by Zavi James
“Should you be telling me all this?”
“We’re both after the same thing, Mia. Acceptance. Plus, who would you tell? Who would believe you?” Gabe was safe in his confession. I was untrusted and he was a Moretti. Even if someone decided to listen to me, they’d take his word over my own.
“How would marrying me help you with any of that?”
“Some traditions don’t die off. A wife and a family would definitely help my cause.” He spoke as if he were reciting items for grocery shopping and not lifelong commitment. “It would be mutually beneficial, of course.”
“How do you reckon?”
“Don’t you see it?” he asked, amused. “You tie yourself to me and you’ll stop being a social pariah here. You won’t need to worry about anything, bella. You’ll be taken care of for the rest of your life in an enviable position. No one would dream of trying to take out the woman who is on the highest rung of the pecking order. All you have to do is help us get there.”
A small part of me could see the appeal in the offer Gabe had placed on the table. If Gabe took over after Xavier was gone, which seemed the most likely exchange of power, then everyone would answer to him. All of the fear that plagued every waking moment would be dimmed by the fact that people would be forced to respect me for who I was, but I didn’t want that. As powerless as I felt, I couldn’t imagine being trapped in a loveless marriage just so that I could buy some respect back into my life.
“I don’t think that’s a good idea, Gabriel,” I told him, worried about the consequences of declining his offer. Everything had a price. I’d been foolish to believe that Gabe had agreed to me being here purely out of friendship. He’d had his own agenda and he’d just shown me his cards, but I had no interest in this game. “I’m sure you’ll find another way to secure your position.”
“Just think about it. Don’t make any hasty decisions,” he responded. “Oh, and while you’re here you’ll be assigned your own security, for your own safety as well as making sure you don’t pull anymore disappearing acts. After all, you’ve proven you’re a flight risk.” He turned on his heel and went to leave the room.
After a moment of processing what he said, I followed behind. “I thought you’d be around.”
“Unfortunately, I have other business that I’ll need to attend to, but Franco will be by your side 24/7. He’s been with the family for as long as I can remember. You’ll be safe with him.”
I didn’t bother to tell him that I doubted I would feel safe with anyone. Luc had been trying to introduce me gently, but this pace made me feel as if I was drowning. This entire world was a minefield, and after my impulsive decision I was starting from scratch in learning who I could trust and who would give me theirs in return.
“Franco!” A man, older than Gabe and dressed head to toe in black, strode down the hallway toward us. His dark hair was buzzed short and his eyes were empty as he stopped in front of us.
“Mia, this is Franco. Franco, this is Mia Griffin.” Gabe introduced us to one another. It was hard to miss the way Franco tensed on hearing my name. His eyes moved to my face, flicking down to my bump and back up again. Instinctively, I wrapped my arms around my middle. It seemed my reputation preceded me these days. “You’ll be in charge of Mia’s security from here on out.” It wasn’t a request but an order. Franco opened his mouth in what I assumed was a bid to argue. “Any other assignment ceases effective immediately. This is your only job from now on,” Gabe told him, coldly. “I trust that you’ll carry it out just as meticulously as the rest.”
“Of course,” Franco replied, although he didn’t seem thrilled about landing the babysitting job. At least that made the two of us.
Chapter Fourteen
Mia
Living with Gabe was strange and unsettling, especially after his proposition. There were times when it was just the two of us, three if you included my unwilling shadow Franco, and I would catch his stare. He was waiting for an answer and although Gabe had said “no rush,” I felt there might have been a time limit surrounding his offer. His supposed good nature would run thin eventually.
Spending time alone with Gabe, without the buffer of his sister or Luc and Dante, brought to light some qualities that I’d missed. Every laugh lacked depth, every word hid meaning, and he never truly seemed at ease, unlike Tori. Yet, I was hesitant to decline his offer again because he was my lifeline for the moment. I had no intention of accepting it, but until we decided what to do next, I would keep all options on the table for as long as possible. Two days in and he hadn’t brought it up, but I could sense the imaginary timer ticking.
“Are you sure you don’t want anything?” I asked over my shoulder as I dried the dish. Franco hadn’t touched a thing for breakfast. I originally thought it might be because of Gabe, but this morning he had left for work before I’d woken up and Franco still refused food.
“No.” One word answers were the norm for Franco. I never got much more than that out of him, but then again, I hadn’t really tried. Gio’d had a trace of warmth in him, most likely a side effect of being tied to Carmen, but Franco left a chill in my bones. He was there, quite literally, from the moment I woke until the moment I went to bed, watching my every move with a simmering anger that said this job was beneath him.
“Okay,” I said, putting the dish away. “I’m going to go read in the living room.” His face remained impassive and I heaved a sigh before walking out of the room. Almost instantly, I heard his footsteps behind me like a sinister, unwanted shadow that I couldn’t get rid of.
As I settled into the chair, adjusting my sweatshirt that had started to rise over my bump, Franco took his usual post by the large window overlooking the drive. As I picked up the book, I’d started last night, Franco let out a quiet laugh. “This will be interesting,” he muttered more to himself than to me.
“What?” I asked, craning my neck. From the angle I was sat at I couldn’t see anything. Placing the book back down, I heaved myself out of the chair only to hear the door close. Gabe was back from whatever had pulled him away so early.
“You’re about to find out.” There was a malicious glint in Franco’s eye that made my stomach clench. Had Dante told Luc where I was? Were we about to have round two, once again, completely unplanned?
Voices grew louder until Gabe appeared at the doorway with his father beside him. Xavier’s interest in continuing the conversation dropped instantly and his icy blue eye landed on me. His silver hair was slicked back, clothing impeccable, and he bore none of the stresses of the past few months. A silver fox that could charm his way out of most situations with a few words and a signature on a check.
“Mia,” Xavier greeted me.
I suddenly lost the ability to swallow at the sight of him before me. Everyone else had made me feel a rush of panic before it was replaced by a lingering nostalgia. With Xavier, the panic rooted me to the spot, and I didn’t know what to do with myself. He had received exactly what he wanted the moment I’d packed my bag and left, but standing with him now I half expected him to pull out a gun and aim it at me.
“You’ve come back.” His tone was completely neutral, much like Gabe’s had been after the initial shock. “And with an added surprise.”
My bump was not the most prominent, so Gabe must have filled him in. I breathed in, as if my stomach would sink away in an attempt to protect my unborn child. If there was anyone in the world he would need protecting from, it would be this man.
“Gabriel, Franco, I’d like a moment alone with Mia.”
Whether it was the blatant panic that I could no longer hide, or the fact that Xavier was giving orders in his house, Gabe stepped in. “No,” Gabe told him. “We’ll be staying.”
Xavier turned toward his son. “I’d like to remind you who you’re speaking to, Gabriel.”
“And I’d like to remind you who’s house you’re in.”
“A house that I bought,” Xavier snapped. “Now, you did well to tell me she was back,
and I’d like to speak to her alone.”
Why had Gabe told his Dad I was back in town? I would place my money on the fact it was because I hadn’t given him an answer he wanted yet. There were plenty of ways to skin a cat. If he couldn’t gain favor with the rest of the family, then he’d attempt to gain Xavier’s approval, to forge a stronger bond between them, even if it meant selling me down the river. A flicker of anger sparked in my chest.
When Gabe didn’t move, Xavier barked, “Out!”
Gabe looked to Franco and there was a beat of silence before Franco crossed the room and they both left me alone with Xavier. Gabe might have just proven himself untrustworthy but I’d yet to see him be lethal. I would have preferred to have him in the room, especially considering he hadn’t wanted to leave us alone in the first place. He didn’t trust his father and neither did I. Being alone with this man had been a situation that plagued my nightmares, but surely, he wouldn’t kill me in cold blood at his son’s house? Pregnancy was making me delirious if I thought that was true.
“Does Luc know you’re back?” Xavier gave the door a gentle nudge and it clicked shut softly before taking a few steps toward me.
“Yes.” The word sounded weird, almost like it hadn’t come from my mouth.
“Interesting,” he mused. “He hasn’t mentioned it.” That surprised us both. I thought Luc would have gone straight to Xavier with the news. After everything Dante had told me, it sounded like they were both leading the crusade against my existence. “I’ll need to have words with him,” Xavier said.
“I know you took the note I left.” My brain tripped and stumbled over so many things that it was a roulette as to what I could say to him and apparently that was what it landed on.
“What note?” Xavier asked with mock innocence that made me want to reach out and slap him. Innocent wouldn’t even make the list in words that could be used to describe him.
“You know exactly what note,” I hissed. The flicker had begun to grow into something steadier. “You twisted all of this to suit your needs.
“I run a business, Mia. I capitalized on what would get me the best deal. You’d have been better off staying away from all of this. I would have been happy to let you live your life as long as you weren’t on my doorstep.”
“No, you wouldn’t,” I told him. “You wanted me dead.”
“Only if we found you,” he said, lips twisting into a cruel smile.
“I heard you had quite the struggle with that.” That wiped the smile clean off his face. Xavier might have been looking, but his attempts had been unsuccessful, and I knew that for a fact.
“It would have been a matter of time.”
“If you say so.” I relished in the fact that I had gotten under his skin. That calm composed demeanor had been ruffled by a few words concerning his incompetence.
“But you’re back now,” Xavier reminded me. “Right where I can keep a close eye on you.”
“You’re not going to do anything.” Even as I said the words, I had no guarantee of them. All I knew that was, as much as Xavier might have wanted me dead, there were others who wanted to keep me alive. I had stumbled onto the chessboard with a match already in play, and people were trying to decide where to place me to gain an advantage.
The smug expression reappeared on his face. “Not until you give birth to my grandchild.”
A shiver ran down my spine. During this entire pregnancy, I hadn’t quite connected the dots that Xavier would be my child’s grandfather. “You don’t even want anyone knowing Luc’s your son,” I blurted out. “You’re not going to want anyone knowing you have a grandchild.”
“No, but it doesn’t mean I can’t keep it close. I’ll convince Luc to fight for the child. Wait until you make your next mistake, because everyone will be waiting for it, and then dispose of you like I should have in the first place.”
My time was borrowed. I was only of use now because I was growing a child that would become another piece in the game. While I had been away, Xavier had been twisting Luc around to his way of thinking, and, having witnessed the way Luc had gone off at me, I couldn’t bank on the fact that he couldn’t go along with everything Xavier told him.
As he pressed a kiss to my cheek, my body froze, muscles coiled with fear. “Enjoy your stay, Mia. It won’t be for long.”
Chapter Fifteen
Lucas
It wasn’t often that my presence was requested by Xavier, so when he called me earlier that afternoon, I knew it had to be important. I had a sneaking suspicion that I already knew what the meeting would regard, and I wasn’t exactly a willing participant. I hadn’t spoken to anyone about it, not even Dante when he returned to work. Instead, I had tied myself in knots, arguing with myself over every little thing.
Mia had been a consistent occupant of my thoughts since the moment I’d met her, but since seeing her again in Dante’s kitchen it was like I had no reprieve. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw her face, shocked and devastated and beautiful. I replayed our exchange over and over until it drove me to the brink of madness. All the things I’d said to her were an attempt to make her hurt, to feel pain on the same level that I’d experienced it.
A small part of me regretted not listening to her. Late at night, when the house was still and I was alone in my room, I thought about the ways I could have handled it. She said she’d made a mistake. I could have taken her into my arms and told her that she was forgiven. I could have listened to her and reassured her, let her wrap around my senses again and submitted to her will. I could have had all of my questions answered, but instead, I’d let my anger corrupt the situation as it often did, and we were no closer than when she had vanished.
That anger remained white hot. She’d pulled a gun and taken a shot. Deep down, I think my world had started to corrupt her black and white view. There was no good and bad, just bad and worse. There was something about seeing her fight that made my rage all the worse. In every imagined scenario, Mia took her punishment, doe eyed like Bambi’s mother, but to see her fight back… well, that had made things interesting. That was what I should have expected. That was what had drawn me to her in the first place. Mia’s inability to realize what she was up against, to fight when she felt she or someone close to her had been wronged was what had pulled me under when we’d met.
“Come in, Lucas,” Xavier said, answering the door. “We’ll go through to the study.”
I followed him silently through the house, mind still wrapped up in Mia and what she might be doing now. Dante had returned to work, effectively choosing me over her. There had been a momentary panic that he might be swayed by her, but he’d turned up, unimpressed and with a black eye, but there all the same.
“How are you doing?” Xavier asked as we entered his study. The walls were lined with old books and a dark wooden desk sat by the window.
“Fine,” I said shortly.
Xavier took the stopper out of a bottle of amber liquid and poured two glasses before handing one to me. The malty scent filled my nostrils and reminded me of Dad. He was probably up there, or more likely down there, shaking his head at the mess that I was in. You’ll understand one day, Son, how a single woman can hold your entire world in her hands. Dad’s voice rang clear in my head. I was fifteen at the time and hadn’t believed a word of it. I’d never make myself soft for the likes of a woman. Never fall so hard that I wouldn’t be able to pick myself up again. I bet God laughed at my arrogance. It was my belief that he created Mia just to spite me.
“Are you sure about that?” With his glass, he gestured to my face and the liquid sloshed wildly but remained contained.
If Dante bore the physical effects from our scrap, then I was his mirror image. There had been so much said in that fight that neither of us had been able to verbalize. We’d barely exchanged a word since, apart from me giving orders.
“I said I’m fine.” The last thing Dante needed was for me to spill all to his future father in law. The poor idiot had already dr
awn the short straw there, and I didn’t want to add to his issues by confessing his role in my current state.
“If you say so.” He didn’t look convinced, but he wasn’t pushing the matter. “I asked you around to discuss a development regarding your situation.” He had never been one to beat around the bush. “It appears that woman made a reappearance in our lives.”
I drank from the glass, alcohol causing the split in my lip to sting viciously, before replying, “I know.”
He didn’t seem shocked by my response. “And you didn’t think to tell me? I was surprised to see Gabe had taken her in.”
“What?”
He cocked his head to the side and shrugged. “My understanding is that she’s living with my son.”
It took a herculean effort to keep my face neutral on receiving that piece of information. I had no clue what had happened to Mia after our showdown at Dante’s. The less I knew, the better, while I tried to straighten out the tangle of emotions. I’d told him to take her back to wherever he had found her; the last thing I had expected was to hear that she had moved in with Gabriel.
Tension between me and my Godbrother had steadily risen over the past few months. The joy he had expressed when I’d first walked back into the family fold had quickly dissipated the more time I spent with Xavier, putting Gabe’s position in the family in jeopardy. I was a safe bet if I were to ally myself to Gabe, another man at his beck and call when Xavier left us, but my handiwork had seen family slowly turning to me when they couldn’t find Xavier. So, what was he playing at taking in Mia when he knew how they all felt about her? Going against his father’s feelings wasn’t going to help his case.
“This is a personal matter, not a family one.” My words were tight as my mind tried to figure out just what Gabe’s motives were. I didn’t trust for one moment that he was doing it out of the kindness of his black heart. There wasn’t just Gabe to consider, but Mia as well. Why had she gone to him? She’d proven herself resourceful to have stayed hidden away for so long. She’d also proven that she would take a shot at me. Just under the surface, the question remained: could I return fire?