22. Gabriel
22
GAbrIEL
I 've never felt anything like the riot of emotions inside of me in my entire life.
Bella's answer was like a knife through the heart. I told her that I didn't understand what she meant—but I think I do. She doesn't want me touching her like that because of what our marriage is. Because of why it was arranged —the thing she hates the most. Because she believes I don't love her.
Because I can't make myself say it aloud.
I want to fucking scream. I want to curse. I want to hit something. A hundred violent emotions boil up inside of me as I walk to collect the horses, mingling with the aching frustration of being so completely aroused with no outlet, and I shove them all down hard, gritting my teeth against the feelings.
At the end of the day, I need to protect Bella. That's all there is to it. If my desires are another thing she needs to be shielded from, then I'll do that, too. Even if it feels like it's going to fucking kill me.
I can still smell her on my fingers. Still feel her on my lips. Wanting her feels like a second pulse, throbbing through me. But if she wants something different, then I'll make sure that's what she has.
She manages to get back onto Honey on her own, and that feels like another dart to the chest, because all I can think is that it means she doesn't want me to touch her. I get back up on Thunder, wincing at the discomfort of trying to ride with a still more than half-hard cock, and turn back in the direction that will lead us back home.
Except it's not home. Temporarily, maybe, but not forever. Another mistake I guess I've made with Bella, because I know that choice has disappointed her. And who knows what might have happened if I'd chosen differently.
Halfway through the ride back, she finally speaks up.
"I'm going to leave, when it's safe." Her voice is heavy, flat, as if the decision doesn't bring her any happiness. "I can't keep doing this to you. And we know we can't go back to the way it was before. So once it's okay to go back to New York, we'll get a divorce. And I'll find somewhere to go on my own. It's—" she draws a shaky breath. "I think it's for the best."
I hadn't thought the pain in my chest could get any sharper, any more intense. But hearing her say it aloud, with finality, feels like the kind of pain that I haven't felt since Delilah died. A feeling of having something vital severed from me, a loss I won't entirely ever get over.
"Without really trying." The words come out more sharply than I intended, but my ability to measure them, to speak carefully, feels fragile and uncertain right now. "We could try, you know, Bella. We could try to make something out of this."
"You promised." Her voice is still flat, as if she doesn't want me to know what she's really feeling. "You said that if I wanted to go, I could. Did that change?"
"No." I swallow hard, glad that I'm in the lead so that I don't have to look at her right now. Somehow, the argument hasn't lessened my desire for her. It hasn't changed how much I want her. I'd still get down and pin her against one of these trees if she said she wanted me right now, fuck her in the middle of the trail if that's what would turn her on. I'd do anything she asked, if it meant getting to feel her wrapped around me one more time.
"Then that's it." She goes quiet for a long moment. "It doesn't make me happy, Gabriel."
"Then why are you doing it?" It feels like a fair question, all things considered.
"I think it's what I need to do."
She doesn't elaborate, and I don't know what to say to that. After all, I helped facilitate this. I gave her the keys to her independence. Money of her own, the beginning of learning to drive a car, a first job. I wanted her to be free to do whatever she pleased, to have the possibilities that everyone else tried to deny her. And I don't regret it.
Even if it means losing her, I would never want to keep Bella in a cage. I just wish that she'd stay with me of her own free will.
Maybe she would, if you could tell her how you feel. I regret not saying it, before I tumbled her into the grass. I regret not saying it that afternoon after we came back from town. I regret so many times when I wanted to say it aloud, and didn't—and now, it feels even more impossible, because she's said out loud that she's going to leave.
Now it feels like it would be less of a confession, and more of a last, desperate attempt to keep her. Now, I don't even know if she would believe me.
The rest of the ride back is silent. Not a word is spoken on the drive back up to the house, and Bella goes straight inside, up to the shower in her bedroom, not mine. I wonder, grimly, if it's because she knows I have things that I need to take care of.
Frustratingly, my erection doesn't seem to have gotten the instruction that I'm no longer in the mood. Jerking off in the shower at this point feels more like maintenance than anything else. But as I get under the hot spray, my hand wrapping automatically around my aching length, all I can think about is Bella. Her mouth, her body, the way she sounds when I touch her, when I make her come. I feel certain that I'm going to think about her while I jerk off for the rest of my fucking life. That I'll never take another woman to bed that will even come close to comparing to her.
And I've lost her before she's even really gone.
Once I'm out of the shower, dressed, and slightly more in my right mind, I call Gio. He answers immediately, his voice crisp and to the point as always.
"I have news."
"I saw your text. Sorry, I was out on the estate. Bad signal out there. What's going on?"
"Igor met with Masseo."
"What?" I sink down on the bed, running a hand through my wet hair. "How long ago?"
"This morning."
"And you're just now calling me?"
"I've been trying to get in touch with you. Service must be shit on a lot of the property out there. I also wanted to make sure I had all the information before I called. The don was at the meeting, as well."
"And?" I have to make an effort not to snap at him. Usually, Gio's methodical way of delivering information is useful. Admirable. Right now, in my current mood, it makes me want to reach through the phone and throttle him.
"And I'm told they came to terms. One of Masseo's men who still works for him and is in a lot of his meetings reported to me. They wanted an end to the conflict. They told Igor that he never had any official claim on Bella—well, the don said most of this," Gio clarifies. "Masseo, unsurprisingly, didn't have a lot to say."
"I wouldn't have expected more from him." I press my lips together tightly. "Go on."
"The don's position is that Bella was promised to Pyotr Lasilov, not Igor. Igor committed an act of war that should preclude any terms between the families, by what he did during that wedding. The don made it clear that the violence he inflicted on Bella, as well as everyone else there, should mean Igor's life, if not the life of everyone connected to him."
I'm inclined to agree, but I can tell that's not where this is headed. "But?"
"But Salvatore wants peace. He always has—he feels a need for it, because of what the don before him wanted. His best friend. I personally think Salvatore would have more violence in him, if not for that, especially considering the fact that his own wife was caught up in all of this. But he wanted a truce. An agreement."
I grit my teeth. It's the opposite of what I want. I've never wanted any man dead until Igor Lasilov, but I want him gone. Erased from the earth, so that Bella never has any reason to fear him again. So that she can feel safe. So my family can feel safe. I don't trust the truces of these families to hold, and I don't trust Igor to abide by them. The only thing that could make me feel, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that we're all safe is his blood.
Unfortunately, it's not my decision to make. Not if the don says otherwise. I might not be one of the families that belong to the Family as a whole, but I'm married to Bella, and my dealings with the mafia mean that I have to play by their rules, more often than not. Even without the marriage, taking matters into my own hands would mean putting myself at odds with the most dangerous men in New York.
I've never wanted to kill anyone until now. I've never felt this sort of all-consuming rage—not at a person, anyway. Not at someone who could be a victim of it.
"And I'm guessing, from the tone of your voice, that they made an agreement."
"They did," Gio says heavily. "Igor insisted that Bella was going to be his wife, that you stole her from him. But since there was no formal arrangement made, no betrothal contract, nothing binding of any sort, the don said that there was no engagement. And, since Bella is now your wife, a proper marriage, both in the eyes of the Church and the law, there is no insult to Igor. She was never his in any official way, and nothing was stolen. So the don said that Igor could either come to terms with him and Bella's father, or he would martial his considerable allies to prevent Igor from committing any further atrocities on this matter."
"So that's it?" I run my hand through my hair again. There's no part of me that believes it will be this simple. That Igor will just walk away.
"I suppose so. Salvatore is calling his men back. With a truce agreed to, he says there's no need for them to remain in Italy, and not where he needs them."
"Shit." A jolt of fear rattles through me. Salvatore has every right to do just that. As far as he's concerned, a truce has been called, and his support here is no longer needed. It doesn't matter that I don't believe for a second that I don't still need them to protect Bella. I feel that, considering what happened after the last time he made a truce with Igor, Salvatore should have the same hesitations. Clearly, he doesn't.
"Agreed." The heaviness in Gio's voice tells me he's thinking the same thing. "I'll call in a few favors of my own and be on the next flight out, Gabriel. You need the backup."
"I do." I glance towards the door, glad that Bella hasn't come into the room. I need some time to get my thoughts straight before I tell her all of this. "I'd appreciate you getting here as soon as possible."
"Will do."
The moment I hang up the phone, I see that I have an email. It's from one of the potential buyers for the estate, telling me that he wants to go through with the sale. I scroll through it, and as I read, it becomes apparent that this buyer wants all of it. Not just the property, vineyard, and villa, but the remaining horses and livestock—everything that I had thought I might have to offload separately. A package deal, for my asking price. I couldn't have hoped for better.
I look at it for a long time, reading and re-reading the offer. I think of the disappointment in Bella's voice when I told her I was selling, of her saying today, on the ride home, that when we return to New York, our marriage will end.
If I have any chance of a different outcome with her, it's here. Selling the estate, going back to New York—it means the end of my relationship with Bella, the end of a marriage that I'm afraid to admit aloud that I want.
As for myself—I'm no longer sure if I want to go back there. There's no excitement in me for starting over with a new house, a new chapter when the old one will barely have closed. A home that I'll move into without Bella, where the first memories I'll have will be of a new, fresh loss.
I'm not sure about anything, any longer. The only thing I know is the plan I've set, the decision I made before any of this even happened. Before Bella, before Igor, before we had to leave—I had decided to sell the estate, and close the door on my family's legacy here in Italy. That choice was made before all of it.
It feels like the only thing I can lean on right now, when everything else feels so uncertain. So I respond the only way that I feel I can, when I don't know any of the other answers.
I tell the buyer yes .