My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 487

Chapter 487

Perla kept stroking the back of my head, her hand warm. Looking back, she had changed so much over the long years we had spent under the same roof. In the beginning, she hadn’t liked me much at all, she had kept her distance, treating me like an unwanted reminder of my father’s past.

But slowly, day by day, the walls between us had melted away. She had warmed up to me, letting her guard down until the coldness disappeared completely, and she started to truly love me as if I were her very own flesh and blood.

“Giovanni,” Doctor Vance said into the phone, “We have a critical situation. Your wife has physically assaulted me during the treatment. She has broken my instruments. She is refusing to let me proceed with the neural stimulation, and the girl is completely resisting the process. You need to come down here immediately. The entire procedure is being compromised.”

He listened for a second, his jaw tightening, then he nodded once.

“Yes. I will wait.”

He slammed the phone back onto the base and turned around, crossing his arms over his chest. He didn’t try to clean up the broken glass. He just stood by his desk, staring at us with a hateful glare, waiting for the master of the house to arrive and put us in our place.

I don’t know how long we sat there. Time didn’t mean anything anymore. The pain in my thumb and palm had settled into a deep, sickening ache that made my stomach turn over and over.

Perla never let go. She kept holding me, rocking me slightly in the chair, whispering quiet words that I couldn’t quite understand through the loud buzzing in my ears.

Then, door flew back against the wall with a massive, violent thud.

“Giovanni, the girl was completely out of control today,” Doctor Vance said, “She was actively resisting the neural stimulation. She was thrashing, kicking the equipment, and refusing to follow simple visual commands to clear her brain pathways. I was implementing a deep-tissue nerve correction under the nail-a perfectly standard procedure to force her brain to recognize the symbols-and she chose to fight me instead of cooperating.”

He took a step closer to his desk, his face darkening as he looked at Perla, who was still holding me tightly against her chest.

“And then your wife completely lost her mind,” Vance hissed, “She physically attacked me from behind. She threw me across the room, shattered hundreds of dollars of medical glass, and ruined my sterile instruments. She is completely compromising the safety of this treatment. I am a professional, Giovanni. I cannot do my work with an emotional woman hovering over the patient, screaming and breaking things. If Mrs. Toricelli remains inside this room, I am done. I will pack my bags, I will walk out that door, and your daughter can remain a broken, illiterate freak for the rest of her life.”

My father didn’t blink. He didn’t look at the broken glass on the floor, and he didn’t look at Doctor Vance’s bleeding hand. His eyes stayed completely flat, fixed on Perla’s back.

Slowly, Daddy walked across the white tiles, and stopped right beside the chair. Without saying a single word, he reached down and grabbed Perla by the upper arm. His fingers dug so deeply into her skin that her sweater bunched up.