My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 769

Chapter 769

Dr. Vance’s signature.

I wrapped my hand around the book and pulled.

Click.

The same quiet metallic sound echoed through the wall. I took two quick steps back. The bookshelf trembled before slowly sliding aside. Cold white lights flickered on one by one.

The hidden room opened before me. It looked even larger now that I really looked at it. Shelves stretched from floor to ceiling, it had boxes, binders, computer stations, locked cabinets, and row after row of thick files.

The door behind me slid shut with a soft mechanical hum. I jumped. For one brief second, panic rushed through me then I forced myself to breathe.

“It’s automatic,” I whispered to myself.

I walked farther inside, every shelf carried neat labels, not names, numbers.

Hundreds of them.

No.

Thousands.

Each identical gray folder sat perfectly aligned. My stomach tightened. I reached for the very first folder.

Dust hadn’t even settled on it. Someone had handled it many times over the years. I opened it. Inside were hundreds of pages, dense paragraphs, charts, brain scans and handwritten observations.

I pulled out my phone, and the app opened automatically. I scanned the first page. Within seconds, the handwriting became clear text across my screen.

I read the first line.

Primary Research Subject 0001

I frowned, the next line appeared.

Name: Giovanni Toricelli.

My breath caught.

I blinked.

Then read it again.

1/3

+15 BRZUS

Giovanni…

Toricelli.

It was not my brother.

It was Dad.

1 stared at the screen.

No.

That couldn’t be right.

With trembling fingers, I scanned the next page.

Age at enrollment: Nineteen.

The room suddenly felt colder.

Dad.

Dad had been Dr. Vance’s first subject. I turned to the next page, and saw the first medical evaluation.

“Developmental reading disorder consistent with dyslexia. Persistent deficits despite conventional educational intervention. Subject displays exceptional reasoning, pattern recognition, spatial processing, and executive function. Reading impairment remains resistant to treatment.”

My chest tightened.

He…

He really was dyslexic?

Dad?

I kept reading, the following pages weren’t normal medical notes, they read more like a manifesto. Every sentence became harder to stomach than the last.

“Current scientific understanding assumes dyslexia represents a fixed developmental difference. This assumption is intellectually lazy.”

Another paragraph.

“The brain constantly rewires itself in response to repeated stimuli. Extreme physiological stress may accelerate adaptive restructuring beyond naturally occurring neuroplasticity.”

I frowned.

Adaptive…

Restructuring?

I continued.

“Pain produces widespread neurochemical release, heightened electrical activity, and survival-driven learning states. If delivered in controlled conditions while specific cognitive pathways are repeatedly activated, permanent neurological reorganization may become possible.”

2/3

Chahe

+158grus

I stopped breathing as I turned another page.

“Scarring is traditionally viewed as damage. I propose that selective neurological scarring may instead redirect inefficient pathways toward more functional networks, improving cognitive performance through forced biological adaptation.”

I lowered the phone. My stomach rolled as I looked around the room. One of the nearby desks held an older computer beside stacks of labeled discs.

The first disc matched the file in my hands.

Hands shaking, I slid it into the drive, the monitor hummed to life. One folder appeared called Research Sessions

I clicked, the screen filled with dates, hundreds of them. The earliest recording opened, the picture flickered before sharpening.

A young man sat in a heavy steel chair, his dark hair was shorter, his face smoother but there was no mistaking him.

Dad.

He was nineteen years old here. He sat perfectly still while wires were attached across his temples.

Dr. Vance stepped into view. He looked younger too, “Session one.”

My chest tightened.

Dad gave a single nod, “Ready.”

There was no fear in his voice as the recording continued, questions, reading exercises, memory tests, then the first electrical pulse.

Dad’s jaw tightened. His fingers curled around the arms of the chair but he didn’t make a sound.

Another pulse went through his system, and his breathing grew heavier. Sweat formed across his forehead. His entire body trembled, still he kept pushing through, he kept reading, kept answering, kept trying.

P

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