by Zavi James
“Chas—”
“Actually, Mia, I’m not feeling so good. I think I have a bit of a headache coming on. Maybe we can catch up another time?” she said. Her eyes were glassy, and I realised I had probably hit a nerve discussing her father.
The guilt rose hard and fast and had me nodding. “Sure,” I said, pushing the full mug away from me and standing from my chair. “I’ll see myself out. I hope you feel better soon, Chas.”
Perhaps it was time that I started listening to Luc.
Chapter Thirteen
Mia
Five dresses in, and I was exhausted. I’d tried two mermaids, a two-piece, boho chic, and a slinky, sexy number that was a definite no as it wasn’t anywhere near church appropriate. Dress number six held some promise. The sleeves were lace, something I liked and made note to speak to the designer about, but the skirt was a little too big for my liking. Nevertheless, I stepped into it with the assistant fastening it in all the right places and clipping it along the back so I could see how it would fit if it was my size. This was the last one. No more playing dress-up after this.
I bunched up the skirt in my hands so that I wouldn’t trip and fall flat on my face but as the assistant opened the door she was met with Dom, looking stony faced. “I think it would be best if you took a coffee break,” Dom said to the assistant and I felt my heart stop.
“What’s happened?” I asked him. It was the first week of February but the chill I felt in my blood was less to do about the winter weather and more to do with the ominous way Dom had suggested the assistant leave us.
“We have a little problem we need to deal with,” Dom said. “Luc and Link are both fine.” The clarification calmed my heart.
We walked down the hallway from the changing room back onto the floor and my stomach dropped. The store had been cleared of staff and Katia and Rosalie were nowhere in sight. Instead, Gabe sat on a chaise lounge with his ankle crossed over his leg, picking lint off the cuff of his dark coat. He looked up as we joined him in the space, and arched an eyebrow. “You’ll make a beautiful bride, bella. If you make it to your wedding day.” He looked past me to the assistant. “Your colleagues are waiting for you outside. A well-earned coffee break. I’m sure she’s kept you busy.” He nodded towards me.
The woman had paled as she glanced from Gabe to Dom to Michael and the others Gabe had brought with him. What she assumed would be a day of high commission sales had quickly soured. She didn’t argue as she left our side and timidly walked out of the shop.
“Where are Katia and Rosalie?” I asked him once the door closed.
“They were only too happy to oblige when I asked them for a private audience with you,” he answered, stretching his arms out as he leaned back against the seat, taking me in. Rosalie and Katia wouldn’t want to get caught in the crossfire so they had agreed to leave me with the wolf. Loyalty ran as far as it could before self-preservation kicked in.
I dropped the skirts from my hands and wrapped my arms around my middle, feeling uncomfortable standing in front of Gabe in a wedding dress. “A phone call, Gabriel. Or visit the house. It’s a little creepy that you chose to just impose on wedding dress shopping.”
“Uncomfortable with imposition? In the same way you’ve been imposing yourself on Chas?” Gabe asked with a spark of anger. He pushed himself away from the back of the chaise and stood up.
“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.
“I hope you sleep well at night.” Gabe stepped back away from Dom. “I hope you are happy with the life you’re living, dragging innocent people like Chas into your fights.”
Gabe had hit me where it hurt most. He hit me in my conscience. I know that Luc wanted to keep it a secret. He wanted to let it play out whatever way fate or God decided but that didn’t sit well with me, and Gabe’s word had made the guilt weigh down on me again. I didn’t want there to be any more casualties that necessary.
“Look closer to home,” I spoke the words to his retreating back.
“Fuck you, Mia,” Gabe told me viciously, not bothering to look back. “My family isn’t trying to kill me.”
“Look closer to home,” I repeated. It was childish but I felt like if I didn’t tell him the name, if I made him figure it out on his own that I somehow kept my word to Luc.
Gabe looked back as he opened the door to the store. The crease in his brow straightened out as the pieces fell into place. He didn’t say another word as he turned around, three men following out behind him.
Dom turned around to face me and I collapsed against him, letting out a shaky breath and feeling my eyes sting with tears.
“We need to get you home. Now,” Dom muttered against my hair, hugging me close. “And Luc’s going to need to know about this.”
Chapter Fourteen
Lucas
“Take him around to Dante’s. Tell him I’ll call when I’m done here,” I instructed Dom, handing Link over in his carry cot.
“Take it easy on her,” Dom said, letting the professionalism slip. He’d always care for Mia deeper than what his employment required. It’d been my mistake not to assign him the job properly in the first place and stop a friendship from flourishing. He was caught between his love for her and his duty and that was partially the reason we’d landed in this position. Dom had been bent to Mia’s will, allowing her to visit Chas and starting the domino effect that led to Gabe seeing her this afternoon. “It’s been a rough couple of weeks.”
“Don’t tell me how to run my relationship.”
Dom’s lips pressed together, holding back any retort he had. “See you in the morning,” he said, leaving the doorstep with Link in tow.
The moment they disappeared from view, I slammed the door shut. As I turned around, I caught Mia in the hallway, looking like a deer in headlights. She was swamped in one of my sweatshirts, sweatpants and hair coiled up on the crown of her head. She was fresh-faced and looked exhausted, but I couldn’t push past all the rage that ricocheted through my system.
Dom and Michael had both explained the full story when I arrived home promptly after the phone call. Mia had been in the shower as they recounted the trip and when she emerged, she didn’t argue when I dismissed everyone and told her Link would be going to Dante’s. She’d barely been able to look me in the eye.
“I’m going to grab a book,” she said, hightailing it back down the hall towards the study. I heard her mutter something along the lines of an early night, but she wasn’t getting away that easily. Following her down the hall, I caught the door to the study before it shut, and she whirled around to face me.
“I suggest you tell me what you’ve been getting up to,” I said, advancing on her. “And remember the rules.” No lies. I expected her to be honest with me and we had faltered on that in the past. I wouldn’t tolerate it anymore. Mia swallowed hard as I stopped in front of her. “Dom already told me what happened today.”
It was like a switch that got flipped in her. I’d seen it a dozen times before. No matter how tired or how scared she was, when Mia was cornered something made her fight back. She’d all but run to the study for cover, she knew what was coming and tried to avoid it, but I was here giving her no choice, and so she’d take me on with everything she had.
“Gabe came by the store when we were out shopping today,” Mia said, drawing herself to full height. Without the heels, she only came up to my chest rather than my chin.
It made me twitch to know that Gabe had seen Mia clad in a wedding dress. Even though it wasn’t the one she would wear on the day, the spark of jealousy burnt wildly in my chest. “Continue,” I said through gritted teeth.
“He wanted to warn me to stay away from Chas.”
“And why would he do that?”
There were small tells in the way Mia moved that told me she wasn’t as far gone as the rest of us, that she still got nervous in these situations. Her eyes flicked away from my face, past my shoulder to the door, and back again.
“Because,” she said, “I stopped by to visit her.”
“After I told you to stay away from that family?” I took another step towards her and instinctively Mia stepped backwards. She bumped against the bookshelf and I caged her in with my arms. No escape. I would hear everything she had to say. Mia’s personal private confessional conducted by me.
“Yes,” she admitted. Mia would drive me to an early grave with the trouble she welcomed.
“What else?”
“Nothing else.”
“Don’t lie to me,” I told her.
“I fucked up!” Mia said, cracking. “I fucked up. I asked Tori for help. Angelo said he needed something more to find Xavier and I pressed her to tell me where Xavier was. She mentioned that he’d been calling in to check on Gabe. You interrupted us at the christening, or she’d have told me something more. She told Gabe, and he got under my skin so I... I sort of told him about Silas and the shooting.”
I bit the inside of my cheeks so hard that I tasted blood, the soft flesh giving way to the sharp edges of my teeth. Mia had given away every card that we had.
“They know about Angelo,” I said. It wasn’t a question.
“No,” she said desperately. “No. I never said a thing about Angelo.”
My heart rate dropped a few beats. Not every card then. But enough that I needed to do some damage control. “I’m going to kill Angelo for getting you involved,” I said, looking Mia in the eye. “Then I’m going to kill Gabe for thinking he had any right to warn you of anything.”
“No!” Mia yelled. Her hands shot out and grabbed my shirt to stop me from turning away. “This isn’t their fault. It’s my fault!”
“Let go,” I told her, looking down at her hands. “I’m not standing by and letting people drag you into a mess and threaten you because they don’t have the balls to come and speak to me.”
“I’m already involved in this mess!” she argued. We were both up to our necks in it.
“I’m not having it, Mia!” My palms slammed into the bookshelf behind her, causing it to rock with the movement. She didn’t flinch, confident in the knowledge that I would never take my anger out on her in that way.
“So, you’re just going to kill them?”
“It’s long overdue.”
“You’re a psychopath!” Mia shouted at me, trying to get through to my clouded logic.
There was a point in our relationship where that would have had some impact on me. When Mia first came into my life, she was completely unaware of the darker parallels than ran along her, day to day. Every fight we had, she used my job as a weapon against me. And then things changed. We changed. I realised that no matter what I did, no matter how tight the demons held onto me, Mia would always look at me like I had granted all of her wishes. The world that she saw as black and white had blended together until everything was grey, and even Mia had stepped into the ambiguous waters rather than sitting on the side lines.
“So are you,” I hissed in return, bringing my face close to hers. “I’ve seen what happens whe
n you lose control, princess. If you think I’m a psychopath for protecting my family then you’re right there with me.”
“We can’t keep doing this,” Mia said, moving her hands up to my face. She didn’t argue the point I’d just made because it was the truth. Mia could be equally unhinged as I was if you knew the correct buttons to press. “We can’t keep doing this,” she repeated the words slowly and clearly.
I pushed my forehead against hers. “I won’t stop, Mia. You and Link are the most important things in my life. Do you understand that? I don’t care about anything else. I will destroy the entire world if I have to in order to keep you both safe. Keep you both with me.” There wasn’t a single thing I wouldn’t do. Mia was the reason behind my existence. I would serve a thousand years and more in the depths of hell if I had my family with me every waking moment in this life.
Every fibre of my being wanted to find Angelo and beat the shit out of him for screwing up the simplest instruction of asking myself or Dante if he needed anything. He’d been happy to hand over the information he found but at risk of looking like an idiot or perhaps because he feared me slashing his pay, he’d gone to Mia when he struggled.
There was an uncontrollable desire to find Gabriel and let all of the underlying tension finally spill over. Killing Gabe would be a sure-fire way of getting Xavier back here. Fuck the promises I made to Mia about minimal casualties. She’d forgive me, given time.
“Please,” Mia said, pushing back against me. Her lips brushed against mine as she spoke. “Please. Not now. I need you.”
Those three words were like a panic button in this relationship. Everything was dropped and nothing else mattered when one of us uttered those words. I exhaled a shaky breath, pressing down on every natural instinct that ran through my veins.
“I’m sorry,” she muttered quietly, sagging against me. The adrenaline that forced her to fight dissipated away as she told me she needed support.