My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 629

Chapter 629

Her little silver stud earring was still in her left ear. I remembered helping her pick it out because she’d been too scared to get anything bigger. I remembered holding her hand while she got it pierced. She’d cried afterward, and then pretended she hadn’t.

“…Emma.”

My voice barely existed anymore.

The detective nodded. Then, there was the last table and before she uncovered it… I already knew. Raphael shifted a little closer as the sheets folded back.

Brianna.

Her blonde curls rested against the pillow beneath her head.

Her face was covered in bruises. Of the three of them, it looked as though she had endured the most before she died.

Something in my chest, simply… collapsed, “…Bri.”

The nickname slipped out before I could stop it, nobody answered, nobody smiled, nobody rolled their eyes.

I stared at all three covered tables.

This morning… they’d still been possibilities. Now, they were real.

The detective’s voice came softly from somewhere beside me, “Miss Toricelli?”

My knees gave out. The room tilted so suddenly that I forgot how to breathe. Before I could hit the floor, Raphael caught my arm.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Brianna.

No, this wasn’t Brianna. Brianna complained whenever she broke a nail. She hated hospitals. This… this couldn’t be her.

“Miss Toricelli?” Detective Bennett’s voice sounded far away, “…Can you confirm her identity?”

I stared at the small scar near her eyebrow. I remembered exactly how she’d gotten it. The night I turned eighteen, we were riding our bikes. She had insisted she could ride downhill without using the brakes. She couldn’t and crashed straight into a mailbox.

The memory hit me so hard my chest hurt, “…Brianna.”

Detective Bennett lowered her eyes and made a quiet note on her clipboard, “I’m very sorry.”

A staff member gently pulled the sheet back into place. I watched Brianna disappear beneath the white fabric. I stood there long after everyone else had stopped moving.

VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABELVerify