My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 698

Chapter 698

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“I did!” Jules protested.

“You walked straight into the wall, Jule-for-Brains.”

She gasped dramatically before swatting his arm, “Because you distracted me.”

Silvio chuckled from the seat beside them, “You’ve created a monster.”

“I know,” Dante answered proudly.

I watched them quietly. Jules laughed so easily around them now. She belonged here. She looked safe, loved and protected.

A small ache settled inside my chest. I was happy for her. I truly was. But I couldn’t stop wondering if she looked at me differently now.

If she believed I had chosen Giovanni over all of them.

My eyes drifted through the cabin.

Raphael sat near one of the windows. A file rested open on the table in front of him. He hadn’t looked at me once since we boarded. His attention never left the papers in front of him.

The distance between us wasn’t measured in seats. It felt measured in miles. I lowered my eyes to my hands.

“I’ve never seen him like this,” Salvatore’s quiet voice pulled me from my thoughts.

I looked towards him, “Me neither…”

Salvatore sighed softly before folding his hands together, “I shouldn’t have told them.”

My head lifted, “What?”

He stared down at the polished wooden table between us, “I told my sons everything Hazel ever told me about you and Giovanni. I couldn’t keep it from them. I couldn’t watch my sons walk into that Council meeting blind.”

I lowered my eyes.

So that was it.

That was why Raphael had looked at me the way he had. Why he’d held me so tightly. Why did he say my father’s name as though it belonged to a monster.

“He doesn’t understand,” I whispered.

Salvatore studied my face for several seconds, “Neither do you.’

I looked up sharply, “My father loved me. He took care of me in every way he could.”

Salvatore’s shoulders sank, “Gianna…”

“He did!”

“He also hurt you.

I shook my head, “No.”

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“You were a child.”

“He was teaching me. It was everyone else…” I swallowed, “He never laid a hand on me… not even when he believed I’d betrayed him.”

Salvatore closed his eyes for a brief moment. When he looked at me again, the sadness in them was almost too much to bear.

“Hazel trusted me with everything,” he said quietly. “In her final moments, she told me she could leave this world in peace because she knew you and Jules would be safe with us. And now… I can’t help feeling like I’ve failed her.”

I felt my heartbeat begin to race.

A tired smile crossed Salvatore’s face, “When my time comes, I’ll have to face Isabella again… and now you have added Hazel to that list too. And when they ask me if I kept the children they entrusted to me safe…”

His throat tightened. He looked back at me, heartbreak filling his eyes.

“I won’t know how to answer them because I couldn’t protect any of you the way I promised I would. Not my boys, and not you.”

The words settled over me and suddenly I couldn’t breathe.

Salvatore reached over and gently covered my tightly clasped hands with one of his own, “I know you love Raphael.

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Tears burned behind my eyes, “I do.”

“And I know my son,” a faint smile crossed his face, “He has his mother’s heart.”

I glanced toward Raphael and he still hadn’t looked up.

Salvatore continued quietly, “He may lose his temper. He may even convince himself he never wants to see you again but that won’t be the end. The Capones fight.”

His smile grew a little sadder and I looked back at him.

“We argue louder than anyone. We hold grudges. We say things they don’t mean.”

I thought about the night before.

Raphael’s red eyes, his shaking hands. The way he’d refused to look at me.

Salvatore gently squeezed my hand, “But when the anger burns itself out. We always find our way back to one another.”

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