Chapter 26
26
GAbrIEL
I ’d been working for the past few hours on the plans to keep moving forward without them, knowing that Mal would come against us after tonight. When my phone lit up with Luca’s name, I hung up on my other call.
I needed Luca, Dante, and Celia back here safely where I could make sure Mal didn’t get revenge. All Mal was getting was a bullet.
“Luca.” I kept my voice neutral, controlled, though my hand tightened on the phone.
“We’re safe.” There was background noise: dishes clinking, quiet laughter that could only be Dante’s, and then Celia’s voice, too distant to make out the words but unmistakably her. The knot in my chest loosened fractionally. “Everyone’s okay.”
I closed my eyes, letting the sounds wash over me. They were alive. They were together. They were…happy, by the sound of it. Without me.
Fuckers.
“Her wound?”
“Cleaned and stitched. She’s tough. But then, you know that.”
I ignored the jab. “And so do you. Why did you leave?”
Silence stretched between us, broken only by those distant sounds of casual domesticity that felt like they belonged to another world entirely.
“You know why,” Luca finally said. His voice was gentler than I deserved. “You’ve spent so long trying to protect us that you forgot how to let us in. How to let her in. You made this plan, and controlling all of us was part of it, but you can’t stop, can you?”
“I was keeping you safe.”
“You were keeping us controlled. There’s a difference, brother.”
The title hit harder than any accusation. Brother .
I’d tried so hard to preserve my family, but I’d been losing them little by little, every day.
“What do you want?”
“To find a way forward. All of us.” More background noise. It sounded like they were cooking. The normalcy of it felt surreal. “But it has to be different this time. You can be the boss of the Caruso family. No one’s going to fight you for that. But behind closed doors, it’s got to be different. We’re brothers.”
“And Celia?”
“She’s part of that family now, whether you meant for that to happen or not.” A pause. “She took a bullet for you, Gabriel. And then she took us with her because she knew we were the only way to reach you.”
I frowned, unable to imagine they’d deserted me because they cared so very much. “What are you proposing?”
“Meet us. Talk to us. Really talk, not just give orders and expect us to fall in line. The four of us need to figure this out together, as equals.”
Equals . Are there ever really any equals in a world like ours? My brothers were na?ve.
But I also missed all three of them enough to entertain even a stupid idea.
“When?”
“At ten tonight. I’ll text you the address if you agree.” He hesitated. “Come alone. If you’re serious about making this work.”
“You trust me to do that?”
Another pause, longer this time. In the background, I heard Celia laugh again. The sound pulled at something in my chest.
Had I ever made her laugh like that, full-throated and free spirited?
Could I ever make her laugh like that?
“I want to,” Luca said finally. “We all do. But trust goes both ways, Gabriel. You have to be willing to give it to get it back.”
I looked down at my desk.
“Ten,” I said. “I’ll be there.”
“Alone?”
I thought about the way Celia had risen in front of that bullet. About how my brothers had chosen to run with her. About all the things I’d tried to control and all the things I’d lost in the process.
“Alone,” I promised.
I parked the car half a mile from the house and walked the rest of the way. Old habits. Even though I’d promised to come alone, I had Marcus and a team positioned just outside the property line.
There would be a team watching over them when I left here tonight. They might be outside of my house, but they would never be outside of my protection.
“Hold position unless you hear gunfire,” I told Marcus over the phone.
“Understood, boss.” He paused. “You sure about this?”
I wasn’t sure about anything anymore. “Just hold position.”
I moved through the wooded grounds, staying in the shadows despite the setting sun. The country house emerged through the trees.
Light spilled from the windows, warm and inviting. Through the glass, I could see them moving around the living room. Dante was sprawled on a leather couch, his feet propped on a coffee table. He was talking animatedly, hands moving as he told some story that made Celia laugh. It looked like he was making up for lost time after spending the last year without speaking.
She was smiling. The wound must have been healing well. She was wearing a hoodie and loose pajama pants. Her platinum hair was loose around her shoulders, and something in my chest tightened at how different she looked. How unguarded.
Luca emerged from the kitchen, carrying what looked like takeout containers. He said something I couldn’t hear that made Dante throw a pillow at him. Celia intercepted it, whacking Dante with it instead. The casual playfulness of it felt like watching a scene from someone else’s life.
Then Dante grabbed her around the waist, careful of her injured shoulder, and pulled her down onto the couch with him. He kissed her hard.
She was smiling as she straddled him.
Luca set down the food and dropped onto the couch on her other side. He brushed her hair back from her face with a gentleness that made my hands clench at my sides, then kissed her forehead. The three of them fit together, easy and natural. I couldn’t imagine a third man with them.
Something hot and unfamiliar burned in my chest. Not quite anger, though that would have been easier to understand. Not quite jealousy either, though that was part of it. Something more complicated. Want tangled up with regret, possession twisted around loss.
They were mine. My brothers. My wife. But watching them through the window, I realized I’d never really had them at all. Not like this. I’d been so focused on my vengeance, on controlling every variable and eliminating every threat, that I’d missed what we could be.
I’d never give up my need for revenge. But I wanted a life on the other side. It wasn’t enough to get revenge for the family I lost in the past if there was no family in the future.
Celia’s head rested on Luca’s shoulder now, her feet in Dante’s lap, completely at ease with their physical affection. I tried to remember if I’d ever touched her that casually, that tenderly. If I’d ever let myself.
If I ever could.
Luca said something that made Celia sit up straighter, suddenly alert. She took Luca’s hand to look at his watch, then at the darkness beyond the windows. Looking for me, I realized. Even relaxed and laughing with my brothers, some part of her was still waiting. Still watching.
My phone buzzed silently in my pocket. A text from Marcus for confirmation that everything was okay.
Through the window, Celia had settled back against my brothers, but her eyes kept straying to the darkness. Watching. Waiting. For me.
What did she want?
I knew I should leave, but I stayed, watching them exist in the light without me.