My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 622

Chapter 622

The words wrapped around my chest all over again.

“If your mother finds out…”

My fingers tightened around Mom’s hand.

“She won’t survive another heartbreak.”

My throat burned. I looked at Mom lying beside me. She was watching me with soft, sleepy eyes, completely unaware of the storm inside my head.

A lump formed in my throat. If there was even the smallest chance Salvatore was right…

If there was even the smallest chance that knowing the truth would hurt her…

Then I couldn’t be the reason, not after everything her body had already endured, not after watching machines breathe beside her all night, not after hearing that her heart had almost stopped.

Another memory forced itself forward.

Vincenzo’s voice.

“…Raphael will spend his life slowing himself down…”

“…One day he’ll resent it…”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

No!

I didn’t want to think about it anymore but my head wouldn’t listen. Every sentence kept finding me. Every word found the place where I already doubted myself.

The little girl who couldn’t read fast enough.

The teenager who always needed extra help.

The woman who kept making mistakes she never meant to make.

Maybe…

Maybe everyone else had seen it before I did. Maybe I really was too much to carry. A burden wrapped in good intentions. I swallowed hard and forced my eyes back to Mom.

She smiled the moment our eyes met, the same gentle smile she had always given me. It hurt so much that I almost cried again.

So instead…

I smiled back, the smallest smile I could manage because if she looked at me and saw I was breaking…

She would ask why.

And I didn’t know how to answer without destroying everything.

I cleared my throat. It felt dry, “I…” My voice came out small. “I think I should go wash up.”

Mom looked at me. I glanced down at myself. The oversized shirt I had been changed into was clean, but there were still faint brown stains along my wrist where dried blood had been missed.

I rubbed at them without thinking, “I still smell it. The blood.”

Just saying the word made the basement flash through my mind.

Concrete.

The knife.

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