My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 640

Chapter 640

Gianna

The estate had never been this quiet.

Hundreds of people had come.

Men in black suits stood outside beneath the gray morning sky. Expensive cars continued arriving through the front gates one after another. They were all part of the Outfit. Men and women who had known Mom. People who had known the family she was born into, long before death had taken almost all of them. Fresh white flowers covered almost every corner of the ballroom until the soft scent of lilies and roses filled the air.

Priests spoke quietly near the front.

People whispered, someone cried, someone prayed, someone hugged Salvatore.

Maddie held Jules every time she looked like she was about to collapse again.

I heard all of it.

None of it reached me.

I stood beside Mom’s casket without moving. The lid had been left open. She looked… peaceful. Healthier than she had looked in months.

The funeral home had done everything they could. Her cheeks had a little color now. Her hair had been brushed exactly the way she liked it.

She wore the pale blue dress she had once joked she wanted to wear because, according to her, “If people are going to stare at me one last time, I might as well look pretty.”

Someone had folded her hands neatly over her stomach. Her wedding ring rested where it belonged. She looked asleep.

Except…

Mom had never been this still. Even when ALS had stolen almost everything else, she had always found little ways to move. A blink, a smile, a squeeze of my fingers. Now… there was nothing.

I waited, without realizing I was waiting. Maybe if I stood here long enough. She would wake up. She would tell everyone this had been one terrible misunderstanding. She would ask why everyone looked so sad. She would ask Jules to stop crying.

Instead…

She stayed exactly the same. My eyes burned but no tears came. I frowned slightly.

Why?

Jules had cried until she made herself sick.

Last night, she’d cried so hard and breathed so fast that she became dizzy. The nurses had checked her twice after she briefly lost consciousness. They’d explained that the combination of exhaustion, not eating, dehydration, and hyperventilating had caused her blood pressure to drop for a short time.

Claire and Maddie hadn’t left her side since.

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