“I stopped by to offer her some company since you’re keeping her locked up.”
“That’s more of a game you and Luc like to play,” Gabe said smugly, referring to how Luc and I came into each other’s lives. It made me flush with embarrassment to have it used against me in the way he had. “I’m trying to keep her safe. You,” he took a few steps towards me and Dom stood unwavering to my left, hand on his gun, “decided to upset her in her home. You are no longer welcome at my house, Mia. No longer welcome to see her after the stunt you pulled.”
“I didn’t do anything,” I argued. It hadn’t been my intention to upset her, but they say the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
“You never do, do you?” Gabe said, looking down at me. “Just like you didn’t ask Tori for information about where Dad is?” The bodice of the dress suddenly felt way too tight and I felt way too warm. Every vessel in my face pulsed as blood rushed through it at a million beats a second. It had been a risk to ask Tori for information and it had failed miserably. “She’s my twin.” Gabe smirked. “She’ll tell me everything, Mia.”
I hadn’t said anything that would incriminate us. Not really. I’d asked her if she knew where Xavier was. It hardly seemed a question worth running back to Gabe with, but that was exactly what she’d done, and I felt like a child who’d been caught with her hand in the cookie jar.
“So, she told you how much she’s hurting without Dante?” I asked, clinging to a small piece of detail as I tried to gather my thoughts.
“She’s better off without him,” Gabe told me. “She’ll do better.”
“You’ll catch more flies with honey, Gabriel.”
“Is that what you do, Mia? Feed everyone sickly sweet morsels of you until they choke?”
“What do you want?” I wasn’t ashamed that I was out of my depths and I didn’t know how to clean up the mess that I’d made.
Gabe brought his face closer to mine and told me quietly, “I want you and Luc to fade into obscurity, and leave me and my family alone to do what we’re meant to. To look after the family. Enough of the games, Mia. Learn your place.” With his warning delivered, Gabe turned away from me, and I’d have been prepared to let him go if it wasn’t for his last comment.
Learn my place. That’s what everyone wanted me to do. Learn my place. I was meant to slot into this world and do what everyone else expected of me. Maria expected me to pull Luc away from it all. My dad expected me to leave it all behind. Xavier expected me to keep my mouth shut. No one cared about what I wanted and that meant that I had to.
“You might want to concern yourself less with what I’m doing and more with what the people around you are getting up to.”
Gabe stopped in his tracks and turned back around to look at me. “I’m not sure I’ll be taking advice from you anytime soon.”
“Watch yourself, Gabe. Someone’s got your card marked.”
It was almost unnoticeable, the flicker of unease that passed over his features. “Our cards are always marked, Mia,” he recovered quickly. “If you expect me to be scared of Luc’s attempts to—”
“Luc’s not trying to kill you,” I told him, shaking my head. I almost laughed at his thought process. “If he wanted to, he would have done it by now. We both know that. Luc’s not a patient man.”
Gabe held my stare for a few moments before taking measured steps back towards me. “You can’t spook me.”
“I’m not trying to spook you. I’m giving you fair warning. Someone took a shot at you. Someone’s not happy that you’re alive and kicking.”
“You know something,” he hissed, eyes widening in realisation. “I knew that fucker was lying to me!” Gabe had lost the cool temperament he’d arrived with and advanced on me. I stepped backwards, heel getting caught in the dress and heard the unmistakable ripping sound as I tore the skirt. Dom caught me before I landed flat on my ass and pushed me behind him.
“Gabe, if you try anything—” Dom started to tell him.
“Start talking, Mia,” Gabe told me, peering over Dom’s shoulder.
“I thought you couldn’t get spooked?” I said to him, gathering up the skirts so I didn’t have another haphazard incident.
“This isn’t about me,” he said through gritted teeth.
Gabe was worried about Chas. Worried about her more than if she was just some pawn in the game. Had I completely misjudged this? Had Gabe and Chas actually started a real relationship? Everything that I was sure of was suddenly cast into doubt.
“Tell me what you know,” he demanded.
“You care about her,” I shot back.
“That’s none of your business.”
Love was a weakness. I’d seen the way it was weaponised. You used the vulnerability that came with love and struck hard to make them crumble. Gabe wouldn’t admit to that when tensions were at its highest between our families. He didn’t need to. His actions betrayed his reluctance to admit the truth.
“And you should do your own work,” I told him.
