Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs Chapter 982: In a Stranger’s Ears

Genevieve arched her eyebrows, yet she stayed silent. She simply waited.

"I know how that sounds," Maya hurried to add.

"You can’t guess what’s running through my mind at this moment," Genevieve replied softly. "And there’s no judgment in any of it."

She drew her legs onto the couch, swiveling fully toward Maya. No longer acting like a courteous visitor.

Instead, like a woman who spotted the precise form of a confession moments before it crashed down.

"Continue."

Maya drew in a breath. This time, the moan seeping through the wall stretched out long and fractured, Isabella’s voice shattering on Peter’s name as if blending prayer with profanity. Maya shut her eyes briefly. When they reopened, the green hue had deepened, grown more intense.

"He’s my stepdad," she murmured, so faintly it nearly vanished. "Technically speaking. That’s his role. For months, I’ve existed in his... gravitational pull. Hearing it all. Observing my mom transform—body, spirit, the works. She’s happier than ever before. More vibrant. More... authentic. I witness it daily, and I—"

She halted. Clamped her lip until it paled. Her fingers clenched tight in her lap, knuckles drained of color.

"You harbor fantasies," Genevieve stated. Without accusation. Without shock. Merely identifying the raw truth already exposed between them.

Maya’s head jerked upward.

"It’s plain on your face, sweetie," Genevieve said gently, without cruelty. Like addressing someone who’d quit denying the blaze consuming their home. "It showed clearly in the hallway when you clutched his shirt as if it owed you something."

Maya flushed crimson, from her collarbones to her scalp. Her chest heaved quicker, as though her lungs suddenly recalled their craving for breath.

"I—"

"No need to justify it to me," Genevieve interrupted. "I endured years wed to a man who treated my mere breathing as a nuisance. Then I encountered Eros—for barely two hours—and a single graze of his fingers as I passed him wine made me feel like the heart of the entire cosmos. Had I shared a home with that? Hearing it night and day? Seeing my mother bloom into a real woman rather than a specter? Sweetie, I’d possess a vast library of fantasies. I’d require an index system."

Isabella’s cry tore through the wall, challenging the neighbors to summon authorities.

Maya hid her face in her palms.

Genevieve extended a hand softly, drawing one of Maya’s wrists downward until their gazes locked once more.

"Hey," she murmured. "Nobody holds it against you."

Maya gazed at her—eyes shimmering, defenses quivering. The barriers erected at age twelve, which had barred everyone until Cazzie arrived with her blue locks, boundless recklessness, and perpetual lollipop.

Those barriers now fractured audibly.

"Nobody holds it against you," Genevieve reiterated. "Not the fantasies. Not the desire. Not anything. You’re not damaged. You’re not mistaken. You’re merely a young woman trapped in a dire circumstance with an irresistible man, and your body grasped the reality ahead of your mind."

Maya exhaled a breath imprisoned since the divorce signing. Trembling. Moist. She removed her glasses, rubbed her eye sockets with balled fists until sparks erupted within, then replaced the frames.

The lenses remained misted.

She skipped clearing them.

"He kissed me once," she breathed. "My first kiss. Prior to all this. Before Mom. Before... it all. And I’ve never—nothing ever—"

"Come anywhere near?"

"Nothing has approached the same zip code."

Genevieve nodded deliberately. She comprehended. Despite knowing Peter under a day, every prior kiss seemed mere rehearsal. Like sketching flames with pastels.

As if existence had practiced for him without her knowledge until yesterday.

Maya had pieced the remaining puzzle during the silent nights after the apartment hushed. She’d seen—had observed how they circled him like satellites drawn to a world defying standard physics.

She recognized the Peter from those evenings as Madison’s betrothed.

Then witnessed Madison kiss Eros.

Identical jaw. Identical perilous poise.

Identical gaze piercing flesh to uncover hidden follies.

The newer Peter mirrored Eros excessively—or truthfully, Eros embodied Peter’s perfected state, with the original just stages shy of that pinnacle.

And her mother—always referred to him as Peter.

Never Eros. Perpetually Peter.

That sharp detail unlocked the mystery at last.

Her first love. Her first kiss. The youth lingering eternally in her heart’s depths. Proved the identical man now eliciting her mother’s muffled cries of his name, as if it alone persisted in memory.

Her stepdaddy.

Weeks she’d borne this truth solo.

A frigid, weighty burden wedged beneath her ribs. Unshared with Cazzie—not during late-night confessions amid instant noodles and regrettable choices. Told no one.

Allowed it to weigh heavier with each headboard thud.

Until this instant.

"For whatever it’s worth," Genevieve said quietly, cautiously, "I believe he’s aware."

Maya froze. "Aware of what?"

"All of it." Genevieve held steady. "Your feelings. Your cravings. He’s not the type to miss details like that. Even while feigning ignorance."

Silence enveloped the bedroom.

Both turned toward the wall simultaneously. The abrupt quiet rang profane—more piercing than prior clamor. A suspended inhale. A hush dense with expectancy, conclusion, or perhaps both.

Followed by: a prolonged, fluid moan. The bed groaned once, languid and conclusive, like a breath embedding in frame. Quiet returned.

It concluded. Temporarily.

Maya expelled air from her lungs swiftly. Her shoulders slumped as if released from invisible wires.

"He knows," she declared. No longer questioning. Simply acknowledging.

"And when he deems you prepared—if he’s biding time until you cease resembling a startled deer whenever he enters," Genevieve continued, reclining into pillows with the relaxed assurance of one yielded to Eros’s vast appetite, "he’ll claim you as well. And after that display—" She nodded at the bedroom barrier. "—I doubt you’ll require much convincing."

Maya regarded her.

Then—gradually, inevitably, as if corrosion finally breached her core—she chuckled.

Genuine. Boisterous. The sort originating deep within, aching the ribs from prolonged confinement.

The identical mirth Cazzie once coaxed, both collapsed on this rug battling for a gamepad until gasping and giddy.

"I hate that you’re correct," Maya gasped amid bursts.

"I’ve been correct on precisely one matter in my spoiled, illusory existence," Genevieve replied, beaming, "and it strolled into that gentlemen’s restroom yesterday as if I belonged."

Maya chortled louder—head tilted back, glasses sliding, tears stinging from utter absurd liberation. Genevieve joined in. The merriment filled the living room, vibrant and chaotic and vital, overwhelming echoes of earlier cries.

Ten minutes passed before Isabella emerged.

Her hair disheveled. Skirt askew, hiked too far on one leg. Limbs stumbling as if coordination eluded them.

She paused at the threshold, surveyed the pair on the sofa—shoulders brushing, faces near, trading final meager grapes like forbidden goods—and blinked.

"What happened here?" she inquired.

"Bonding," Genevieve shot back seamlessly.

"Trauma bonding," Maya supplemented, dabbing her eyes.

Isabella examined them at length. Then traversed the space, sank between them on the couch, snatched the final grape from the dish.

"Good," she declared chewing it. "You’ll need one another."

She reclined, draping one arm loosely over Maya, the other grazing Genevieve’s shoulder.