My Stepbrother’s Dangerous Touch

SORRY PAPILO

Charlie's pov

For the first time in my life I watched my father choose peace and nearly fell out of my chair.

Fredrick Benedetti stood slowly. The guns were still raised. The room was still holding its breath. And he looked across the table at all of it, Marco, Dante, the fifth born, Aldo's son, with the particular expression of a man who found the entire display mildly inconvenient.

"Lower them."

Not a shout. Not a threat. Just two words dropped into the room like stones into still water.

The guns came down. One by one. Even Marco, jaw tight and chest heaving, eventually lowered his arm.

Aldo cleared his throat and opened his mouth.

"Aldo." Fredrick said his name like a full stop.

Aldo closed his mouth. Sat back. Folded his hands with the dignity of a man pretending he'd planned to do that all along.

"When the time comes," Fredrick said, scanning the table slowly, "everyone will be informed. Until then this discussion is closed."

Silence.

Then Isabella signaled the staff and food began arriving and just like that the most terrifying family meeting of my life pivoted into dinner. I picked up my fork and focused on my plate and tried to convince my heartbeat to behave normally.

I was almost succeeding when the doors burst open.

Not the controlled entrance of someone arriving late. The entrance of someone who didn't seem to respect the family pattern.

"Ayyyy! La famiglia!”

Alberto Benedetti. Third born. Six feet of pure chaos wearing a linen shirt, a carry-on bag still on his shoulder and the grin of a man who had absolutely no idea four guns had been drawn in this room twelve minutes ago, or knew and simply didn't care.

He dropped his bag at the door and spread his arms wide.

"Mi ha mancato, eh? Nobody texted me back by the way, very rude, very…" He stopped.

He looked around the table. Pointed at our cousin Sofia. "Sofia. Querida.Your left ear is bigger than your right."

Sofia blinked. "What?"

"It means you've been listening to too much gossip." He tapped his own ear solemnly. "Científicamente, proven. I read it somewhere." He was already moving, dropping a kiss on Isabella's cheek, ruffling the hair of the ninth born who swatted him away.

He stopped at Aldo. Our cold uncle.

"Tío. (Uncle )” He clasped Aldo's shoulder warmly. "You look tired. The guilt of being insufferable must be exhausting, no?"

Aldo's eyes twitched.

Alberto had already moved on.

I pressed my lips together hard. My shoulders were shaking. I stared at my plate like it contained the secrets of the universe.

I was dying to hold back my laughter.

"Alberto."

Fredrick's voice. The room quieted instantly.

Alberto turned, hand on his chest, expression open and innocent and completely unconvincing.

"You were asked to return yesterday. For your grandmother's ritual."

"Sí, sí, Papá, I know, I know." He winced. "I had a club…ehh…hangover …..un momento difícil. A study session ran late. Very intensive. Academic."

"A study session."

"Muy academic."

"You haven't been enrolled in anything for three years."

Alberto opened his mouth then closed it, then opened it again. "Autodidacta."

I burst out laughing.

It came out before I could stop it, loud and completely undignified, the kind of laugh that had been building since the guns came out and needed somewhere to go. Every head at the table turned toward me.

I clapped both hands over my mouth.

Alberto's face lit up like Christmas.

"Mija!" He crossed the room in five strides and grabbed both my cheeks in his palms. "My little sister! Look at you!" He pulled back, scanning me up and down with exaggerated concern. "You're skinny. Flaquita. Mama, are you feeding this child?"

"Alberto…." I said, trying to hold back my laughter.

"You're blushing." He pointed at my face. "Why are you blushing? Do you have a boyfriend?" He gasped. "¿Tienes novio?"

"Alberto." Fredrick's voice landed like a gavel.

Alberto straightened immediately. "Okay okay. Lo siento. I'm hungry. Can we eat first? Meeting after food, yes? Better decisions on a full stomach, científicamente proven."

He patted the table twice and headed toward the kitchen. Through the door I heard him immediately begin complimenting the kitchen staff in broken Italian and fluid Spanish and whatever language he invented in between.

I wiped my eyes.

For the first time in two days something in my chest felt slightly less like concrete.

★ ★ ★

The meeting was long and full of words I didn't have the vocabulary for.

Property terms. Legal inheritance structures. Clauses attached to Grandmother's estate I'd never heard mentioned before. I sat in my chair and watched mouths move and filed away the expressions, who tensed at which word, who looked at whom when certain names were read aloud.

I understood enough.

Grandmother's estate had a key. The key unlocked something. And everyone at that table wanted it.

I filed that away too.

The corridor outside my room was quiet.

I walked slowly, heels off, carrying them in one hand, the meeting still processing somewhere in the back of my skull. Three more steps and I could close my door and let today finally be over.

Then I heard it.

“Ough…argh.. fuck.”

“Arghh…so tight.”

Low. Muffled. Coming from behind the door to my left.

I stopped.

A sound that had no business being in this corridor. Breathless.

Two voices, barely contained.

“I couldn't help it, got horny , The moment I saw you at dinner…."

"Lower your voice. Someone could come."

“ Arghh…fuck, your c**k…..”

I stood very still.

Alberto was the only person in this family with that particular energy. Had to be Alberto. I almost kept walking.

Then Alberto's voice floated up from the floor below, cheerfully ordering the most expensive wine in the cellar by name.

Not Alberto.

I took one step toward the door. Then another. My hand reached for the handle slowly…

A hand closed over my mouth from behind.

Firm. Warm. Pulling me backward and away from the door in one smooth motion before I'd processed what was happening.

I grabbed the wrist instinctively.

Cedarwood. That specific darkness underneath.

Matteo.

His mouth was close to my ear, his voice barely a breath.

"Don't."