My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 767

Chapter 767

Gianna

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It was late at night, and the only sounds were the distant ticking of a grandfather clock and the soft footsteps of guards changing shifts somewhere downstairs.

I stopped outside Gio’s bedroom door.

For a long moment, I simply stood there. My hand hovered in the air before I finally knocked. Three quiet taps

Then his voice came through the door, “Come in.”

I pushed the door open slowly. His room was dark except for the bedside lamp, which cast a warm pool of light across the bed. Giovanni was lying against the headboard with a book resting across his lap. He looked up the moment I walked in.

He closed the book without marking the page, “You couldn’t sleep either?”

I tried to smile, “No.”

He watched me for a second before patting the empty space beside him. I crossed the room and sat beside him, drawing one leg onto the mattress.

Neither of us spoke immediately, I simply stared at my hands. They wouldn’t stay still. My fingers twisted together before I caught myself and forced them apart.

“The conversation at breakfast?” he asked quietly.

I nodded, “I can’t get it out of my head. I keep telling myself you have to be wrong,” I admitted. “Then I remember everything… and suddenly I don’t know what to believe anymore.”

“What’s hard to believe?”

My throat tightened, “I just…” I looked at him, “I need the whole truth.”

He didn’t look surprised. He only asked one question, “What do you want to know?”

I swallowed, “Did Dad…” my voice almost disappeared, “…did Dad and Dr. Vance do the same things to you that they did to me?”

Giovanni didn’t answer right away, his eyes drifted toward the window. Then he nodded, “Yes.”

The word barely reached me, I felt the air leave my lungs, “No… It doesn’t make any sense. Why? Why would they do that to you? You were his son. You were his heir. You weren’t…”

I couldn’t finish the sentence.

Giovanni did it for me, “I wasn’t different?”

I nodded weakly.

A tired smile crossed his face, “But I am. I’m dyslexic too, Gianna. Always have been.”

Everything inside me stopped.

I just looked at him.

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He gave a small nod, “Dad always knew.”

1 searched his face, waiting for him to laugh. To tell me he was joking. He never did.

“He figured it out before either of us was old enough to understand what it meant but he only needed one of us for the… sessions.”

The words sounded hollow.

“As long as he had you…” he paused, “I was free to be what he wanted me to become. I was the heir,” his eyes lifted to me, “You were the experiment.”

My stomach turned.

“He believed if Dr. Vance could understand your brain,” Giovanni’s jaw tightened, “He could fix mine without ever putting me through it.”

The room suddenly felt too small as I slowly realized why he was in a wheelchair.

“And then I left,” I whispered.

“You did.”

“And after I left, there was no one else.”

He sighed, “He never stopped searching for you. He wanted you back but he couldn’t find you. So…” a bitter laugh escaped him, “I became the only option he had left.”

I couldn’t breathe, “He put you through it?”

Giovanni nodded once, “It wasn’t as long as yours. It was just four years. He’d already gathered years of information from you. Most of what they did to me was trying to repeat what they’d learned.”

His fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.

“Two years ago, something went wrong.”

He stopped speaking.

I waited.

After several seconds, he continued, “Dr. Vance lost control of the machine… And it didn’t stop when it was supposed to.”

My heartbeat thundered inside my ears.

“I remember trying to tell him I couldn’t feel my hands. He kept looking at the monitors. I told him again. He said it was a normal response.”

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