My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 220

Chapter 220

Gianna | Age 11 | Toricelli Estate, Chester County, PA

“The nerve of that whore!” My father’s voice exploded through the room.

He didn’t just drop his phone, he hurled it. The device slammed into the wall, the screen spider-webbing into a thousand pieces before it hit the floor.

I flinched, my small shoulders hunching up toward my ears.

My stepmother, Perla, didn’t move. She sat on the velvet sofa, her fingers stroking the hair of my little half- brother, Gio. Giovanni Jr. was the new prince, the one everyone said would lead the Syndicate one day. Since he was born, I have been pushed to the side.

But even though I was in the backseat now, Daddy still looked at me like I was his most precious prize. He made sure I was perfect, every hair in place, every dress expensive, every need met before I even had to ask.

Sometimes his voice turns harsh. And words that leaves his mouth stings longer than they should.

He doesn’t just call me useless. He says I’m a mistake he can’t correct. That my head is wrong. He tells me I embarrass him. That I make him look weak. That a Toricelli should never struggle with something so basic.

Sometimes he laughs under his breath and asks if the letters are dancing again. If they’re too hard for me to catch. If my brain is too slow to keep up.

He calls me broken. Says there’s something missing inside my head. Something that should have been there but isn’t. I learned to sit still, to smooth my dress, to keep my face the same.

Because later, he would look at me again like I was something precious and I told myself that was the part that

mattered.

“She thinks because she’s with some big-shot politician now, she can do whatever she wants!” Daddy paced the floor, his eyes glowing with a dark heat, “She thinks she can take my child? Mine?”

The quietness of his voice was a hundred times scarier than the shouting.

Perla’s face went pale. She let out a small, shaky laugh, her hand trembling as she clutched Gio a little tighter.

“I… I only meant that she could visit Hazel on the weekends,” she stammered, her confidence vanishing, “I’m sure the girl misses her mother. And since Hazel’s new husband is a Senator… you don’t want a man like that digging into your business, do you? You don’t want him looking for dirt.”

Daddy took a step toward her. He didn’t care about senators or dirt. He only cared about what was his. And in his dark, twisted world, I was the one thing he would never, ever let go of.

Daddy didn’t stop until he was towering over Perla, “You think this is about business?” he asked, “You think I give a damn about a Senator’s ‘dirt’?”

Perla tried to pull her shoulders back, but she couldn’t stop her bottom lip from trembling, “I’m just being practical, Gio. The girl is a distraction for you. She’s… she’s not like us. If her mother wants to deal with her episodes and her crying, let her.”