Gaia
“Why isn’t he back here?” I shouted at Bors, the man who sat in the driver's seat of the black SUV He hadn’t said a word since we got in and had been ready to drive off until I asked him to wait. He’d been willing to wait a few minutes, but those minutes were up, and he’d turned on the engine.
“He will be out when he is ready.”
“No, something is wrong. I can feel it. I’m going back in there.”
I heard the locks click on the doors. “Open this door right now,” I shouted.
“I was given an order, Gaia, that you and Gabriel are to be driven to the mansion, and that is exactly what I intend to do.”
I completely lost it, smashing my feet against the windows. They were shatterproof, I should have known. “Fine, but you’re driving me right back if he doesn’t get home five minutes after us.” I looked at Arthur’s car in the parking lot, he’d driven here alone, just like they asked.
He nodded reluctantly.
When I entered the house and saw eleven men waiting in the foyer, I knew something was wrong.
I looked at Bors beside me, who rubbed his hands on his head.
“What is it?” Geraint asked. “Lance just brought us up to date on everything.”
“She had a vibe something was off, but he’d given me orders to get them back here.” Bors said with a grimace.
“Where the hell is he?” Geraint asked.
“I’m not sure, I just got a call that we should wait here for further instructions,” Lance said. I knew most of them by now.
I decided it was time to take action. “I know where he is, but I am only going to tell you if you let me go inside first.”
Before anyone could respond, my phone rang. “Darling,”
“Mother,” I answered coolly.
“It doesn’t have to end badly for you and your brother. Your father, Stephen, he just wants to make things right. The Calthorpes took from us for years, and it is only right that we take back. Ending Arthur will mean an end to that family’s tyranny and a start to a new rule, our rule. Castellos.” I put the phone on speaker.
What she and nobody else knew was that I was carrying a Calthorpe inside of me, and I was not about to let his or her father die. I knew the moment I missed my period that I was pregnant. I hadn’t wanted to believe it, I still didn’t want to, not after how much he’d hurt me.
“Fine, I’ll come home, but you have to let me talk to him in person one last time.”
“Even after what he did to you? He discarded you like rubbish, Gaia.”
“There are a few things I need to get off my chest.”
Iwalked into the house and was greeted with silence. It was as if the life had been drained from the walls. I looked at Charles, dead, stiff in his seat at the table. I then glanced to the spot I’d last seen Arthur. I knew this would not be simple. Even my mother was nowhere to be seen. If she even was my mother? I’d made so many sick discoveries in just a couple of hours I wasn’t sure what was true anymore. The Cavalieri were outside, they were all there, ready for Castello and his men. They hated the fact that I insisted on doing this alone, but I did not answer to them, and I could take care of myself.
I found my mother waiting for me at the end of the corridor. I knew they would not take him too far. This house was well hidden and had all the torture devices anyone could need. I had no doubt that they would torture him. She pulled a book I was familiar with slightly out of the shelf, causing the entire shelf to shift. She pushed a switch, turning the recessed lights on. She shouldn't have bothered, I knew this corridor and had walked it in darkness many times in my life. She stopped outside a door and let me enter before her. My grandfather - father - sat in a high back chair and smiled when he saw me.
“Sit,” he offered, and I took the chair opposite him although it was the last thing I wanted to do. My heart, mind, and soul were with Arthur, held somewhere in this place. A man who had exposed himself for me. I wasn’t dumb enough to think he came here for any other reason. Despite what he’d done in that club, he obviously did love me. Maybe I was fooling myself, but I felt that the scene at the club had just been a ploy to push me away.
“I know you think you can save him, Gaia. I can see it in your eyes. You love him. You cannot help it after the way you grew up.” He cast my mother a fiery look, and she looked down at her hands. “But those men outside do not have a chance against my men. My men have been training for years. They have killed all in my name, and they will do it again. Arthur’s men will all be dead by the end of this night, and as my daughter, you have to choose.”
“Him or my life?” I asked sarcastically.
“He was like a son to me, Gaia. I loved him once, but he butchered your brother, Daniel, and delivered him to me in a black plastic bag. Arthur will tell you all the lies he possibly can, but the truth is Daniel never deserved that. He was a good man who made a mistake, he fell in love with another man’s wife. But was the punishment just?”
My eyes widened. Arthur never spoke about his past. Those topics were off limits.
“He killed her, too, you know. His wife. A woman he claimed to love and vowed to protect. He wrapped his arms around her neck and took her life without a thought about the consequences, leaving his daughter motherless. He is an animal. It is in his blood to maim and kill. What makes you think he won’t do the same to you?”
