Chapter 61
Gabriella
It took hours for Vienna to return to me.
I’d spent some of them with Rachel, but I hadn’t wanted to encroach on her space too much. I stayed with them just long enough to watch them all relax, to make sure they ate, and then sat back, letting Rachel whisper to them as she told a bedtime story.
She fell asleep with both children in her bed, hugging them fiercely. I’d left them sleeping peacefully—something they all deserved after today.
The club was sombre, but also alive. They were drinking, talking, and simply spending time together, strengthening their bond. And I’d spent time with them, too. I thanked them, hugged the old ladies, and even poured some pints behind the bar.
But eventually I returned to my room to wait for Vienna.
And as he entered, looking like a horror movie come to life, I simply scrambled from the bed and threw myself at him. I didn’t care that he was covered in dried blood. I didn’t care that he stunk to the high heavens or that there was a dangerous, almost feral look in his eyes.
I just cared that he was here. That he was home.
He held me tight, his body shaking as he buried his head in my neck and inhaled deeply.
“I missed you,” he breathed, almost breaking my ribs with how hard he held me.
I barely even noticed.
I wrapped my arms just as tightly around him, almost strangling him. He grabbed my ass and hauled me into his arms, lowering us to the floor.
My knees were on either side of his hips, my body pressed against his, his arms wrapped around me so tightly.
And there we remained—for how long? I couldn’t say. But he kept me snug against him, rocking us gently, stroking my hair and saying everything that words simply couldn’t.
“Is it over?” I asked, not moving my head from his neck, my words muffled against his skin.
“It’s over,” he assured me.
No jokes. No humour.
Just facts.
I breathed the biggest sigh of relief.
Only to frown as he pulled away from me and rested his forehead against mine. “But we do need to talk, Gabriella,” he said.
My heart lurched.
Immediately my mind went to the worst possible of scenarios.
Was this it? Was he done with me now?
Now that he knew Nico was no longer a threat, had he stopped thinking of us as endgame and was now wanting me to make a life on my own?
“Be my old lady,” he whispered against my lips, stopping my spiral in its tracks.
“Wh-what?” I stumbled over my words.
“I want you to be my old lady. I need you to say the words. I need to hear you agree. I need to—”
“Vienna,” I laughed. Maybe even sobbed. I cut his words off with a kiss. “I’ve been yours since the moment I laid eyes on you.”
He kissed me back then, his hands sliding up my face and burying into my hair, shaking and unsteady. He kissed me with decades of pent-up emotion and longing. He kissed me for all we had lost and a promise of all we were to gain.
And I kissed him back just as hard.
“I have a present for you,” he mumbled against my lips before his tongue slipped into my mouth once more.
“Hmm?” I asked, sucking on his tongue and then massaging it with my own.
He reached into his pocket, pulling back from me, and pulled out two tiny metal items.
“What…”
“They’re for you,” he said, his hand still trembling.
I ran my finger over them, not understanding what I was looking at.
“This one,” he said, holding them flat in his palm and pointing at the skull. “Is made from Nico’s ashes. You carry what’s left of him.”
“Vienna,” I whispered.
To anyone else, this would have seemed absurd. It would have seemed borderline psychotic.
But to us?
This was fitting.
“He can’t harm you anymore, Gabriella. And every time you look down at this, I want you to remember that you defeated him. I might have been the one to end his life, but you defeated him.”
“How so?” I asked.
“Because he was broken. You made him unravel. But it’s not just that. You defeated him each and every day you survived him. You defeated him by returning to me. You did that, princess,” he whispered, stealing another kiss from me.
“And the other?” I asked, looking back down at his palm.
“This one,” he said, brushing his thumb over the small tree and swallowing heavily. “Is our baby.”
“Our…”
Tears came to my eyes.
Our baby.
My heart swelled with love, and yet broke all over again at the reminder.
“I know it’s probably not what you were expecting,” he admitted. “I could have had it made into a baby, but… that didn’t feel right.”
He swallowed hard again and cleared his throat before continuing.
“Our little one never got the chance to grow. They never got to become who they were supposed to be. So I wanted something that represented what they should have had.” He traced one of the branches with his fingertip.
“A tree grows. It puts down roots. It survives storms. It keeps living long after the seed has gone. That’s what I wanted for them. ”
I looked between the charm and him, my vision blurring with tears.
“They’re part of us, Gabriella,” he whispered. “Always. They helped grow us into who we are now. They rooted us together, even when we were apart.”
“How did you…?”
I couldn’t even finish my words. They broke with a small sob, my voice cracking.
“I kept them,” he said. “When your dad threw that bag at me, I kept it. I had it cremated, and the ashes made into this charm. I couldn’t let our baby just die like that and not be honoured. And I’ve kept it all these years, waiting for you to be ready to meet them again.”
I threw my arms around him once more and sobbed.
Not out of relief. Not out of love.
But just grief.
Grief for the baby that had been ripped from me. Grief for the life and the love that had a beginning and no future. Grief for everything. I let it all out, sobbing into Vienna’s neck until his shirt was soaked.
And he just held me.
He didn’t try to talk to me. He simply stroked my hair, my back, planted small kisses on my temples and let me work through it. He let me open the box I had buried in the back of my mind, and now held me as I processed everything.
And as I calmed, he pulled away and gave me another gift. “I went and got this,” he said, reaching into his cut, pulling out a heavy, chunky bracelet.
“How…” I breathed, looking down at the charm bracelet I had been forced to leave behind.
“I went to the Rider territory and into your old house. I wasn’t leaving any part of you behind there.”
I looked at it, my fingers softly tracing the small charms.
The lipstick, for the first party we went to, where all the lasses had kissed the boys. The mobile, for all our shared, secret texts. The dog, which had always been my favourite. My perfect, discreet reminder of my stray.
I stroked over them all, dozens of memories flooding back—the raven, the birthday cake, the pill. Everything that told the story of us.
Just us.
“I want you for life, Gabriella. I have from day one. From the moment you first opened your mouth and insulted me, you were it for me. I loved you then, and I love you now.”
“I love you, too,” I sobbed.
He gently picked up my wrist and attached my old bracelet to it. Then he picked up the new charms and secured them, kissing the tree as he did so.
“Here’s to new beginnings,” he whispered, raising my wrist and kissing the skin beneath the bracelet.
“Here’s to us.”
And then he kissed me.