My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 683

Chapter 683

Adriano rested an elbow on the table, “And if we don’t?”

Giovanni looked at him, the smile disappeared, “Then we’ll discover which of us has been planning further ahead.

I watched him. His breathing hadn’t changed. His posture hadn’t shifted. No clenched jaw or restless/hands,

nothing. He hadn’t come here hoping to win. He had come here already convinced he wouldn’t leave empty- handed.

Beside me, Vincenzo slowly laced his fingers together, “You keep using the word peace. Men usually do that right before they explain what happens if they don’t get what they want.”

“Gianna isn’t leaving Chicago,” I added.

Giovanni’s eyes moved to me, “You answered rather quickly.”

“I didn’t need time,” I held his stare, “She’s staying right where she is.”

He studied me for a few seconds before speaking again, “You speak as though the decision belongs to you.”

“It belongs to the people keeping her alive.”

Giovanni’s eyes narrowed, “It belongs to Gianna.”

“No,” Vincenzo answered this time, “It belongs to all of us. She’s my family:”

Giovanni gave a slow nod, “And she’s also my heir.”

That caught everyone’s attention.

“I didn’t come here because I miss my daughter.” He paused, almost irritated with himself before letting out a quiet breath. “God knows I do…” He shook his head. “But that isn’t the only reason I’m sitting at this table. I came because the future of Philadelphia sits in Chicago.”

Even Adriano’s smile disappeared at that.

Giovanni continued, “Gianna is the next head of the Philadelphia Syndicate. I have to train her. I have to harden her. I have to prepare her before the day I’m no longer here.”

Adriano barked out a laugh, “That’s adorable.”

Giovanni ignored him, “She’s angry. She has every right to be, I kept her away from her biological mother for years but anger isn’t the opposite of love. If she truly stopped loving me, she would’ve never answered my call She would’ve never asked anything of me. Instead, the very first thing she did was test whether her father would keep his word.”

He leaned back.

“I did and she knows it. So yes, my daughter loves me. She’s simply forgotten that she does. You see a fragile girl that needs to be protected, I don’t. I see the child I trained. I see the girl who learned to shoot before most children learned long division. I see the girl who could track movement through the woods without making a sound. I see the daughter who never once hesitated to pull a trigger when training demanded it.”

His eyes became colder.

“Hazel molded her into a little girl, I raised a successor, and now all she needs is her father to remind her who she is.”

Images surfaced before I could stop them. Gianna standing beside me during the hunt. The bow resting naturally against her shoulder. The excitement in her eyes.

One squeeze of the trigger, and men dropped where they stood. She hadn’t looked sick, she hadn’t looked away. She’d simply lowered the bow and checked whether the shot had been clean.

Vincenzo broke my thoughts, “No. I’m not interested in any negotiations, compromise or a temporary arrangement. Gianna isn’t a weapon. She isn’t an investment. And she isn’t returning to Philadelphia so you can shape her into whatever you think she should’ve become.”