GABRIEL "Gianna, what did you do?" I got down on one knee, not quite believing my eyes. I couldn't breathe around the lump in my throat and had to swallow twice before I could find my voice. There was nothing I could do about the moisture gathering in my eyes as I looked over the little one from head to toe just as I'd done with her mother and had to fight back the tears. I had to clear my throat a couple of times and must've looked like a fish when I kept opening my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn't come. She just stared at me, this kid, with no fear. "What's your name, sweetheart?" I cupped her little face so much like mine; in fact, not so much; it was my face. How fickle is the heart? How can it hold so many different emotions? One minute dark and the next, the next filled with a love that's so instantaneous it's all-consuming. "My name is Gaby. I'm two." She held up two fingers. I looked up at her mother before getting to my feet. "You kept my child from me? You? Yo

GABRIEL The place was a madhouse. Ma moved everyone over to the main house, and there were more hands than were needed to help with the babies. Lancelot and the twins were already fighting over who got to carry who, but my daughter settled the argument by choosing her uncle. Since I don't know much about kids, there was a lot that I wasn't sure about, but the kids seemed quieter than I would expect. But it wasn't so much their silence that caught my attention, but their attentiveness. The three of them sometimes seemed to be in a world of their own, and the boys especially kept their mother in their sights at all times. Gabriella, on the other hand, was like a social butterfly; she had her grandfather wrapped around her little finger in ten seconds flat. I realized after five minutes, when my uncle and his wife came over from next door, that there were a few people missing. "Ma, where are Natalia and Jr.?" "They'll be here soon. There was an incident, so your grandparents took

GIANNA I'm not going to lie; I wanted to run. Forget cousin Colton's game plan. Forget everything else; just take the kids and high tail it back to Alaska. The look in his eyes when he said that did not bode well for me. I was caught in the midst of too many emotions to tackle them all at once, and the funny thing is, I haven't even had time to focus on any one thing since I opened the door to him earlier. Things have not at all gone the way I'd imagined them in my head. I don't know what made me think that Gabriel would be rational, maybe because the boy I left here almost three years ago had been so blissfully calm and wise, even though he had a streak of the vengeful in him. But that had never been turned against me. I was the one he protected and cossetted. I've never felt anything but safe in his presence, knowing that even if the rest of the world had to be wary of him, that would never be me. Now I'm not so sure. There was no real inflection in his voice when he made the t

GIANNA "Now that that's done." Gabriel flicked off the water and pulled me out of the shower behind him. He sounded so strong and self-assured while my legs were like jelly and my insides were still a jumble of quivering nerves, and we're not even gonna talk about the pleasure-pain between my thighs, but okay. He helped me out of the shower and, without a word, moved to the towel warmer before choosing a towel for me. As I came down from my sexual high, I tried to read his face to see what kind of mood he was in. I admit to not being sure of anything at this point. He was acting kinda strange, truth be known. He hadn't spoken except for those very leading questions he'd asked me. And what does he mean I owed him a child? I'm so dumb; even now, I can feel his seed running out of me. We hadn't used protection. But maybe those were just words, something to make our coupling a bit more incendiary, not that we needed help in that department. But what is he feeling really? Why was his

GABRIEL "Who were you talking to?" I'd stepped back inside when she didn't follow me out the door because you'd think she'd try to save this clown from my wrath, but instead, I caught her fumbling with her phone. We stared at each other in a standoff, she while giving herself time to come up with a plausible excuse, no doubt, and me doing my best as I walked towards her not to lose my shit. "Were you calling to warn him?" She shook her head no, and I reached around and took her phone while keeping eye contact. I scrolled through recent calls in her phone log. Cousin Colt. Would that be Colton Lyon? Why would she be calling him? Pop used Mancini and Lyon's names together before, which means they work together in some capacity. Now, she is bringing him up again. What do they have to do with this fiancé prick, and why is she calling her cousin? Was she trying to protect him? I looked into her eyes after giving her back the phone. I wanted to ask her so badly if she'd slept wi