My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 761

Chapter 761

Those are small things, easy things to miss. A mother doesn’t miss them.

Neither, I think…

Do you.

Maybe the two of you will become something beautiful, maybe you won’t.

That choice belongs to both of you, not to me.

My reason for writing goes far beyond that.

There are things about Gianna that few people truly understand or know.

She smiles more now than she used to. She laughs more often. Some days she even looks peaceful. People see those moments and believe she’s healed.

She isn’t.

The storms inside her mind haven’t disappeared. She’s simply become better at hiding how loud they are.

The doctors wanted to help. They offered medicine to quiet the noise in her mind. She refused every single time because she’s unbelievably stubborn.

Once Gianna decides something…

Moving her is like trying to move a mountain with your bare hands.

The harder you push, the deeper she digs her heels into the ground.

I argued with her.

I pleaded with her.

I cried.

Nothing changed her mind.

She would smile, kiss my forehead, tell me she was alright, then continue carrying more pain than anyone her age should ever have to carry.

I loved that girl with everything I had. I tried to give her every piece of the childhood she had been denied. I celebrated every small victory, every smile, every laugh, every day she chose to keep moving forward.

But love, no matter how deep it is, cannot erase years of damage all by itself. There are wounds that become part of the way a person sees the world.

Her father left those behind.

Even now, after everything, Gianna still searches for love where it never truly existed.

She still believes that somewhere beneath everything he did, there was a father who loved his little girl.

She holds onto that hope with both hands. It breaks my heart every time I see it because the man she keeps searching for was never there.

I don’t believe he loved Gianna for who she is. I believe he loved what she represented.

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A reflection of himself.

An extension of his own ambitions.

And somehow, despite everything she’s endured. She still cannot bring herself to see the difference.

There is something else I need to admit. You may not understand my decision. Perhaps, if I were reading this letter instead of writing it, I wouldn’t understand it either.

Salvatore is my husband. He has shown me kindness. He gave my daughters a home when we needed one more than anything.

For that, I will always be grateful.

But gratitude and trust are not the same thing. Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying he is cruel to me. He isn’t. He has never raised his hand against me. He has never made me fear for my own safety.

But I have lived long enough to know that a person can be good to one individual while being someone entirely different to the rest of the world.

Your father is proof of that.

Salvatore has darkness inside him. I see it. I’ve always seen it. I simply made peace with looking away from the parts of him I could never change. Sometimes that’s the only way people survive.

You learn which questions not to ask. Which doors not to open. Which silences are safer left untouched. That doesn’t make him evil but it doesn’t make him the man I would choose to leave this burden with, either.

When it comes to Gianna…

My heart tells me to place it in your hands instead. Maybe that sounds foolish. Maybe it even sounds unfair but mothers learn to listen to instincts they cannot explain.

Mine has never been louder than it is now.

I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. I don’t know what life will make of you and Gianna. Perhaps you’ll grow old together. Perhaps you’ll walk separate paths before either of you realizes what almost happened.

That part isn’t mine to decide.

What I do know…

What I believe with all my heart…

Is that no matter what happens between the two of you, you and your brothers will never stop seeing Gianna and Jules as family.

I’ve watched the six of you for too long to believe otherwise.

Love may change.

Life may change.

People may change.

But the bond between brothers…

That is not so easily broken.

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