Chapter 16
Gabe
Two months, sixteen days, two hours, and three minutes. The amount of time since I’d left Tori and any chance of happiness in my life. I had yet to stop the countdown, each minute driving the dagger further into my chest.
I stepped out of the shower and dried off, pulling on a pair of slacks.
Toweling my hair dry, I walked from the bathroom and through my bedroom.
The suite my father had secured for me was massive, with two bedrooms and a window-lined view that overlooked the city.
A view I never had time to appreciate because he worked me to the bone as punishment for my disobedience.
I’d given everything up in his punishment, but it still hadn’t been enough.
Intent on grabbing a cup of coffee, I headed into the living room, seeing Liv on my sofa with my phone in her hand.
“What the hell are you doing in here?” I asked, snatching the phone from her. There were two missed calls from Tori and a text. My heart beat frantically at the sight. I hadn’t heard from her in over two months, and that had only worsened the guilt of what I’d done.
“I stopped by to tell you Dad wants you in his office by eight.” She stood and smoothed her skirt out.
“I don’t give a shit what he wants. How did you get into my suite?” I read the text—call me. We need to talk—not bothering to look up at her.
Stealing the phone from me, she closed the text out.
“Give me the fucking phone, Liv, and answer the question.”
“Nice language, little brother.” She puckered her red-stained lips and gave me the look she always did when she thought I had asked a stupid question. “Our father owns the hotel, and I’m the COO of the company. I can get a key to your room easily, and that’s what I did.”
My molars ground as I reached for the phone again.
“Block her, Gabe.”
I stumbled, stunned by her demand. “I’m not blocking her.”
“Then I’m not giving the phone back.” She danced away from me, her spiked heels too close to digging into my bare feet. “Block her and delete her number. You need to move on and let her go.”
“You’re such a bitch. Give me the damn phone back.”
“That’s not news. I’ve always been a bitch, but you’ve gone soft, and she’s the reason. If you don’t block her, you’ll continue to regret leaving her.”
My motion stopped, and I gaped at her. “I’ll never stop regretting it. It won’t matter how many years pass or how many missed calls there are. The regret will remain, as will the guilt.”
She sighed, her hazel eyes softening for a flash before turning hard just like our father’s. Handing me the phone, she said, “Block her. I’m not leaving until you do.”
The weight of the phone seemed to double as I stared her down. “I can’t.”
“You must. This is war, Gabe. You and I are fighting a ruthless, greedy bastard who will prey on your weaknesses.”
“He already has.”
“Exactly. If you don’t let her go completely, you will remain soft, and he’ll see it. The CFO position will never be yours, we’ll lose the inheritance, and our revenge will fail. You need to be like him, just like I am.”
I glanced down at the phone, pulling up Tori’s contact information. “I don’t want to be like him.”
Huffing, she said, “Too bad. I didn’t want to lose my mother at nineteen, but I did, and he was the cause. Remember why we’re doing this, little brother.” She peered over at my phone. “Why do you have a moon as her icon and Luna as her name?”
Because she was my moon, the light in my darkness. But I didn’t tell Liv that. “It doesn’t matter.”
Her stare didn’t waver, and I could feel the pressure of it as my hand lingered over the block button.
“Do it. If you keep hesitating, you’ll be late for Dad, and he’ll leave you in the mailroom for another year.”
My finger shook as I hit block, another part of me severing.
“Now, delete her text chain and clear out your missed calls.”
Eyes shooting up to her, I waited for an explanation of why I had to remove every reminder of Tori from my life, already knowing the answer. She crossed her arms and waited.
I pulled up Tori’s text chain. Anger and anguish until the last calm text. “This last one is different. I really should—”
“No, delete it and be done with her, Gabe.”
But I never would be done with her or over her or forget her. She would always be a part of me.
“William Gabriel Icinda.”
When Liv used my full name, it was never a good thing. She was just as vindictive as my father, the mirror to him in some ways, especially after the last few years. As much as I knew she was right, it didn’t make it any easier.
With a sigh that cut through me, I deleted the chain.
“How do you get anything done?” she complained, grabbing the phone back and quickly deleting my missed calls before jumping into my recent calls.
I thought I saw Tori’s number, but she deleted the list too fast for me to question it.
She was back to Tori’s contact information and had it deleted before I could stop her.
The sight shredded me, and I brought my hand to my chest to stop it from cleaving in two. She shoved the phone at me. “Now socials. Unfollow and block.”
“Could you be any more cruel? I can’t do that to her, she’ll know.”
“And she’ll thank you for it later. You’re giving her a clean break. Allowing her to move on. If you’re following each other and spying on each other’s lives, you won’t be able to get over each other.”
As much as it hurt, I followed her direction, severing the last of our ties. “It’s not like that’s your real handle, anyway. Why don’t you just delete it?”
“It has been since I left school. Nobody knows my real name, and I prefer it that way. I’m not deleting my handles. It’s the only anonymity I have, and I’m keeping them.”
And it was my only remaining tie to Tori. A false name, one she would never find if she looked for me but one I didn’t want to give up because it was all she knew.
Liv fluffed her auburn curls before smoothing her blouse down.
The model of affluence, my sister lived her life in designer labels and expensive tastes.
I sometimes wondered if she did it to hide the loneliness.
A way to flaunt the appearance of happiness when deep down she was dying, just like I was.
Tori had been a moment of light, leading me out from the shadow of my father for just that brief time, but it had been enough to remind me that there was more. A painful reminder that would ensure I became the mirror to my sister the longer I went without it.
“Get out, Liv.”
“You’ll appreciate my help one day when you’re a billionaire and Daddy’s crawling away in shame as his empire crumbles around him.”
She sauntered out, leaving me alone with my phone and a void that now encompassed my entire being.
I did the only thing I knew would numb the pain, the thing I’d done after every beating and after my mother died.
I closed off that wound, carving it into its own space next to the others and hardening myself to it and any emotion that would rupture it again.