My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 772

Chapter 772

His brows pulled together, “You don’t owe me anything.”

“I do,” I held his eyes, “That day… Inside that fucking Council chamber. I sat there and watched them overrule you. I watched them tell you that Gianna belonged with Giovanni Torricelli. I watched them dismiss everything you said. And I let them.”.

“You couldn’t have stopped them,” Maddie said quietly.

I looked at her, “I could have done more. I should have done my job better,” I looked down at the memory card, But I have something now.”

All of them followed my gaze. I slowly pushed the card across the desk until it stopped in front of Vincenzo.

“They didn’t just make the wrong decision,” I leaned forward, “They handed her back to monsters. I swore/ something to myself when we walked out of that Council meeting,” my eyes never left Vincenzo, “I swore I’d make every man sitting around that table regret speaking over you. I finally know how.”

Vincenzo picked up the damaged card, “What is it?”

I walked around the desk and woke the workstation. The forensic image was already loaded. Twenty-two videos. Twenty-two pieces of hell.

I clicked the first one.

The hidden camera came to life, the white room appeared again, the chair, the restraints and then…

My little Gianna.

The only voice came from the speakers.

“…Primary Research Subject…”

Adriano frowned, “What the fuck…”

Dr. Crowe continued explaining his procedure with the same emotion someone would use while discussing weather.

Vincenzo stepped closer to the monitor. His face didn’t change but I noticed that his breathing had turned slower.

Then Gianna whispered, “I’m scared…”

Adriano whispered, “What the fuck?!”

The first shock came. Gianna’s body jerked violently against the restraints. A scream filled the office.

Maddie physically flinched. Her hand reached blindly until Adriano caught it without taking his eyes off the screen. She held onto him so tightly.

Claire slowly covered her mouth, the color drained from her face.

Vincenzo didn’t move, not a single inch but I heard his teeth grinding together. The muscles in his jaw jumped so hard I thought he’d crack a tooth.

Maddie’s eyes filled with tears almost instantly, “No… No, no…”

Claire swallowed hard. A tear escaped despite her obvious effort to stop it, “What kind of doctor…”

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She couldn’t finish the sentence.

Gianna cried, another shock, another scream, another clinical observation like she wasn’t even human.

I paused the video.

Nobody looked away from the frozen image.

Gianna’s face was covered in tears. The restraints dug into her wrists.

Adriano’s jaw flexed so hard I heard his teeth grind together, “What…” he finally found his voice, “…what the fuck did we just watch?”

Vincenzo’s voice cut him off, “Play it again.”

I looked at him, “You don’t want that.”

“I said,” his eyes never left the screen, “…play it again.”

So I did.

This time nobody spoke through the entire recording.

When it ended…

Adriano slammed both palms onto my desk so hard one of the monitors shook, “What kind of fucking animal does this to a child? What kind of sick bastard straps a little girl to a chair?”

I leaned back against the desk, “Elias Crowe.”

Claire looked at me, “Who?”

I looked back at the frozen frame, “He’s a serial killer with a medical license. He hid behind medicine. He called it research. He called her a subject.”

Claire gave her head a shake in disbelief, “Her father knew?”

“He bankrolled it, he approved every session.”

Maddie looked horrified, “He… let that happen to his own daughter?”

The words tasted filthy, “He wanted to fix her.”

“Fix her,” Vincenzo spoke, “So this,” he gestured toward the frozen screen, “He believed this would cure her?”

I swallowed, “Yes, according to what he said in those sessions, he let another man torture his own daughter because he believed pain could rebuild her brain.”

I walked closer to the monitor. My fingers rested lightly against the edge of the screen.

“They kept records, they measured her fear, they measured her pain. They even measured how long it took her to stop screaming,” I closed my eyes for one brief second, “But nobody measured what it did to her afterwards.”

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