My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 23

Raphael

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I leaned against the cold marble wall, my glass heavy in my hand. My brothers were all around me, a solid wall of dark suits, expensive cologne, and mean faces. We stood in the shadows of the hall, watching the reception like it was a funeral.

Across the room, our father was actually smiling. It made my skin crawl. He looked soft. He looked weak. He was standing there with Hazel, who looked like a piece of white glass that would shatter if you breathed on her too hard.

"This is a fucking shit show," Adriano muttered. He was messing with his cufflinks, his knuckles still bleeding from a job he’d finished an hour ago.

"He’s acting like a clown," Dante added, "He treats that kid, Jules, like she’s his own blood. It’s pathetic. And don't even get me started on the older one..."

"Gianna," I said.

The name tasted like smoke on my tongue.

I could still see her face from breakfast two days ago. People usually shake when we enter a room. They look at their shoes. They pray we don't notice them but she didn't. She looked Vincenzo right in the eye and told us to back off. She threw our protection back in our faces like it was trash.

"She’s a problem," Luca said. He was scanning the room, his hand resting near the holster under his jacket, "She thinks her little college campus is a safe zone. She has no idea how fast a girl like her can be snatched off the street in Chicago."

"She needs to be put in her place," Dante said, "You don't say 'no' to a Capone and just walk away. She needs to learn that she’s ours now. Everything in this house belongs to us."

I racked my brain, trying to pull the memory forward, but it stayed just out of reach. It was like a word on the tip of my tongue that I couldn't spit out.

I felt a surge of pure heat in my chest, and it wasn't from the bourbon. I was pissed. I was beyond pissed. I looked over at Vincenzo, who was still standing there completely calm.

This is his fault.

I would have run a full background check the second they moved in. I wanted her phone records, her school files, her bank accounts, everything. I wanted to know who she talked to and where she went when she wasn't studying. But Vincenzo had shut me down. He told me to respect the old man’s wishes. He had tied my hands and let a complete stranger walk into our home.

Because of him, I was standing here looking at a girl I knew I’d seen before, and I had no way of knowing where. The memory was a itch in my brain I couldn't scratch, and it made the air in my lungs feel tight and hot.