My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 640

Chapter 640

Gianna

The estate had never been this quiet.

Hundreds of people had come.

Men in black suits stood outside beneath the gray morning sky. Expensive cars continued arriving through the front gates one after another. They were all part of the Outfit. Men and women who had known Mom. People who had known the family she was born into, long before death had taken almost all of them. Fresh white flowers covered almost every corner of the ballroom until the soft scent of lilies and roses filled the air.

Priests spoke quietly near the front.

People whispered, someone cried, someone prayed, someone hugged Salvatore.

Maddie held Jules every time she looked like she was about to collapse again.

I heard all of it.

None of it reached me.

I stood beside Mom’s casket without moving. The lid had been left open. She looked… peaceful. Healthier than she had looked in months.

The funeral home had done everything they could. Her cheeks had a little color now. Her hair had been brushed exactly the way she liked it.

She wore the pale blue dress she had once joked she wanted to wear because, according to her, “If people are going to stare at me one last time, I might as well look pretty.”

Someone had folded her hands neatly over her stomach. Her wedding ring rested where it belonged. She looked asleep.

Except…

Mom had never been this still. Even when ALS had stolen almost everything else, she had always found little ways to move. A blink, a smile, a squeeze of my fingers. Now… there was nothing.

I waited, without realizing I was waiting. Maybe if I stood here long enough. She would wake up. She would tell everyone this had been one terrible misunderstanding. She would ask why everyone looked so sad. She would ask Jules to stop crying.

Instead…

She stayed exactly the same. My eyes burned but no tears came. I frowned slightly.

Why?

Jules had cried until she made herself sick.

Last night, she’d cried so hard and breathed so fast that she became dizzy. The nurses had checked her twice after she briefly lost consciousness. They’d explained that the combination of exhaustion, not eating, dehydration, and hyperventilating had caused her blood pressure to drop for a short time.

Claire and Maddie hadn’t left her side since.

The word barely existed but nothing happened. A familiar warmth settled behind me. I didn’t need to turn around.

I knew.

Raphael stopped behind me. He didn’t interrupt the silence. He simply stood there, looking down at her with me.

After a long time, he spoke

“You have her eyes and her smile.”

He slipped one hand into the pocket of his trousers while the other slowly circled my waist, coming to rest low against my stomach. His touch was light, almost cautious, as though he wasn’t trying to pull me closer, only to remind me that if my knees gave out… he was already there.

“I’ve spent most of my life believing every problem could be solved. If I couldn’t solve it myself… I built something that could,” a quiet breath left him, “I couldn’t solve this.”

Neither could I.

“I don’t know how to make this easier for you but I do know something. I know you’re not carrying it alone. If your legs stop working, I’ll carry you. If you stop eating, I’ll feed you with my own hands. If you wake up at three in the morning and reach for your mother before remembering she’s gone… you’ll find me awake beside you.”

I let my weight rest against his chest for the first time that day, allowing the warmth of him to hold me up.

“You don’t have to survive this by yourself anymore,” he murmured. His thumb moved slowly over my stomach through the black fabric of my dress, “I loved you before today. I love you now. I’ll still love you when this grief finally reaches you.”