My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 20

Gianna

━⊰ ❦ ⊱━

The meeting was in forty minutes.

Forty.

My stomach twisted.

I glanced at the printed notes beside the laptop. Three pages of bullet points that I had rewritten five times already.

Some sentences had arrows.

Some had entire words scratched out.

A few had phonetic notes scribbled beside them so I could remember how they sounded. My pen rested between my fingers as I read the first line again.

Explain behavioral pattern detection.

I whispered the sentence under my breath.

“The system monitors long-term spending habits… travel patterns… device login locations…”

My tongue stumbled slightly over locations.

I flipped to the second page.

My chest tightened when I saw the red pen marks.

Raphael’s handwriting. I stared at it for a second and my throat went dry.

Because the image of blood on his shirt flashed into my head. My fist hitting his face and that horrible crunch. I squeezed my eyes shut for a second.

God.

What had I done?

My knuckles still felt sore. I looked down at them resting on the desk. The skin across them had turned slightly pink.

I had punched Raphael Capone.

In the nose.

Inside his own house.

My stomach flipped so violently I had to grab the edge of the desk.

He was going to kill me, maybe not literally but he would destroy this internship. He could do it with one sentence.

My professor’s voice echoed in my head.

“Internships in your senior year can influence your final academic standing.”

I swallowed. If I lost this position, the department would know. Professor Adler would know. The entire class already knew where I worked.

I grabbed the paper again and forced my eyes to focus.

Focus.

The meeting.

Midland Trust Financial.

A bank.

Thirty million dollars lost last year to identity fraud.

They were here to decide if Orion Vector’s system was worth millions and for some insane reason Raphael had decided that I should explain the model.

My hands trembled slightly as I scrolled through the presentation slides.

My stomach twisted again.

What if Raphael walked into the meeting room and decided this was the perfect moment to destroy me?

I could still see his face that morning, blood running over his mouth, dripping onto his white shirt.

And he had just… stared at me.

My heart started racing again.

I pushed the thought away and grabbed the notes harder, “You explain the prediction window,” I whispered to myself.

You can do this.

I took a slow breath and straightened in the chair.

“Good morning,” I whispered, practicing the first line.

I cleared my throat.

“Good morning. I’m Gianna Toricelli. I worked on the predictive risk model you’ll see in this presentation.”

The words stumbled slightly.

I tried again.

“Good morning. I’m Gianna Toricelli…”

I didn’t notice how quiet the office had become until a soft knock sounded against the glass wall beside my desk.

My head snapped up so fast my neck hurt. For a second my brain thought it was Raphael and my stomach dropped straight to the floor.

But when I turned, it was Aileen standing there.

She had one hand resting lightly on the edge of the glass partition. She held a tablet against her chest like she always did when she was organizing Raphael’s schedule.

“Gianna?” she said gently.

I pushed my chair back a little too fast and stood up, “Y-yes?”

Aileen gave me a small reassuring smile, “It’s time.”

The words made my stomach twist again. For a moment I just stood there, staring at her like my brain had forgotten what that meant.

Then the meaning landed.

The meeting.

My throat felt dry again.

“Oh,” I said quietly.

My hands immediately started gathering the papers on the desk. I stacked the printed notes together, then unstacked them again because they weren’t straight. My fingers fumbled slightly as I slid them into the folder.

The laptop. I almost forgot the laptop. I grabbed it quickly and tucked it under my arm. Aileen watched me for a second, her expression thoughtful.

“You’ve prepared a lot,” she said softly.

I looked down at the folder in my hands. The edges of the pages were bent from being flipped too many times.

“I… I just wanted to make sure I understood everything,” I murmured.

That wasn’t exactly a lie. Understanding the system was the easy part. It was the talking that felt like walking across ice. Aileen nodded slightly, like she understood more than I had actually said.

“The Midland Trust team arrived about ten minutes ago,” she explained, “They’re setting up in Conference Room Three. Mr. Capone will be there in a moment.”

My stomach flipped again, “Okay.”

Aileen studied me quietly for a second, “You’ll do fine,” she said gently.

I nodded once, “I hope so.”

She stepped aside slightly and gestured toward the hallway, “Come on. We shouldn’t keep them waiting.”

My shoes clicked softly against the polished floor as we walked. Aileen stopped beside the door and turned to me.

Her voice lowered slightly, “They’re a little intense,” she admitted quietly. “Bank executives usually are, just explain the model the way you showed it in the internal briefing,” she said, “You know it better than anyone. Ready?"

Was I ready?

No.

Not even a little.

My stepbrother probably wanted to strangle me.

My professor expected me to survive this internship.

And a room full of bank executives were about to judge a system I had built.

My stomach churned but I straightened my shoulders slightly and nodded.

“Yes.”

Aileen opened the door. The conference room smelled faintly like coffee and polished wood.

A long glass table stretched across the center of the room. Screens glowed softly on the wall, waiting for the presentation to begin. Three men and a woman sat on the far side of the table, their laptops open, folders spread neatly in front of them.

Bank people.

Aileen stepped aside so I could walk in first. I placed my laptop on the table near the screen and opened it with fingers that tried very hard not to shake. The presentation file blinked to life. Blue graphs. Clean charts.

Numbers I understood, I forced myself to breathe slowly.

The door opened again behind me. I didn’t have to turn to know who it was.

The quiet conversations stopped when Raphael Capone entered a room.

I mustered up the courage to peek at him. His suit jacket was perfectly pressed, his tie straight, his posture calm but my eyes went straight to his nose.

A thin cut ran across the bridge, the skin around it had darkened slightly.

My stomach dropped.

My fist.

For a fleeting second, his gaze locked onto mine from across the table. It was a look that pulled a memory from the back of my mind... the night I had stripped for him, when he had watched me with that same focus. His eyes... like honey held up to a flame.

There was no anger on his face, no reaction at all. Which somehow made it worse. Then he looked away like nothing had happened and walked to the head of the table. He took his seat slowly, placing a folder in front of him.

“Good morning,” he said calmly.

The bank executives nodded, “Good morning, Mr. Capone.”

Raphael gestured slightly toward the screen, “My junior analyst worked on the predictive model you’ll be seeing today,” he said, “Ms. Torricelli.”

All eyes turned toward me.

“Good morning,” I said, “I’m Gianna Toricelli. I worked on the predictive fraud model Orion Vector developed for Midland Trust.”

The first slide appeared on the screen behind me.

Overview.

The clients exchanged impressed looks. The conversation shifted smoothly into technical discussion. Raphael answered every question without hesitation.

His voice never stumbled, never slowed, by the time the final slide appeared, the room felt calm again.

One of the executives nodded, “This is impressive work.”

Raphael inclined his head slightly, “We take fraud prevention seriously.”

Chairs moved as the clients stood. They shook hands, and they left the room a few minutes later. The door closed behind them.

Then there was nothing but silence in the room. Raphael didn’t sit down again.

He turned slowly toward me, “What the fuck was that?”

My throat tightened, I blinked nervously, “I— it was my first— I was just… nervous.”

The word sounded weak even to my own ears.

Raphael’s jaw tightened slightly, “Nervous?”

He looked around the room.

Several employees from engineering and analytics had been sitting along the side wall during the presentation. They all looked suddenly very interested in the table.

Raphael’s voice cut through the room.

“If we’re presenting a predictive intelligence product to a financial institution, I expect clarity.”

No one spoke.

“This company does not sell nervousness,” he continued, “We sell precision.”

My hands clenched together behind my back.

"You made us look like idiots! You made it sound like we don't even know how our own system works. Do you have any idea how much money was on that table? And you couldn't even finish a basic sentence."

The volume of his voice triggered something deep and dark inside me. The conference room started to blur.

Read it, Gianna! Read it, goddamn it!

His voice screamed in my head, overlapping with Raphael’s. I could almost feel the sting of the wooden ruler hovering over my knuckles, waiting for me to fail again.

“Look at the letters! Why are you so lazy? Just fucking read, it's not that hard!”

"I... I knew the answer," I whispered, but I wasn't in the office anymore. I was seven years old, sitting in a dark room, staring at letters that were dancing and mocking me.

"Knowing it doesn't matter if you can't say it!" Raphael stated.

I gasped, my whole body jerking back.

ZAP.

I felt the current go through my body from my fingertips until I was screaming.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my hands shaking so hard I had to grip the back of my chair to stay upright.

"Gianna?" his voice dropped.

It wasn't soft, but the screaming had stopped.

I didn't answer. I couldn't. I just stood there, trapped in a memory of a man telling me I was broken until I believed him.

The other employees were staring now, not at the table, but at me.

Raphael looked at the others, his jaw tight. "Everyone out," he ordered.

They didn't wait. They gathered their things and hurried out of the room, leaving me alone with the man who had just crushed what was left of my pride.

Raphael reached out. I expected the sting of a ruler or the bite of an electric shock. Instead, he cupped my face.

"Gianna?" he muttered, "Look at me.”

The touch was the spark that brought me back. I blinked, and the blurred spac sharpened into the face of the man who had just humiliated me in front of the entire department.

I gently pulled my face away from his touch, "What did I say about you touching me?" I hissed, “Especially not after you just stood there and called me an idiot in front of everyone I work with."

The thin cut on his nose was a bright red reminder of why he shouldn't be near me.

"I said you made us sound like idiots," he corrected quietly, "There is a difference."

"There isn't a difference to me!" I snapped. I grabbed my laptop and my folder, clutching them to my chest.

His face hardened, turning back into the cold boss who didn't take talk from anyone. He stepped back, straightening his suit jacket.

"In the real world, stepsister, you don't get to fail a million-dollar meeting and then bark at the man who saved it. I should fire you right now. I should call your school and tell them you're a liability. Most people would have kicked you out of the building before the clients even hit the elevator."

The fire in my chest died instantly. Cold fear rushed in to take its place.

I deflated. My shoulders dropped, and the grip I had on my laptop loosened. I looked down at my feet, feeling small and foolish. The reality of my situation hit me like a ton of bricks. I needed this. I needed to finish this internship for Jules, for my future, for everything.

"I'm sorry," I whispered, "It won't happen again. I... I promise. When I'm put on the spot like that... the words just stop coming. I'll work on it. I'll practice more. Just... please don't call the school."

I hated how weak I sounded. I hated that I had to beg but I couldn't lose this. My life depended on this job.

I knew when to stand tall, and I knew when I had to swallow my pride to survive.

Raphael watched me. He didn't say anything for a long time. He just stood there, tall and powerful, holding my entire life in his hands.

"Go back to your desk, Gianna. And don't ever make me do your job for you again because if you do, then consider yourself fired..."

"Thank you," I said softly. I didn't wait for him to change his mind. I turned and hurried out of the room, my heart still heavy with the shame of it all.