My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 446

Chapter 446

Because Raphael had turned my entire world upside down.

He made me feel too much, too quickly. Every conversation, every look, every moment with him seemed to lodge itself somewhere beneath my skin. It was overwhelming. Confusing.

And for a little while, I didn’t know what to do with any of it.

But that confusion belonged to me, not to Leone.

And I wasn’t about to hand him pieces of myself just because he wanted answers.

I wasn’t giving him an explanation.

I wasn’t giving him my thoughts.

I wasn’t giving him Raphael.

Most of all, I wasn’t giving him any part of me.

“It doesn’t matter.”

“It matters to me.”

“It shouldn’t,” I snapped.

His patience was starting to crack now. I could hear it. Tiny fractures beneath the calm voice, “Gianna.”

“What?”

“Tell me where you are right now.”

I stopped walking, “No.”

“Why?”

“You really want to ask that question?”

He let out a rough sigh, “I can find out.”

He sounded so confident, and I knew that it was a threat disguised as a fact. Unfortunately for him, it was the wrong threat because he was talking to the old Gianna, not this one,

And suddenly I almost felt sorry for him, “No, you can’t, Leone. You can’t.”

“Try me.”

A small laugh escaped me. The sound seemed to surprise him because I wasn’t scared, not even slightly.

“You have absolutely no idea where I am,” I said. “You’re bluffing.”

Because he was.

Raphael once told me that the estate didn’t officially exist anywhere, no searchable address, no map marker. Nothing that could lead a stranger to the front gate.

At the time, I thought he was exaggerating.

Then I saw Raphael’s basement.

And learned that when it came to security, the man treated paranoia like a full-time profession. If Raphael didn’t want someone finding a place, they weren’t finding it.

Simple as that.

“Gianna, I’m not the same guy you left-”

The words landed exactly where he intended them to.

For a second, I was a teenager again.

Embarrassed, frustrated and ashamed every time my tongue couldn’t keep up with my thoughts.

Every time the words came out wrong. Every time someone looked at me with pity but that girl wasn’t standing here anymore.

I had spent years working on myself.

Years pushing through speech therapy, tutoring, practice, frustration, and setbacks.

Years refusing to let my struggles define me.

There were still bad days.

Still moments when words tangled together but I had worked too hard to let anyone use that against me.

Especially him.

I looked across the campus, across the life I had built. The future waiting ahead of me, “I’m sorry that I texted you out of nowhere but please, don’t contact me again. I don’t want you, Leone. I don’t need you.”

Then I pulled the phone away from my ear.

“Don’t call me again.”

“Gianna-”

I ended the call and the screen went dark.

And for several seconds I simply stood there staring at my reflection in the glass.