Dark Lord Seduction System: Taming Wives, Daughters, Aunts, and CEOs novel 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.

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