My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 686

Chapter 686

Salvatore slowly shook his head, “I asked her that question more times than I can count.”

“And?”

“She’d only ever give me one answer,” e looked directly into my eyes, “If he ever finds us… he’ll never stop until he takes her.””

I waited, “That’s all?” I asked.

Salvatore swallowed hard, his voice growing rough, “No. There was one thing she admitted.’

His eyes drifted toward the fireplace, as though he could still see Hazel sitting there.

“She told me Giovanni didn’t just hurt Gianna. He broke her.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid, and cold.

Salvatore looked back at me, “The things he did to that little girl. They weren’t moments of anger. They happened over and over again. Hazel never gave me every detail. She couldn’t. Every time she tried, she’d fall apart but she made one thing very clear. He abused Gianna. And not just once or twice, he did it for years. He kept hurting her until it changed who she was. She used to tell me that Giovanni didn’t just leave scars on Gianna’s body..He left them in her mind. The girl she could have become, he stole

that from her.”

The room disappeared, my brain simply stopped registering it. Everything became distant.

Only one sentence remained.

He abused Gianna.

I didn’t blink, I didn’t move. People expected horror to look loud. They were wrong. The louder the storm inside my head became, the quieter my body grew.

Someone said my name.

I couldn’t tell who.

My thoughts had narrowed until there was only one image.

Gianna.

She was a child when she came to Chicago. Children learned from repetition. If someone hurt them enough, their minds adapted, their bodies adapted. Their entire view of the world adapted.

The pieces I had spent months trying to understand suddenly began sliding into place.

The way she apologized after she had done anything wrong.

The way she watched people’s faces before speaking.

The way she expected me to slap her back for the smallest mistake.

Because if Giovanni Toricelli had spent years breaking the little girl who would one day become the woman I loved, then I wasn’t walking into that Council chamber with opinions.

I was walking in with facts.

And facts were infinitely more dangerous than anger.

Vincenzo slowly rubbed a hand over his face before looking at Salvatore, “What you’ve told us matters,” he said quietly. “But we don’t rule on belief. We rule on proof.”

Dad took one step closer, and placed a hand over my shoulder, “Hazel told me, years ago, that she’d tried to collect evidence.”

My eyes lifted, “Tried?”

He nodded, “She documented everything she could. She thought if she kept enough records, one day she’d be able to protect Gianna but Giovanni found out. He got to it before she could use it. Whatever she had, it disappeared. He destroyed it.”

Vincenzo cursed under his breath, “Damn it,” he turned away for a moment before looking back at me, “Then we may have to rely on Gianna too.”

My eyes narrowed, “What do you mean?”

“If she tells the Council herself,” he stopped, choosing his words carefully, “They’ll have to listen.”

I stared at him, “You want her to relive it.”

“No,” his answer came immediately, “I don’t. I don’t want that girl to remember a single second of it but if Giovanni stands in front of the Council pretending to be a father who deserves another chance, she may be the only person who can tell them why he doesn’t.”