Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs - Chapter 332

Chapter 332: The Emma Unraveling
I closed Emma’s bedroom door behind me and leaned against it for a moment, letting the emotions wash over me. The emotional torrent hit immediately – raw, desperate fear wrapped around abandonment issues so deep they made my chest ache like a fist squeezing tight.

Emma slept curled up on her bed, arms wrapped around her knees, trying to look tough but mostly just looking like a scared kid. Which, fuck, she was. Eighteen years old and dealing with trauma that would break most adults.

I could feel everything she couldn’t say out loud. The terror that leaving meant I didn’t care anymore coiled in her gut, cold and heavy. The bone-deep fear that without me in the house, she’d be vulnerable again settled like ice in her veins. The shame that she needed me this much, that she couldn’t just be normal and independent like other girls her age was a bitter taste on her tongue.

But underneath all that fear was something else – something that made my throat tight with emotion. Pure, desperate love. The kind of love that came from someone who’d been saved when they thought they were lost forever, clinging to the only solid ground left.

I was her anchor. Her safe harbor. And she was terrified I was about to cut the rope and let her drift away.

The hurt in her voice, the way she’d lashed out – it wasn’t really about Madison or inappropriate comments. It was about me leaving. The knowledge was a physical weight in the room.

Emma woke and sat cross-legged on her bed. Wearing one of my old Lincoln High hoodies that was way too big for her and a pair of fuzzy pajama pants with little tacos on them. Her hair was in a messy bun, and she had that stubborn set to her jaw that meant she was trying not to cry.

The set was a brittle shield, cracking at the edges.

She looked so young sitting there, despite being eighteen, and the sight twisted something deep in my chest, a sharp, painful pang.

“Don’t,” she said without looking up, picking at a loose thread on the comforter. Her fingers worried the thread relentlessly, a tiny focus for a storm of feeling. “Don’t give me some speech about how everything’s going to be fine and I’m overreacting.”

“I wasn’t going to.” I moved slowly to sit on the edge of her bed, the mattress dipping slightly under my weight, watching as she continued to worry that thread between her fingers. “Emma, look at me.”

She shook her head, still focused on the comforter. “If I look at you, I’m going to start crying, and I don’t want to cry right now.”

“Why not?”

“Because crying is stupid and weak and I’m supposed to be stronger than this.” Her voice cracked slightly on the last word, the sound sharp like breaking glass, and she pressed her lips together hard, the pressure turning the edges white.

I could see her shoulders shaking slightly, the telltale tremor that meant tears were close, fighting to break through. The last few weeks had been hell for her – the Trent situation, the fear, the trauma. And through all of it, I’d been her constant. The person who made her feel safe. Now I was telling her I was leaving.

“Emma,” I said softly, moving to sit on the edge of her bed again, the movement deliberate, giving her space to react. “Look at me.”

She shook her head, burying her face deeper in her knees, curling inward, making herself smaller. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Too bad. We’re talking about it anyway.” I reached out to touch her shoulder, the contact light, almost tentative. She flinched slightly – a quick, involuntary jerk – before seeming to finding herself to relax into the contact, the tension slowly melting as if her body recognized it was me. “Emma, what happened with Trent… that’s not happening again. Ever.”

“You don’t know that,” she whispered, the sound muffled against her knees but thick with terror. “You won’t be here to stop it.”

And there it was. The real fear underneath all the bravado and inappropriate comments. It hung in the air between us, sharp and undeniable, the unspoken truth laid bare.

The fear in her voice was raw, unfiltered—torn from her throat like exposed nerve endings. She wasn’t pretending bravery now. Just scared. Scared of hollow silence, scared of skin laid bare, scared the hands that’d pulled her from Trent’s grave would now dig her another.

“I will always be here to stop it,” I bit out, each word a hammer-blow. “Always.” Moving out changes nothing.

“But you’ll be busy with your new life and your important business and your—” Her hand jerked through the air, frustration cracking her knuckles. “You’ll have better things to do than worry about your messed-up sister.”

“Stop.” The word shattered the air. She flinched like I’d struck her. I softened, let my voice sink into her bones instead. “Emma. You are not messed up. And you will never be less important than air in my lungs. Never.”

My gaze locked onto hers, unyielding. “Emma, you are my priority. You will always be my priority. Some rich assholes in a mansion threatening the company I protect? That’s business. Someone threatening my sister? That’s blood.” I leaned closer, my presence a weight pinning her to the mattress. “And I handle blood debts very differently.”

She went utterly still, studying my face like a general scanning a battlefield. Her fingers abandoned the thread, sank claws into the hoodie’s hem, twisting the fabric until it whined.

I felt her emotions churning beneath her skin—a maelstrom of desperation and doubt. She wanted to trust. Needed to. But terror had drilled too deep, carved itself into her bones during Trent’s reign.

The way he’d made her feel powerless. Prey-like. Like no cavalry was coming.

Until I had.

“I need you,” she whispered, the words shredded from her throat like torn silk. “I know that’s pathetic and I should be stronger, but I need you, Peter. You’re the only person who makes the walls feel like shelter instead of a cage.”

That responsibility should have been a stone crushing my chest. Instead, it lit a fire in my veins.

“It’s not pathetic,” I growled, reaching out to still her restless hands with mine—iron on talons. “Emma. Look at me. Really look at me.”

Her eyes lifted to mine, and I read everything scrawled across her face—terror, love, the desperate hunger for a lifeline.

“You survived weeks of hell,” I rumbled, the sound vibrating through both our bodies. “Weeks of that bastard making you feel hunted. Small. But you didn’t break. You held on until my hands could pull you out. That’s not weakness, Emma. That’s the strongest damn thing I’ve ever seen.”

A tear escaped, rending a path down her cheek. “It doesn’t feel strong,” she choked out. “It feels like I’m shattering.”

“Then shatter,” I snarled, shifting closer until the mattress groaned under my weight. “That’s what I’m here for. Emma, you think this is one-sided? You think you’re just some fucking weight I carry?”

She nodded, miserable and broken.

“You’re wrong.” My voice dropped, became the blade beneath the silk. “You know what my biggest fear is? That all this power, all this money—it’ll carve me into someone you wouldn’t recognize. Someone who forgets what’s real. What’s worth bleeding for.”

I reached up, wiped the tear from her cheek with a thumb that felt like a brand. “You. Sarah. Mom—you’re what keeps me human. Without you? I’m just another monster with too much power, too much I can do, too much money but no soul.”

“Really?” Her voice was small, fragile, like a bird’s wing brushing stone.

“Really.” I tilted her chin up, forcing her to meet my eyes. “You know what I was thinking about every second in Miami? Coming home to you giving me shit about my clothes. Sarah psychoanalyzing my every breath. Mom fussing over whether I’d eaten enough.” A grin slashed my face—fierce, possessive. “This chaos. This family. It’s the only fucking temple I’ll ever pray in.”

More tears fell, hot and fast, but she was smiling now—sunlight breaking through storm clouds. She scrambled closer, her body melting against mine, and I felt the razor-wire tension finally unravel from her shoulders.

“Promise me something,” she demanded, her voice thick with salt and desperation.