Chapter 20
Gabriella
The kitchen was quiet once Vienna and Dante left.
Vienna seemed to take most of the energy with him, and we were left with the reminder of why all this was happening—and, more importantly, why I was here.
It had been easy to slip into their life, to pretend I was welcome here. But the reality was that I was an unwelcome houseguest. Someone they were offering their protection to. And this had reminded us of that very thing.
“Rachel, I’m really sorry,” Ant began. “I know I said I’d watch Axel today, and Gemma was really looking forward to it, but—”
“Ant, honestly, don’t worry about it,” Rachel waved him away. “The club comes first, I know that. And you know that spending time with Axel is an open invitation. Come by and see him anytime. You do what you need to do.”
Ant nodded his head. “You guys got everything you need?”
“Please,” Rachel scoffed. “I know how to take care of my own.”
Ant chuckled in return and said his goodbyes.
“On that note, I’m going to head back to my room,” I said, pushing myself to my feet.
“You don’t need to,” Rachel protested. “I was thinking we could take Axel to the park. Heather will be bringing Bee home at lunch. We could make a day of it. Picnic at the park, show you around the place. Maybe—”
“I appreciate the offer, Rachel. I really do.” More than she would ever know. “I just…”
How could I word it to her? How could I express that no matter how welcoming she was, I knew I would never truly belong?
It hadn’t escaped my notice that Chris and Trent had avoided coming over for breakfast, when Vienna had always said everyone came here. It hadn’t escaped my notice that not many of the old ladies were here, either.
Hell, even the other charters had eaten elsewhere. And sure, there were plenty of cafes and places on the compound for them to eat, but I couldn’t help but think they were doing it because of me. Because of what I had done.
Some betrayals were just too big to forgive.
“I get it,” Rachel said quietly. “You might not believe that, but I do. Take whatever time you need. It’s an open invitation.”
She placed a kiss to the top of Axel’s blonde hair before scooping him out of the highchair.
“Our home is your home, Gabriella. Please don’t feel you need to seclude yourself in your room.
I’m going to take Axel for his bath, and then we’re off to the park.
Stay here, have something to eat, and process your thoughts.
Come find us if you change your mind, but it’s fine if you don’t. Just… don’t hide away. Promise me.”
“I… I promise,” I sighed.
And then she was gone, dragging a still hungover Steph with her.
For a few minutes, I did exactly as Rachel said.
I made a cup of tea. I made toast. I sat at the table and tried to clear my thoughts.
But, just as my treacherous mind always did, the unwelcome reminders came.
“Do you think you’d have anything without me?”
I flinched through the memory of Nico backhanding me.
“Where’s the cavalry, Gabriella? Who’s coming to fucking save you? No one. You’re nothing but a used-up fucking whore.”
I curled my arm around my ribs, hugging myself tight as the memory of him kicking me brought with it a familiar phantom pain.
I blinked, focusing on the kitchen tap, trying to bring the room back into reality rather than live in my memories.
“You’ll never escape me, Gabriella. I’ll always fucking find you.”
My chest tightened as the ghostly whisper of a door slamming played in my mind. Of Nico standing over me, glaring down at me, reminding me of my place.
“Breathe,” I whispered, my body tensing up and the shakes already beginning to take over.
Breathing was easier said than done when at this very moment, Nico’s vice president was only a few buildings away. When my life was merging—even though it had never really been separated.
And if the vice were here, Nico would come looking for him.
“I’ll kill anyone who tries to take you from me, Gabby. You’re fucking mine. And I’ll make you wish I had killed you, too.”
My legs bounced as I took deep breaths through my nose and exhaled out of my mouth.
And then Vienna flashed into my mind.
Vienna laughing manically as he rained punch after punch down on Nico’s vice president.
The way the pain seemed to spur him on, to make him more violent.
I’d witnessed it once when I was sixteen and on a disastrous date with Darren.
Vienna had pummelled him half to death before Dante had intervened.
I shook my head, not wanting to live in that scenario anymore. But I couldn’t help it.
Almost as if I were watching a movie, I watched Vienna’s back as he lashed out at the person in front of him. As he used weapons to smash their knees, his fists pounding their face. Of the blood flying and dripping down his tattooed arms.
And then Vienna shifted, and fat tears spilled down my cheeks as my mind betrayed me. Because it wasn’t Nico’s vice in that chair.
Instead, it was my own mother, and she was begging Vienna to stop, begging him to have mercy, begging him to free her…
“Stop!” I hissed to myself, pushing away from the table and out of the chair.
I pressed my palms to my eyes, trying to force the images away.
Vienna wasn’t Nico. He wouldn’t have hurt my mother.
But my treacherous mind refused to let go of the connection. Vienna had murdered her. Even if it wasn’t in cold blood, even if it was a mercy kill, my mind wouldn’t let me forget it.
But the problem with knowing something logically was that it didn’t mean my brain was willing to accept it.
My brain had spent too long keeping me alive to suddenly trust that I was safe. We had been in survival mode for too long to separate one act of violence from another.
Axel screamed upstairs. It wasn’t even a scream of anguish or terror. It was filled with happiness and excitement. I even heard Rachel laugh in return. But that didn’t stop my body from flinching. It didn’t stop the sob escaping me.
And then Rachel chased Axel down the hallway. I heard their thundering steps of Rachel mockingly being menacing, telling Axel she was going to get him.
“Run, Gabriella,” Nico laughed. “Fucking run. Make my day. There’s nowhere for you to hide.”
“Stop, stop, stop!” I all but screamed.
And then there were two hands grabbing me, hauling me against a soft body.
My brain didn’t know the difference. I tried to fight. I lashed out, slapping at the shoulders of the person holding me.
“Shh! It’s okay. You’re okay. Breathe, Gabby. Breathe,” a soft voice murmured.
“Please don’t hurt me,” I whispered, feeling utterly pathetic.
The woman stroked my hair, murmuring nonsense words of comfort. I opened my eyes and saw a flash of purple, of a child crawling along the kitchen floor.
“You’re okay, Gabriella. Take a deep breath. You’re safe,” Jenna whispered.
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed, all the tension leaving my body. I was vaguely aware that I was clutching at her, crushing her body to mine.
“Is everything okay—” Rachel began, but Jenna simply held me tighter.
I didn’t hear Jenna’s response. I saw Rachel moving, heard her speak softly to someone called Trex, and saw a flash as she carried a child out of the room, but I wasn’t coherent enough to put the pieces together.
Instead, I simply stayed glued to Jenna, sobbing until it felt like my throat was raw.
“Do you want to talk about it?” Jenna asked a few minutes later, still stroking my hair. I pulled back, and she gently led me back over to the table, pulling out a chair for me and then picking up the one I had tipped over for herself.
“I’m sorry,” I said, wiping my face with the back of my hand.
“You’ve nothing to say sorry for,” Jenna said kindly.
“I just… I kind of got stuck in a memory for a moment, you know?”
“I know,” she nodded. “I’ve got my own nightmares, so I get it.”
I flinched, remembering that Jenna had lost her husband, Shark.
“Do you ever…”
“Do I what?” she asked.
“Do you ever have memories that aren’t even memories?” I said quietly. “I don’t even know what I’m trying to describe. But, like, your brain trying to fill in the gaps and recreating something you couldn’t know?”
Vienna hitting my mother flashed in my mind again, and a shiver rolled down my spine.
“I know exactly what you mean,” Jenna said, offering me a sad smile. “I wasn’t there when Shark died. I wasn’t even there when he was attacked but…” she sighed heavily. “It doesn’t stop my mind from recreating the entire scene, though.”
“I’m sorry.”
“You’ve nothing to be sorry for,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears.
“But it was my club that—”
“And it was my club that…” she interrupted. “You can fill in the blanks. We’ve all wronged each other. I know this situation is out of hand. I don’t blame anyone other than the men who were there. They were the ones who took Shark from me. You had nothing to do with it.”
If only things were that simple.
“Do you want to talk about it?” she asked.
“Not really.”
“That’s fine. But it helps to talk. Trust me. If you don’t want to talk to me, ask Rachel to see if Doctor Ashleigh has any openings. She’s been a godsend.”
“Doctor Ashleigh?”
Jenna chuckled. “She’s sort of become the club’s therapist. It started as something Rachel suggested to manipulate Dante during their whole six-month-contract fandango.”
“Pardon?”
I vaguely remembered Rachel telling me about the contract last night, but I didn’t know enough of the details.
“You didn’t hear about that? Another time,” she laughed, waving her hand. “Suffice to say, after the six months, Dante and Rachel continued seeing her—with Vienna tagging along after the whole ki—you know what,” she flinched. “I’ve said too much. Never mind.”
Kiss? Had she been about to say kiss?
“Long story short, we all see her. Doctor Ashleigh was the one who helped me get my PTSD diagnosis.”
“Can we just circle back to the whole kissing thing?”
She flinched again. “You caught that, huh?”
“Yep. And I’m guessing with your reluctance to talk about it, that means Vienna and Rachel kissed?”
Why did that hurt so much?
Vienna and I weren’t even together. I knew he fucked a lot of women these past ten years. I’d heard more than one woman gossiping about it. I hardly expected him to be living like a monk whilst also pining for me.
But still…
I didn’t know if it hurt because it happened, or because no one had bothered telling me about it.
“It was a long time ago,” Jenna said. “And trust me… neither of them wanted it to happen. There was a whole series of events that led up to it. I think since Vienna is still breathing and Dante isn’t wearing his skin as a suit to remind everyone what happens when you betray him is all the evidence you need that this isn’t how it sounds. ”
“I suppose,” I shrugged, because I didn’t know what else to say. I had no business being mad about it. Especially as Vienna had spent years believing I was happily another man’s old lady.
“Can we just forget I said anything?”
“Already forgotten,” I murmured, all whilst knowing I was filing that away for future anxiety ammo during my next panic attack.
Thank you, brain.
“Was that your little boy I saw in here?” I asked Jenna as a way to steer the conversation to safer topics.
“Sure was,” she beamed, and I watched in amazement as her entire face changed. She became more animated, sitting up straighter. Her eyes still shined with hurt and loss, but the mere mention of her son had life back in her. Even her skin tone seemed to perk up, colour rising in her cheeks.
“How old is he?”
“A little over one. And he’s a handful.”
“I can imagine,” I laughed. “Did I hear Rachel call him Trex?”
“Dante’s doing,” she smiled. “He bit him once whilst he was teething and hence, he was christened Trex. As in T-Rex?”
“I get it,” I smiled.
“Shark would have been the best dad,” she sighed.
And then, before I could stop myself, I muttered the words I never thought I would say to anyone else. “So would Vienna. And I hate myself for taking that away from him.”
Jenna’s hand closed over mine, and she offered me a smile full of sadness and pity.
And then we fell into a silence full of shared pain.
Just two women who had everything, and yet nothing all at the same time.