My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 514

Chapter 514

I stared at him.

Mom laughed harder, “Salvatore!”

“What?” he asked innocently. “You think I’d sit quietly while some stranger informed me what I can and cannot do for four hours?”

I watched the familiar exchange, the bickering, the teasing. The easy comfort between them, it felt normal.

For a few seconds it felt almost normal then Salvatore turned the laptop slightly, “I already spoke with the medical team. They’ll travel with us. A respiratory specialist. A nurse and a backup nurse.”

Mom dropped her head back dramatically, “You are being ridiculous.”

He folded his arms, “I have enough money to solve problems before they happen.”

“You can’t solve everything,” the words slipped out of me quietly.

And the next moment,.Mom’s smile faded. I squeezed my eyes shut and wished I could shove the sentence back into my mouth.

Then Salvatore reached over and gently took Mom’s hand. His thumb brushed across her knuckles, “No,” he said quietly, “I can’t. Everything else, though? Everything else will be taken care of.”

Something flickered across her face… love, gratitude and sadness.

Mom leaned forward slowly, the movement took effort now. She pressed a soft kiss against his forehead and Salvatore immediately looked pleased with himself.

Mom smiled, “Thank you.”

His eyes softened, “For what?”

“For taking care of me. For all of it… thank you for loving me this much.”

I looked at them sitting together beside the window. Mom in her wheelchair and Salvatore beside her. Their fingers intertwined, their heads close together and suddenly I understood something.

Love wasn’t always dramatic.

Sometimes it looked like a man trying to solve impossible problems because doing nothing would break him.

| My eyes drifted back to my phone, still no messages, still no missed calls. The knot in my stomach tightened again.

Eventually I reached the cramped house. I climbed the worn wooden steps slowly, each one creaking beneath my weight. My hand closed around the tarnished brass doorknob, the metal cool against my skin.

For a second, I just stood there.

Then I twisted the handle, pushed the door open, and stepped inside because the door wasn’t locked.

Fear immediately crawled up my throat. Every horrible possibility rushed through my head at once.

Mama D sat on the couch. Emma sat beside her and Morgan was leaning against the wall. Jasmine and Tasha occupied the kitchen table.

Brianna sat in somebody’s lap.

Several men filled the room and the color immediately drained from my face. I recognized these men. They were

Cole’s men.

The same men Mama D hated. The same men she used to curse every single day. Nobody smiled when they saw me, nobody looked happy, nobody even looked surprised.

My pulse sped up, I looked around the room, “What happened here?”