My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 200

Chapter 200

“I’m teaching you the Silvio Special,” Silvio whispered, throwing an arm around my shoulder like we were best friends heading to a movie instead of a girl trying to escape a house full of mobsters, “If you want to sneak out of this mansion undetected, you don’t go over the walls. You go under the radar. Come on, Sis. If you’re going to ruin Salvatore’s night, I want to make sure you actually succeed. It’ll be the funniest thing that’s happened in this house since Adriano tried to cook.”

He started leading me back toward a hidden cellar door, already whispering about camera loops and guard rotations with a giddy excitement.

“First rule of sneaking out: never trust the grass. Second rule: always bring a Capone who’s bored enough to help.”

Silvio didn’t lead me back to the main house. Instead, he led me toward the detached garage.

“Everyone looks at the walls, Gianna,” Silvio whispered, “That’s where the sensors are. That’s where the cameras are pointed. But no one looks at the trash.”

He stopped at the back of the garage near a heavy industrial dumpster and pulled a small, black remote from his pocket. He didn’t press a button; he held it against a specific metal bolt on the side of the dumpster. A faint click echoed in the night.

“This is a service tunnel for the old plumbing and the fiber-optic lines,” he explained, sliding a heavy metal plate aside to reveal a narrow, concrete crawlspace, “It bypasses the pressure sensors because the pipes need to shift under the ground. It comes out three blocks away in the basement of the dry cleaner the family owns. That’s where we send the literal dirty laundry, not the bodies and the blood, just the shirts.”

I looked down into the black pit. It felt like staring into a coffin, “You’re joking.”

“Do I look like I’m joking?” Silvio checked his watch. “You have exactly four minutes before the guard patrol rounds the corner of the west wing. If they see me standing by a dumpster, they’ll ask questions. If they see you,

we’re both dead.”

I dropped to my knees and crawled into the cool, damp tunnel. It smelled like wet concrete and electricity.

“Wait,” Silvio hissed, leaning his head into the opening, “Take this.”

He handed me a small, high-powered flashlight and a hoodie, “It’s cold… And Gianna?”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify