My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 686

Chapter 686

Salvatore slowly shook his head, “I asked her that question more times than I can count.”

“And?”

“She’d only ever give me one answer,” e looked directly into my eyes, “If he ever finds us… he’ll never stop until he takes her.””

I waited, “That’s all?” I asked.

Salvatore swallowed hard, his voice growing rough, “No. There was one thing she admitted.’

His eyes drifted toward the fireplace, as though he could still see Hazel sitting there.

“She told me Giovanni didn’t just hurt Gianna. He broke her.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid, and cold.

Salvatore looked back at me, “The things he did to that little girl. They weren’t moments of anger. They happened over and over again. Hazel never gave me every detail. She couldn’t. Every time she tried, she’d fall apart but she made one thing very clear. He abused Gianna. And not just once or twice, he did it for years. He kept hurting her until it changed who she was. She used to tell me that Giovanni didn’t just leave scars on Gianna’s body..He left them in her mind. The girl she could have become, he stole

that from her.”

The room disappeared, my brain simply stopped registering it. Everything became distant.

Only one sentence remained.

He abused Gianna.

I didn’t blink, I didn’t move. People expected horror to look loud. They were wrong. The louder the storm inside my head became, the quieter my body grew.

Someone said my name.

I couldn’t tell who.

My thoughts had narrowed until there was only one image.

Gianna.

She was a child when she came to Chicago. Children learned from repetition. If someone hurt them enough, their minds adapted, their bodies adapted. Their entire view of the world adapted.

The pieces I had spent months trying to understand suddenly began sliding into place.

The way she apologized after she had done anything wrong.

The way she watched people’s faces before speaking.

The way she expected me to slap her back for the smallest mistake.

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