My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 777

Chapter 777

Dad knew. He had known for two years. He knew Dr. Vance had lied. He knew the research had never proved anything. He knew the foundation of everything they had built together had fallen apart.

My chest hurt.

I looked around the room, the shelves, the files, the recordings, the photographs. The childhoods that had been stolen. The pain, screaming, broken bodies and all those broken families.

All of it…

It was built on a lie.

Dr. Arthur Vance hadn’t simply been wrong. He had fooled my father for twenty-five years.

And by the time Dad learned the truth, the damage had already been done to me, to my brother and to hundreds of other children just like me.

The report slipped from my fingers. It landed on the desk with a soft slap. I didn’t pick it up.

I sat there, staring at nothing.

My ears rang, because I finally got my answers.

Twenty-five years.

Twenty-five years of lies.

Twenty-five years of pain.

For, nothing.

A laugh escaped me. It sounded wrong. It echoed through the hidden room until it slowly turned into something else.

A sob, “No… no,” I shook my head harder, “No,” my hands grabbed handfuls of my own hair, “No!”

My breathing became uneven.

It wasn’t true.

It couldn’t be true.

There had to be another report, another explanation, another page hidden somewhere that said the investigator had made a mistake.

There wasn’t.

My eyes drifted across the shelves, thousands of files, thousands. It was not research. It was evidence.

Evidence of ruined lives.

A burning pressure built inside my chest. It spread through my ribs into my throat into my head until I couldn’t breathe around it anymore.

I slammed both hands onto the desk, “For nothing…”

The words barely came out. My fingers curled against the edge until my knuckles turned white.

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“For nothing…”

The room blurred. A little girl appeared in my mind. Five years old, holding her father’s hand, looking up at him with complete trust.

“Be brave, sweetheart.”

I squeezed my eyes shut.

I had been.

God…

I had tried so hard to be brave, every time, every single time.

The machines, the wires, the waterboarding, the straps around my wrists, the cold tables, the cuts on my body to make me bleed, the smell of rubbing alcohol.

Every time I wanted to run…

I stayed.

Because Dad told me brave girls stayed. Because Dad promised he was helping me. Because Dad promised I would get better.

A sob tore out of me, “I believed you…”

My voice echoed back at me. I remembered trying not to cry because crying disappointed him. I remembered biting the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood just so he would smile afterward.

I remembered reading the same sentence over…

And over…

And over…

ļ

Until the words danced across the page and I couldn’t tell one letter from another.

Then the electricity would come, again, again and again until I begged my own brain to work, not because I wanted to read but because I wanted Dad to hug me. Because I wanted him to say…

Good job, Gianna.

I never realized how hungry I’d been for those words. My knees gave out. I hit the floor hard. The pain barely registered. I wrapped my arms around myself.

Tears poured down my face, “I wasn’t asking for much…”

Just one book, one page. One day where reading didn’t make me feel stupid. One day where Dad looked proud.

One day.

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