My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 413

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Chapter 413

Raphael

The second Vincenzo moved toward the panel, something inside me snapped tight. It was not anger. It wasn’t even a thought. It was just instinct.

Pure, sharp fucking instinct.

One second he was walking toward the black glass with that cold look in his eyes, blood still drying across his knuckles, and the next my body moved before my brain caught up.

I caught him by the front of his shirt and slammed him hard into the wall beside the monitors.

Adriano swore violently somewhere behind me and then silence.

My hand was fisted in Vincenzo’s collar. Blood smeared instantly across my knuckles from his shirt. My forearm locked against his chest hard enough to keep him pinned.

For one second, I didn’t even fully understand what I’d done.

Vincenzo stared at me.

There wasn’t anger in his eyes, just shock. He looked actually shocked because I never touched him like that.

Then my brain finally caught up.

Fuck.

I let go immediately and stepped back at once, not out of fear but out of respect.

Years of it.

My older brother straightened slowly against the wall, jaw flexing once as he adjusted the front of his blood- covered shirt where I’d wrinkled it in my grip.

Adriano looked between us with the face of a man watching a bomb count down in real time, “Okay,” he said carefully into the silence, “So that happened.”

Vincenzo’s eyes stayed locked on mine, murderously calm, “You put your hands on me.”

I forced myself to answer evenly despite the adrenaline still hammering through my body, “You were about to scare her.”

It wasn’t the answer he expected. I knew it immediately from the way his expression changed.

“Scare her?” he repeated softly.

I exhaled slowly through my nose, trying to get my head working properly again.

Because what the fuck had that been?

I never lost control. Ever. Not like that, not physically, especially not with him.

Vincenzo was my older brother. My Don. The man who practically raised me after our father stopped bothering.

I had spent my entire life respecting him.

But the second he started toward that panel, something inside me twisted violently All I could think about was Gianna standing behind that black glass completely alone, listening to him talk about dumping bodies into lakes, listening to him speak about her like she was some danger that needed to be eliminated.