Chapter 13 #2
His eyes narrowed, and he almost snarled at her.
“You were always too smart for a woman. It would have been better to keep your illusions. Vito is—” He hesitated, and irritation washed over his face.
“Shall we say Vito is displeased with me? If I can bring you back to him, and as my wife—” Franco raised his shoulders and spread his hands.
“Why then he’ll have to name me as heir.
The Donati empire isn’t what it once was, but when I am in control it will be powerful again. ”
So simple. She should have recognized his motives immediately. “Your machinations are of no interest to me, Franco. That life hasn’t been mine for fourteen years. How can you think I’d even consider going back with you?”
He glanced toward Devlin, who was still talking to Marcie Field. Then he faced her and smiled. She’d never seen a smile personify evil until she saw Franco’s face at that moment.
“It would give me great pleasure,” he said, his voice deep and silky smooth, “to kill your lover myself. To gut him like the cur he is. Remember what happened when you defied me before?”
Suddenly she was there again, in her darkened bedroom shouting curses at Franco, refusing to marry him.
And then the fight, the desperate struggle against hands that ripped her clothes and rained blows on her face and body.
Her dog Samson, barking madly, hurling himself at the intruder, trying to defend her.
In her mind’s eye she saw Franco’s exhilaration, the near sexual thrill he gained as he slit Samson’s throat and watched the blood drain from the dog’s body.
And the stamp of arousal on his face as he came for her, blood dripping from the knife in his hand.
She turned away, toward Devlin, and memories of him flicked through her mind.
How he looked in the courtroom or when arguing a point with her.
His expression when Marcie Field had thrown her arms around him.
The way he’d looked the first time he told her he loved her.
Images of him comforting her in the police station stairwell.
The two of them making love. Devlin smiling, laughing, teasing, comforting, loving.
Loving. She wrapped her arms around her stomach and willed herself to breathe.
“Yes, I see you do remember,” Franco said, his voice replete with malice. “I would enjoy that very much, Gabriela. The choice is yours.”
He left her there, with her heart beating a slow drumroll of despair and Devlin walking toward her.
* * *
The next few hours passed in a blur for Gabrielle.
She met briefly with Sid, setting up a meeting for the next day, checked over her caseload for the next few weeks, and talked to Devlin as if she had never heard Franco threaten to kill him.
Inside she cursed herself for her stupidity, her weakness.
Because of her criminal negligence in ignoring what she knew about Franco, she’d put Devlin at risk.
How could she stop Franco? Before, her only solution had been to flee.
But running would solve nothing now. And it would leave Devlin in danger.
Only one person had the power to stop Franco.
Vito Donati.
And only one person had the power to convince Vito to do it. Gabriela Donati, Vito’s daughter.
Gabrielle left the office early and went home, still with no idea of what she would say when she talked to her father. She didn’t plan a speech; she decided to simply ask him for help, as she had one other time. Memories washed over her again, and she heard the voices. Hers, Franco’s, and Vito’s.
“Gabriela, you’re being absurd,” Franco had said. “It’s what your father wants. What I want. Marry me and forget Ben. He left you easily enough.”
Ignoring him, she had turned to her father. “I’ll never forgive you. Never. And I’ll never marry Franco. The only thing you can do for me is let me go. Give me a new identity and let me walk out. I don’t ever want to see you again.”
He hadn’t believed her. Hadn’t imagined that she would view his act of paying off the man she loved as the betrayal it was. Hadn’t believed that her refusal to marry Franco was anything more than a willful child’s defiance.
It had taken her near-death in the fall from her bedroom window the night Franco came to her to convince her father she meant what she said.
Vito had thought her dive out the window a suicide attempt, rather than what it was—her only means of escaping Franco.
Gabrielle hadn’t considered the danger when she’d taken the only way out of her bedroom, and to this day she couldn’t remember exactly how she’d come to fall.
Since Franco’s face was the last thing she remembered, she suspected he had played a large part in it.
She had never corrected her father’s mistaken conclusion, because she’d known what Vito would do had he known the truth.
Had he known what Franco had tried to do to her, he would have killed him.
In the end, Vito let her go.
Gabrielle picked up the phone and dialed, wondering what she would do if the number was no longer in service. If it were only herself, she would take the consequences, but she couldn’t allow anything to happen to Devlin, and she knew of no other way to protect him.
“Sì.”
Fourteen years since she’d heard his voice. She closed her eyes and swallowed hard before she spoke. “Papà, it’s me, Gabriela.”
There was a silence so intense, she thought she might break. But it was the voice on the other end of the line that broke. “Gabriela? E tu? Vero?”
“Yes.” Tears stung her eyes, and she blinked them away. “Sì, Papà.”
“Are you coming home?”
The hope in his voice choked her with emotion. “I can’t.” Her fingers tightened on the receiver. “You know I can’t.”
“I’ve missed you, Gabriela. Every day of my life. Are you happy?”
She thought of Devlin and what might have been. Devlin and what could never be, not after she told him the truth. “I’m in trouble and I need your help.”
“You have only to ask. You know that.”
“It’s Franco. There’s a man I—Franco has threatened to kill someone I know. I want you to stop him.”
Vito cursed. “It will be taken care of. I warned him to stay away from you.”
“I wondered—at first I thought you had sent him.”
“No, Gabriela, I swore to you I would not. Have I not kept my word?”
“Yes.” Her throat was clogged with sorrow and useless tears. It took a moment before she could speak again. “Don’t kill him. Promise you won’t kill him. Just make him leave, and make sure he doesn’t hurt anyone.”
“Why do you care if he dies, Gabriela?”
“I don’t want his blood on my hands.” And that was why she hadn’t told her father the truth about that night fourteen years before. She wanted no murders staining her soul.
“This man Franco has threatened. Do you love him?”
“Yes.”
“Will you marry him?”
“No.” Her eyes closed, and opened. “It isn’t going to work out like that.”
“Are you certain?”
Dead sure. “Yes.”
“I’m sorry for your pain. There’s nothing I can do for you about that, but I’ll take care of Franco. Remember I love you.”
“Thank you.” Hot tears slid down her cheeks.
“I love you too, Papà.” She cradled the receiver, buried her head in her hands, and wept for the father she’d loved.
The father she still loved. Eventually, her tears slowed.
Gabrielle knew she’d made the only possible decision she could make.
She couldn’t live the life Vito had chosen; she had to live her own.
Any contact, given those circumstances, was dangerous to them both.
If she couldn’t live in his world, she couldn’t risk any association with it.
And the path she’d chosen had been the right one for her.
She knew that, was at peace with that. If only her path could have included her father. But it never could.
And now the truth faced her with another pain. She wiped the last tears away, drew in a shuddering breath, and resolved to face her present. She would find a way to tell Devlin she was Gabriela Donati, daughter of Vito Donati, once the most powerful Mafia don in the country.