My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 447

Chapter 447

Waiting.

For heartbreak.

For regret.

For grief.

Nothing came.

Only relief.

And for the first time since his name had appeared on my screen…

I smiled.

The office floor hummed around me.

Monitors glowed from every direction. Lines of code scrolled endlessly across screens. Phones rang. Analysts argued quietly over reports. Somewhere near the back, someone cursed at a server that had decided to die at the worst possible moment.

Exactly what I needed after that phone call.

I sat at my workstation, staring at a complicated routing diagram spread across three monitors. A shipment report had arrived an hour ago, and half the numbers didn’t match the database.

I stared at the patterns and right now, the pattern looked ugly. I clicked through another file, frowning.

I was halfway through fixing it when a shadow appeared beside my desk.

I looked up. One of the security guys stood there.

“Toricelli.”

“Yeah?”

“Mr. Capone wants you upstairs.”

I blinked, “What?”

He shrugged, “His office.”

For a second I just stared at him.

Raphael wanted me?

Specifically me?

“Are you sure?”

The man snorted, “Trust me. Nobody mistakes his order. No one wants to die.”

Before I could ask anything else, he walked away.

I stepped into the hallway leading toward his office. The closer I got, the more something felt wrong. People were moving faster, nobody was talking. Several employees kept glancing toward the closed office doors before immediately looking away.

I reached the door before I could knock, a voice cut through the wood, “Get out.”

The words came out sharp enough to make me jump. A second later the door opened and one of the senior analysts practically escaped. The poor man looked like he’d survived a natural disaster. He walked past me without making eye contact.

I stared after him then slowly looked back toward the office. Well, that couldn’t be good. I knocked lightly.

“Come in,” the response came instantly.

I pushed the door open and stopped.

Raphael looked furious, and not his normal pissed off face. His tie was gone, his suit jacket was gone. The sleeves of his white shirt were rolled to his elbows.

Several screens covered the walls behind him, every single one was filled with data. Maps, numbers, surveillance feeds, reports.

The desk in front of him looked like a battlefield. Folders were scattered everywhere, coffee sat forgotten beside a keyboard.

Raphael stood in the center of it all, one hand gripping the back of his chair. His jaw was tight, his eyes were dark.

For a brief moment, I simply stared.

Because seeing Raphael look so unhinged in the office felt unnatural like watching a mountain move, like watching the ocean forget where it belonged.

Then his gaze landed on me and something shifted. The tension in his shoulders loosened a fraction, “Close the door.”