Chapter 40 #2
Because my focus had locked onto her the second she stepped inside, and it refused to shift now, no matter how much the situation around us changed.
The rest of the room could have gone up in flames and I still would have been stood there, watching her, trying to make sense of something that didn’t quite add up.
“Gabriella,” her father’s voice cut through the thickening tension with an ease that made my stomach twist, smooth and controlled, like he wasn’t standing in the middle of a rival clubhouse but hosting a polite fucking gathering. “You’ve kept them waiting.”
“I knew you’d want to be here for this,” she replied, her tone level, stripped of anything that made it hers. There was no bite to it, no humour tucked beneath the surface, no hint of the girl who would usually twist a simple word into something sharper just for the sake of it. It was just… empty.
My jaw tightened, the unease that had been simmering since that text settling into something colder, something far less easy to ignore. “What the fuck is this?” I asked, the question coming out lower than I intended, rough around the edges in a way I couldn’t quite control.
No one rushed to answer me.
If anything, that seemed to amuse them.
Her father’s gaze slid over me slowly, deliberately, like he were taking his time committing every detail to memory, and there was something in the curve of his mouth that told me he was enjoying this far more than he should have been.
“Vienna,” he said. “I’ve heard a lot about you.”
Dante shifted beside me, a silent warning that he was already on edge, already reading the situation for what it was.
“Say what you came to say, or get the fuck out before this turns into something you won’t walk away from.”
Crash pushed through the crowd, standing in front of me and Dante, and facing down the rival president.
“Harley,” he said. “You’ve had your fun, but you’re about five seconds away from something that can’t be recovered. And you’re already ten seconds past your welcome.”
A couple of the Riders let out low chuckles at that, the sound carrying just enough to grate against the already strained atmosphere, and it hit me then that they weren’t worried. Not even slightly. There was no hesitation in them, no uncertainty about how this might play out.
They were too comfortable.
And that should have been my first real clue.
“Go on, princess,” her father continued, his attention returning to her as though Dante and Crash hadn’t spoken at all, as though none of us were anything more than background noise. He nodded toward me, casual and almost expectant. “Show them what you’ve been working on.”
Something in my chest tightened at that, not sharp enough to be pain, but close enough that it made it harder to breathe.
“Gabby,” I said, the name coming out instinctively, grounding, like if I just said it the right way, she’d snap out of whatever the fuck this was. “What’s going on?”
Her eyes met mine then, properly met them, and for a fraction of a second I thought—stupidly, desperately—that I’d see something there. Some flicker of recognition, some sign that this was all a misunderstanding waiting to be cleared up.
There was nothing.
Not even confusion.
“Vienna,” she said, and the way she used the name made something inside me go still, completely and unnervingly still, like the world had shifted half an inch off its axis and I was the only one who had noticed. “I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on.”
The words didn’t land straight away. They hung there between us, heavy and misplaced, like they’d been dropped into the wrong conversation.
I let out a short, disbelieving breath, shaking my head once as I tried to make sense of it. “Catch on to what?” I asked, forcing a half laugh that didn’t feel right even as it left me. “You’re going to have to be a bit clearer than that, sweetheart, because right now—”
“This,” she cut in, her hand lifting in a vague gesture around the room, encompassing the Riders, the Devils, the entire situation like it was something simple, something obvious. “All of this. I didn’t think you’d be this slow about it.”
“I think we should take this somewhere more private—” Dante began, but I silenced him with the back of my hand slapped against his chest.
“No,” I said, the word firm, immediate, because whatever she was implying, whatever game this was, I wasn’t buying into it. “No, don’t start with that. If this is meant to be funny, it’s not landing. What the fuck are you talking about?”
“You told me everything,” she continued, her voice calm, almost detached. “Routes. Meetings. Who was where and when. I didn’t even have to try that hard.”
A murmur rippled through the room behind me, low and uneasy, the kind of sound that comes when people start putting pieces together they wish they hadn’t been given in the first place.
My grip tightened around the neck of the bottle in my hand, the glass biting into my palm. “No,” I repeated, quieter now, but no less certain. “No, you don’t get to twist this into something it’s not.”
“I laughed, you know,” she went on, her gaze flicking briefly to one of her own before returning to me, and there was something in the way her lips curved that made my stomach turn. “After I left you. The way you opened up like that, like I actually gave a fuck what you had to say.”
“Gabby…” I breathed, the name slipping out before I could stop it, softer this time, less certain.
“Don’t,” she snapped, and for the first time there was a flicker of something sharper in her tone, something that almost resembled emotion, before it smoothed back out just as quickly. “Don’t call me that, Vienna. "
You’re not Luke anymore.
“You meant nothing to me,” she said, holding my gaze steadily, unflinching in a way that made it impossible to look away. “The Devils meant nothing to me.”
A pause followed, deliberate, calculated, before she added, almost as an afterthought, “My dad’s been loving the updates, though.”
Her father chuckled at that, stepping forward slightly, clearly pleased with himself. “Very informative, sweetheart. You’ve done us proud.”
“No,” I muttered, the word quieter now, more to myself than anyone else. “No, this isn’t—”
“How’s the VP training going, Macbeth?” she said then, the question slipping into the space between us so easily it took a second for it to register.
Behind me, I felt Macbeth go completely rigid, felt the way Dante’s arm shot out to hold him back before he could react, before he could do something that would turn this into something far worse.
“Oh, dear,” her dad laughed. “Did Mac not get the message? You ain’t it, kid. Your younger brother is next in line. They’ve been playing you.”
I stared at her, properly stared this time, searching her face for something—anything—that would tell me this wasn’t what it looked like, that there was some angle here I hadn’t caught yet, some explanation that would make it all fall back into place.
There was nothing.
Just Gabriella.
Cold. Controlled. Completely removed from anything we had ever been.
Her father reached into his pocket then, pulling out a small, clear bag with the same casual ease as everything else he’d done since walking in, and before I could even process what he was doing, he tossed it toward me.
It hit my chest and dropped to the floor between us.
I didn’t move straight away. I didn’t even look.
Because some part of me already knew that whatever was in that bag wasn’t going to be something I could unsee.
“What the fuck is that?” someone demanded from somewhere behind me. A couple of the old ladies gave horrified gasps, and Crash muttered expletives under his breath.
They’d all seen before me. And it clearly wasn’t fucking good.
My gaze dropped down, and I knew.
The bag was clear, filled with thick, goopy blood—fresh blood, clots of it.
She wouldn’t…. not this.
My stomach turned sharply, something dark and sick rising up the back of my throat as the implication hit harder than anything she’d said so far.
“Consider it closure,” her father said lightly, as though he were handing over something insignificant rather than what it actually was. “Figured you’d want what was left of your little mistake.”
The word mistake echoed in my head, the air becoming difficult to breathe in. I didn’t bend down. I couldn’t pick it up. I couldn’t even look at it.
Because if I acknowledged it, if I let myself really process what I was looking at, I wasn’t sure I’d be able to hold onto whatever control I had left.
I looked at her, knowing the betrayal was written clearly on my face but unable to do anything about it. Some wounds cut too deep to mask.
“Anything else?” her father asked her, his tone almost conversational.
She held my gaze for a long moment, longer than necessary, and for the briefest second—so brief I might have imagined it—I thought I saw something shift behind her eyes.
But it was gone before I could even be sure it was there.
“Good morrow and sorrows, Vienna,” she said, her voice gentle in a way that made it so much worse.
My chest caved in.
“We won’t be doing this again sometime.”