My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 659

Chapter 659

My entire body went cold, “Gianna.”

She didn’t answer, she didn’t even look at me. She kept digging. I reached her in seconds.

I caught both of her wrists and pulled her backward, “Stop.”

She fought me immediately. She twisted violently, trying to throw herself back toward the grave.

“No!”

I wrapped both arms around her from behind. She kicked, struggled and tried to pull free with surprising strength.

“Gianna!”

“I have to get to her!”

“No!”

“You don’t understand!”

“I understand enough.”

She threw her head back against my shoulder, “Let me go!”

“No.”

“I said let me go!”

She shoved at my chest with both hands. I tightened my hold before she could throw herself back into the open dirt.

“Stop this.”

Her breathing became ragged. She looked nothing like the quiet woman who had spent days staring into nothing. Her eyes were wild, “I have to see him!”

The words hit me so suddenly that my grip loosened for the smallest fraction of a second, “What?”

“My daddy!” she tried to pull away again, “I want to see my daddy!”‘

I stared at her.

She hit my chest with both fists, “Vincenzo wouldn’t let me!” another shove, “I just want my daddy!” her voice cracked so violently it barely sounded human, “I want to go home!”

Every word echoed through the cemetery.

“I don’t want to stay here anymore!” she pushed against me again, “I don’t want this house! I don’t want any of this! I want my family!”

She collapsed against me before she could hit the ground.

I caught her.

She grabbed handfuls of my shirt with shaking fingers, “I want my mom. I want my daddy. I want Jules. I don’t want to live here. I don’t want to be a Capone. You people stole my mother from me.”

I felt my heartbeat slow, not because I was calm but because I was trying to understand every word before responding.

“Gianna-”

“I don’t want your perfect life,” she cut me off. “I’m exhausted.”

I stood motionless.

Every instinct inside me wanted to deny it. To tell her she was wrong but she wasn’t speaking from reason. She was speaking from grief.

“And I’m tired,” she whispered, “I don’t want anything to do with your perfect world anymore. I just,” she closed her eyes, “…I just want to go home.”

I felt something inside me fracture.

Fear.

A fear so unfamiliar that I couldn’t immediately identify it.

Until I did.

She wasn’t asking to leave the cemetery.

She wasn’t asking to leave the estate.

She was asking to leave me.