My Stepbrother's Dirty Little Secret novel Chapter 96

I reached for the mouse and tapped the screen awake. The monitor flickered to life, bright light washing across my face.

Then the sound came.

A door opening.

My stomach tightened instantly before I even looked up because Raphael stepped out of his office.

Everything around him seemed to shift the second he appeared. Conversations lowered. Movements sharpened. People straightened in their chairs like invisible strings had pulled them upright.

Mr. Capone.

Boss.

Predator in a suit.

“Johnson,” he called calmly without stopping. “Where is the quarterly variance report?”

A man near the far desk stiffened instantly, “On your desk, sir.”

“Re-run the projections,” he said sharply. “Your last output had a margin error.”

“Yes, sir.”

He kept moving, “Patel,” he continued. “Update the risk dashboard before noon. I don’t want stale numbers in my meeting.”

A woman across the room nodded quickly, already typing faster.

Then his steps slowed, just slightly. His head turned and his eyes landed on me.

That same slow awareness from breakfast crawled up my spine again. The one that made my pulse speed up before anything even happened.

He stopped walking completely and then his mouth curved.

“Ms. Toricelli,” he said smoothly.

I straightened slightly in my chair without meaning to. My fingers tightened against the edge of the desk.

“Check your email,” he added calmly.

Simple words.

But the way he said them made my stomach drop straight to the floor.

My fingers froze on the mouse for half a second after he said it.

Something was wrong.

Very wrong.

I dragged the mouse across the desk, my hand moving too fast, bumping the edge of the keyboard. The cursor slid across the screen in jerky movements before landing on the email icon.

Click.

The inbox opened.

Too many lines. Too many names. Too many subject titles stacking one under another until my vision blurred slightly. Letters swam together, slipping out of place like they always did when panic hit.

Focus.

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