Chapter 8
LEONARDO
I walked into the hotel penthouse to find Gabriella sitting at the decorative dining table. Papers were scattered over the surface, red ink staining the pages.
She stared at them with single-minded rapture.
“What’s up, Ella?”
“The private investigator. This is what she’s found so far.”
“So far?” Geez. From the stack of sheets, you’d have thought we had Nico’s lifelong memoir.
I spared a side-eye to Gabriella, doing a quick once-over to check in. She seemed tense, a tad on edge. “Everything okay?”
“No.” She jumped to her feet and started pacing.
“Everything was a lie, Leo. Everything. At the beginning of the year, he started changing. Around the time he met this new friend of his. Some bigshot pilot. I don’t think Nico cheated on me until he met this guy.
Who is he, to hold such influence over him? ”
“Does it matter when it started or how many times he stepped out? When he began to change and turn into this unrecognisable person?”
“No.” She sighed. “It doesn’t matter. All of that becomes irrelevant when faced with his most dire betrayal.
” Gabriella came to a halt, her attention zoning in on one document.
“Nico is a board member for One Care Fertility Clinic. That’s how he was able to keep his vasectomy from me.
That’s how he was able to manipulate and intentionally conceal our fertility results. ”
“Fuck, Ella. I don’t even know what to say.”
“He took them from me,” she whispered, grief thickening her tone. “My prime fertility years...”
God, my heart was breaking for her. Just when I thought enough damage had been dealt, Nico proved me wrong time and again.
The emotional trauma he had caused was astronomical. It would take a lifetime to get over, and maybe not even then. I remained mute, allowing Gabriella to work out her thoughts as she continued to ramble.
“I don’t know what the fuck I was thinking.
I was going to step away quietly, hoping for a faster escape.
I drew up an easy divorce, asking for a fair split between us, prepared to show him grace, which he does not deserve, just so I could be free of him sooner.
But after seeing him today, I don’t think he’s going to let that happen. ”
That got my attention.
“You saw him?”
“He ambushed me at work. On my last day. Another thing he fucking sabotaged. But after that encounter, I’ve realised it can never be that simple.
” Gabriella shuddered, and it wasn’t from the temperature.
“Nico was acting and talking like I belonged to him. As if I were a possession he could control. He scared me… I don’t know that person, Leo. Who is he?”
I pressed into her side, heeding her closeness to chase away the despair that had overtaken me. “He scared me.” When she said that, my tooth nearly cracked from how hard I clenched my jaw.
How low is this fucker going to go? Now he was resorting to bully tactics.
When she relayed what happened in the car park, it took everything within me not to lose my shit. Still, no matter how strongly I felt about him, Gabriella needed my reassurance. I had to stay solid.
I intertwined my fingers with hers to stabilise myself.
“What do you want?” I asked.
“I want to destroy his world… like he has so thoroughly destroyed mine.”
“Then let it be done.”
Gabriella’s lips trembled as her gaze remained averted, away from me. “You may not like who I become after this is done, Leo. I won’t blame you if you want to create distance.”
A dark chuckle escaped me as I squeezed her hand. It was our only form of contact, but it held the strength of an entire army.
“Unfortunately, I’m not as altruistic as you’d like to believe, Ella. Nico may have destroyed your world, but he stole mine. He will receive justice. In whatever way that looks like for you and me. Together.”
She gave me her eyes for the first time since I had entered the apartment, their green depths blazing with determination.
That’s when I gave her my request—one I had been contemplating for a month straight, which had now solidified in the wake of those revelations. “Come home with me, Ella. Move across the country, away from him.”
I wasn’t implying anything romantic. I just needed her to be safe and out of reach of that psychopath.
Nico had always had an impulsive nature, but I didn’t think he was capable of all those unhinged actions that the private investigator had laid out before us. I didn’t recognise that version of him.
Current events forced me to reassess and sift through the last twenty years of shared memories. To separate my beliefs from the person I knew, and the detached individual he had proven himself to be.
The evidence was irrefutable. And the agonising truth was revealed. I never knew Nico at all.
Air caught in my lungs as I awaited Gabriella’s answer.
She eventually blinked and gave a slow nod. “I will come with you, Leo.”