up, taking heavy, slow steps toward the bathroom, and allowed the warm water to cascade over my exhausted frame systematically washing away the accumulated trauma and cradling my intense tension within its absolute warmth.

The moment I finished showering, my limbs slid into the comfort of my cotton pajamas, and I sat down, completely yielding to Alex’s long fingers as they carefully dried the damp strands of my hair.

He paused after a few minutes, setting the hairdryer aside, before turning his massive frame toward me. He shot a firm, unwavering look at me, stating flatly: "Dinner will be ready now. Let us go down."

I sharply twisted my face to the opposite side in burning annoyance and open disgust, a heavy tightness violently squeezing my throat as my voice came out dry: "I do not want to, Alex. Go have dinner by yourself."

He knitted his brows with absolute firmness, his muscular torso leaning down as his thick fingers caught my chin hoisting my face upward to force me to look into the absolute depth of his blue eyes with severe gravity. He delivered in a strict, commanding tone: "Steph, you cannot act like this... do not forget that you are pregnant."

I let out a burning, suffocating sigh, my heart beating in erratic panic as I violently pushed myself toward the bed to escape his suffocating trap, shouting in pure weakness: "Please, Alex... I have absolutely no appetite."

The rigidity slowly dissolved from his sharp features, his face relaxing as he drew his head back in a rare moment of submission, whispering in a low tone: "Fine, sweetheart... as you wish."

I walked with heavy, dragging feet across the floor, rapidly sliding beneath the dark silk covers and curling into myself like a rain-soaked bird desperately searching for a single shred of warmth.

Alex bent his towering frame down with his dominant composure, printing a warm, gentle kiss against my forehead before spinning around. His measured, regular strides made a faint clicking sound against the floor until he exited the room, softly closing the door behind him. I squeezed my eyes shut with forced intensity, desperately trying to banish the pitch-black thoughts ravaging my mind. I wished with all my heart that I could simply forget this total destruction... perhaps the absolute truth was that I needed to bury everything and forget.

Only a few fleeting minutes passed inside that suffocating, dead silence before Alexander’s voice violently pierced the darkness of my mind and consciousness once more, carrying that exact same frantic urgency and sharp edge: "Stephanie... can you hear me? Stephanie."

My eyes snapped open in absolute, blinding panic, and my upper body violently jolted backward in pure shock as I looked around with wide, frantic eyes. The familiar, warm room wrapped in luxury and silk had entirely vanished; the walls surrounding me were flat, completely painted in a stark, blinding white entirely devoid of life. I was lying atop a small, incredibly narrow iron bed with an ice-cold, rock-hard mattress.

My gaze shifted with a hysterical madness toward Alexander, who was standing directly beside me... the breath locked in my lungs as I realized he was wearing a dark navy suit—completely bizarre in its cut and tailored details, entirely different from the suit he had been wearing just moments ago beside me in our bedroom.

My pale lips shivered violently, my voice tearing out in pure terror: "Where am I?!"

Alexander firmly anchored his hands at his sides with an eerie, uncanny calm, his silent features remaining completely frozen like a stone mask as he rasped in an ice-cold tone: "Stephanie... you are in your room."

I bolted upright with deep suspicion, my entire frame convulsing as I rubbed my forehead in severe confusion and bewilderment, my voice rising in a sharp, elevated shout: "Alexander, stop joking right now! Where the hell did you take me?!"

His sober, dry glare didn’t waver for a fraction of a second. He continued to monitor my escalating panic with a deeply provoking composure, stating in a completely flat voice: "Stephanie, you have been here since the very beginning... I have done absolutely nothing."

Pure, unadulterated horror drove me to blindly leap completely out of the bed. I stood on my bare, frantically trembling feet atop the ice-cold floor, screaming directly into his face at the top of my lungs while hot tears pooled heavily in my eyes: "Where is Cedric?! And where is Grandfather Victor?! And where is Valentina?!"

His blue eyes suddenly dilated with a sharp focus, and his gaze began to inspect my features in a deeply bizarre manner one that lacked any shred of the familiar warmth or emotional attachment I was accustomed to seeing from him. He took a cautious step toward me, slowly extending his massive hand as if approaching a wounded, dangerous animal, speaking in a quiet tone: "Stephanie, calm down... you are hallucinating."

My insides violently contracted in terror, and my gaze shot down instinctively and automatically toward my pelvis and stomach... in that exact split second, the blood in my veins completely turned to ice, and I felt the freezing touch of death. That small, delicate bump that had clearly adorned my stomach, proudly announcing the existence of my twins, had entirely vanished; my stomach was completely flat and hollowed out, as if absolutely nothing had ever existed inside it.

I raised my head in a sudden, blinding shock that completely paralyzed my capacity to think, screaming hysterically as I pointed toward my bare body with wildly shaking hands: "My twins... where are my twins?!"

Alex exhaled a long, heavy sigh, fixing his dry eyes onto mine a look entirely devoid of any sympathy, warmth, or human emotion. He delivered words that crashed over me like a devastating thunderbolt: "You were never pregnant in the first place."

I stumbled backward with frantic, erratic steps, terror systematically devouring my chest as I dug my fingers hard into the strands of my hair, forcing out a choked scream: "Stop this! Do not drive me into madness!"

He stepped forward once more with that exact same provoking, cautious composure, his dominant strides closing the distance between us as he spoke: "Stephanie, please calm down... I want to speak with you quietly."

I waved my hands through the air with a hysterical, frantic rage, the tears burning my eyelids and cascading down my cheeks in a thick rush: "What quiet?! Where are my twins, tell me!"

He froze his stone features once more, repeating with a lethal, absolute finality: "Stephanie, I told you that you were never pregnant in the first place."

I advanced toward him with desperate, broken steps, heavy dry-heaves tearing through my throat and completely restricting my breath. I whispered in a shattered, breathy thread: "Alex... please do not tell me that you aborted my twins..."

His jaw tightly clenched, and his sharp eyes suddenly deflected from mine, lowering his head in a manner that explicitly suggested absolute surrender and evasion. That single movement ignited a raging furnace of blind fury and pure madness deep inside my soul; I lunged toward him like a maniac, my trembling fingers violently clamping onto the collar of his shirt. I shook his massive frame with every single ounce of strength I possessed, screaming in raw, burning agony: "You animal! Did you take my children away from me?!"