My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 239

Chapter 239

Gianna

I stood in front of the bathroom mirror, the bright lights showing every mark on my skin. I reached for my heavy concealer that could hide anything. My fingers moved fast. I dabbed the makeup over the marks on my neck, blending it until the red turned into the color of my own skin.

I stopped when I got to my cheek. There was a faint, yellow-green bruise there. It was the shadow of where I had slapped myself, right over the spot where my mother’s hand had landed days ago. I decided to leave it. If my face looked too perfect, mom would know. The bruise made the rest of my face look real.

I pulled on a pair of light blue baggy jeans that sat low on my hips and tucked in a tight, white t-shirt and grabbed a pair of white sneakers and headed downstairs.

The house was quiet this early in the morning, until I reached the back of the house. I stopped in the doorway leading to the terrace.

My mother was sitting in a cushioned chair, the morning sun hitting her hair. Salvatore was right next to her. He wasn’t looking at the garden or his coffee, he was looking at her like she was the only thing in the world that mattered. He reached over and took her hand, his thumb rubbing circles over her knuckles. My mother leaned her head back and laughed at something he said.

They looked happy, wrapped up in a private world where everything felt soft and safe. It was the kind of peace that made my chest ache because I knew how fragile it was.

I had never seen her look this way with my father. To him, she wasn’t a partner; she was just a vessel, something to own. When she dared to find her voice or stand her ground, he would show her exactly who held the leash. He would cut off the food, or lock her away in a room for days at a time. If she still didn’t break, he’d withhold water, whispering in her ear that he had all the power and she had none.

That was the lesson she never seemed to learn. You can’t give these men the power to be your everything. You can’t let them be the ones who feed you, clothe you, or keep the world at bay. Because the second they realize you depend on them for your very survival, they’ll start using that need like a weapon.

And looking at her now, leaning into Salvatore’s touch, I could see it happening all over again. She was already making the same mistakes, handing over the keys to her life to another man.

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