My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 335

Chapter 335

I stared at him.

My breathing slowed slightly.

“You process information differently,” he continued, “Not worse. Differently.”

Nobody had ever said it like that before.

Different.

Not defective.

Not broken.

Different.

Raphael gestured vaguely toward the woods behind us.

“You know what I saw tonight?” he asked. “I saw someone who moves like she was built for field work.”

A weak, disbelieving laugh escaped me instantly, “Raphael-”

“No,” his voice turned hard, “Listen to me.”

The seriousness in his tone made me fall silent.

“You move quietly without thinking about it. You react fast. Your instincts are sharp,” his eyes narrowed slightly as he studied me, “And the second you stopped doubting yourself, your aim became lethal.”

The word sent heat curling strangely through my stomach. Lethal. My grip tightened unconsciously around the bow. Raphael noticed. Of course he noticed.

“You think brains only belong behind desks because that’s how your father taught you to measure worth,” he said quietly. “But intelligence isn’t just spreadsheets and reports.”

He pointed lightly toward my head.

“Pattern recognition like yours?” he murmured, “That’s rare. You see details other people miss,” Raphael continued, “You absorb behavior. Movement. Repetition. Your brain connects things quickly even when you don’t realize it’s happening.”

Emotion climbed painfully into my throat again.

“But I fail-”

“Everybody fails.”

The sharpness of his interruption startled me.

Raphael’s eyes locked onto mine, “The difference is that you were punished for failing instead of taught through it.”

He dragged a hand through his dark hair roughly before continuing.

“You know what happens when soldiers under me make mistakes?” he asked, “I correct the mistake. I train the weakness. I adjust strategy. I don’t destroy them for being human.”

1/3

15 B

My vision blurred instantly.

“Your father kept trying to hammer you into becoming something familiar to him,” he muttered, “And when that didn’t work, he made you believe the failure belonged to you instead of his inability to understand you.”

My chest physically hurt. Raphael looked at me for another long second before speaking again.

“You know what I need in my world?” he asked quietly.

I swallowed hard, “What?”

“Not another version of myself.”

The answer surprised me enough that my brows pulled together.

Raphael gestured toward himself with faint irritation, “I already have men like me everywhere in my basement, he said, “Men who think like me. Fight like me. Solve problems like me.”

A humorless smile touched his mouth.

“And do you know what happens when everyone in a room thinks the exact same way?”

I shook my head slowly.

“You create blind spots.”

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify