My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 630

Chapter 630

I blinked against the afternoon light. The parking lot stretched quietly ahead of us.

Then I heard a broken sob. My head turned before I realized I was moving. Near the entrance, beside two uniformed officers, stood two familiar figures.

One had her face buried in her hands.

The other kept shaking her head over and over as though refusing to believe what she’d been told.

My heart stopped, “Tasha…”

The second girl looked up at the sound of my voice. Her swollen red eyes found mine, “…Gianna?”

Jasmine.

Raphael stopped walking the moment he heard their voices and immediately followed me as I took a step towards

them.

I looked at him. My throat felt tight, “…Can you give us a minute?”

His eyes moved from me to the two girls standing across the parking lot.

“They’re my friends.”

His jaw tightened almost invisibly, “I know.”

“They need this,” I whispered, “I need this. They’re all I have left.”

For a long second, he simply looked at me, then he gave a single,nod, “I’ll be right here.”

He stepped back toward the car, far enough to give us privacy but close enough that I knew he could reach me if I stumbled.

I waited until he stopped moving before turning around.

Then Jasmine broke. She ran first and I met her halfway. Her arms wrapped around me so hard my ribs hurt. I held onto her just as tightly.

She was shaking, and not just shaking. She was falling apart. Tasha reached us a second later. The three of us crashed into one another, arms tangled, shoulders pressed together as though letting go would mean losing someone else.

A sob ripped out of her chest, “They’re gone…”

I sobbed harder, “I know…”

“They’re really gone…”

“I know.”

Tasha’s breathing hitched, “Morgan, Brianna, Mama D and Emma… all of them.”

It felt impossible that only yesterday all six of us had still existed in the same world. Now… half of us were gone.

Their names echoed inside my head.

“They wouldn’t listen to us,” Tasha whispered, “We fought with them, Gianna, we really did, we were on your side. We promised to never hurt each other. We screamed. I told Morgan she was making the biggest mistake of her life.”

“They wouldn’t listen,” Jasmine added. “Every time we argued, Mama D shut us down.”

Tasha looked at the ground, “We even walked out one night after another fight. We thought… maybe if enough people refused, she’d give up. She never did.”

Jasmine nodded, “I told Brianna to stop it, that how could they hurt you? She said… She said it would all be over in one day.”

“They’re gone now,” Tasha whispered, “All of them. None of us imagined it would end like that.”

I looked down at my hands. If I had never gone to see Mama D last night… would they still be alive?

The thought came so quickly that I almost believed it.

No.

Stop.

Raphael had warned me. The concussion, my thoughts weren’t safe right now but they kept coming anyway.