Gabe's Reckoning Read online

  She nodded. "Weeeelll." Why had she even started this conversation? She really needed to get on the road before Gabe came looking for her and the longer she put it off the more chance he got to catch up to her. If he confronted her tonight, things were going to get even uglier and she didn't think she could handle that.

  "Seriously, Nina. I'm not letting you out of my sight until I get some answers. And don't worry about Gabe. Even the pope himself couldn't get in this house unless I allowed him to. Levi is obsessed with security."

  "You don't understand. None of this is funny. Not a single second of it. Why I'm not curled up on the floor hysterical right now is the real mystery."

  Tori crossed to the chair and squeezed in next to Nina and wrapped her arms around her. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make fun. It's just so—"

  "Crazy," Nina finished for her. "You got that right. I mean I got married."

  "Actually, that part I get. You love Gabe and he loves you. Any fool could see that. And if anyone deserves that kind of happiness together it's the two of you."

  "I think you might be wrong. At least partially. Gabe wanted me to formally submit to him. You know, with rules and protocols and all that stuff. He hoped those sessions would get to the memories of that night in the fire."

  "But he told you that sex would likely be involved and that forced your hand and you had to tell him about that stupid promise you made to your mother all those years ago. Of course, Gabe being Gabe, he asked you to marry him. Because he loves you."

  She shook her head. Love, if it were true, would never ever be enough to make up for what she did in his office. Humiliation burned inside her. "Don't count on that. Things went from unconventional to downright sick in a matter of hours. Hell, he might not even be looking for me. That might be wishful thinking on my part."

  "I doubt that. He has always been there when you needed him. It's how he's wired. I don't think you could ever do anything to change that."

  Nina barked a laugh, a harsh disgusting sound that scared her. "I basically accused him of marrying his sister." Tori's eyes widened at that little revelation. "Oh yeah, I didn't get to that part yet did I?"

  Tori shook her head, no longer looking as confident as before.

  "I went to visit Savannah today. Thought if I talked to her about her confession she could shed some light on what really happened all those years ago. Instead, that conversation went sideways and she informed me that Gabe is also one of Reverend Lewis’ sons."

  Tori gasped. "Oh my God that makes him your—"

  "It did. She let me believe I had married and fucked my own brother."

  "No. I can't believe this. She has to be lying. Didn't you give him a chance to explain?"

  "Just like you, I had to believe it was a lie. It's the only thing that kept me half sane on my trip from the jail to Purgatory. How ironic is that by the way? Only it wasn't a lie. He is the good Reverend's son. Mason confirmed it."

  Tears began to glisten in Tori's eyes and Nina felt her control slipping. "Please don't cry, Tori. If you cry, I will cry and once it starts it's never going to stop. I need to be very far away from here before I can let that happen."

  "What are you going to do?"

  "I told you. I'm leaving and I'm giving you the cafe."

  Tori shook her head furiously. "You know I'm happy to run that cafe for as long as you need me to, but you can't give it to me. I won't accept that."

  "It's already done. I called Victor on the way over and he is drafting the papers as we speak. As soon as I get settled somewhere I will have him send us the paperwork to sign and it can be yours. You can keep it a cafe or change it to a pie shop. Whatever you want. It's yours."

  Nina stood. "I'm sorry to come here and dump on you like this. You were the one person I couldn't bear to leave without saying goodbye. You'll give Hannah a kiss for me, right? Tell her Auntie Nina will call her soon and send her postcards."

  The tears Tori had been holding back began to fall. "I can't stand this. I want you to be happy, but I don't want you to leave."

  Guilt beat a staccato through Nina's mind. "I'm really sorry. If you truly don't want the cafe, don't feel obligated to take it. I can put it up for sale. Although, I don't want the money and I'd much rather hear about your pie selling adventures instead. I'm so glad you became my friend. I love you and Hannah so much."

  Tori couldn't talk because her crying had evolved to balling her eyes out. Her friend wasn't a pretty crier and the sounds coming out of her didn't exactly sound human.

  "Mommy, what's wrong?"

  Both women spun in the direction of Hannah because neither had heard her enter the room.

  "It's okay, baby. Mommy's fine."

  Of course, she didn't sound fine when she could barely speak the words and Hannah was no dummy even at nearly six years old.

  "Why are you crying? Are you hurt?" The little girl’s eyes shimmered with tears.

  "No, baby. I'm just upset. Just give me a few minutes and I'll be fine. I promise."

  "You should have some ice cream then. That always makes you feel better when you cry."

  Tori did her best to smile. "I know, baby. I will."

  Nina's heart broke over the stricken look on Hannah's face at her mother's distress. She'd caused that. It didn't matter that she didn't mean to. This is how the bad always happened in her life. On accident. She never meant to hurt Tori.

  She'd never meant to hurt Gabe either. But it happened. It always happened.

  With Tori on her knees coaxing her daughter back to bed, Nina slipped out the front door and left as quickly as she could.

  It wasn't until much later and hours away from home that she realized she'd not told Tori that Gabe wasn't actually her brother.

  Shit.

  Chapter 3

  Gabe slammed his phone down on his desk and watched it splinter into pieces.

  "Fuck!"

  Three days. Three fucking days since she'd walked out of his office and he still didn't know where she was. Tori had come to him in tears, distraught that her friend had slipped away and frantic she didn't know how to contact her since she wasn’t answering her cell phone.

  Mason had visited him daily full of threats and ultimatums about Nina's whereabouts and the club to the point he'd nearly throttled the man. Gabe had walked out of Purgatory and had no intention of going back. Period. End of story. If anyone was going to go fuck himself, it was going to be Mason.

  Now they were all walking a tightrope of emotions until he figured this out.

  Gabe picked up the signed and sealed marriage license Victor had delivered to his home that morning. It was official. He and Nina were married and he had the legal paperwork to prove it. So why the fuck wouldn't anyone tell him where his wife was?

  He stood and paced across the room. She'd handed over her precious cafe to Tori without a second thought and a thorough search of her cottage had told him next to nothing. Other than she'd packed up only the bare necessities—at least for now. Other than those two things, Nina had vanished into thin air.

  The only other person who might have a clue to her whereabouts wasn't bothering to take his calls and was conveniently out of town with his wife. Tucker would know. He had to know. Other than Tori, he was the only other person she ever confided in.

  He slammed his fist against the wall. What the fuck was he missing?

  The pictures on the walls rattling didn't faze him in the least. He was ready to tear his house down to the studs if he thought that would help him find some sort of clue as to where she might go. She'd never talked to him about where she wanted to go in life or what she wanted to do. As far as he knew she had the job she wanted, in the place she loved. Her cafe and cottage sat across from the lake. If anything, she seemed to have found solace in the water. More than once he'd observed her in her kayak, just sitting peacefully amidst the sounds of nature.

  While she didn't take said kayak with her, he knew that wherever she went she would find a place in nature t
hat would soothe her pain. She loved the country.

  His stomach cramped at the thought of her suffering. Yes, he was mad at the shit she'd heaped on him that day in his office. And hell yes, he was pissed beyond belief that she'd left without working things out with him. Fuck, they were married now. Isn't that what married people were supposed to do? Fight and makeup?

  Instead, she'd run.

  And he felt her pain as clearly as if she stood in front of him with tears in her eyes.

  He almost laughed at that picture. Not once in all the years, he'd known her had she come to him to share her pain. He always went to her. As he would again.

  The Dominant in him would accept nothing less than to use every opportunity to take her pain away, no matter how it came about. Did he feel the need to punish her once he found her? Hell yes, he did. But more important was the need to take care of her. They had married impulsively, but that didn’t matter to him. He took their nuptials as serious as if they’d been planned for years. She was his. Always had been. How in the hell did she not understand that yet?

  Whatever bad memories she’d suppressed, he would be the one to help her recover and move on from them. And he couldn’t care less if that meant finding out the woman he loved had committed murder.

  That bastard, his biological father (words he still didn’t want to utter out loud), deserved everything he got and more. If he was still alive…

  Gabe wanted to throw up. He'd yet to adjust to the explosive knowledge of his true parentage. Thanks to that lovely bit of information, pent up rage flowed freely through his veins now and every moment since Mason dropped that bullshit. Anger, like he'd never felt in his life, threatened to consume him if he thought too long on the facts.

  As much as he hated to admit it, Mason had been right to keep that information from him. Instead of focusing on hate, he'd spent most of his adult life focused on the love that his true parents had given him. Nina on the other hand, he might never forgive Mason for leaving her in the dark. Much, if not all, of the torment, that she lived with and occasionally allowed him to see, had mostly to do with the man she had believed was her father.

  She feared what he might have made her do. She feared someone else might find out, but most of all she feared becoming just like him.

  Ugh. He shoved a stapler across his desk, barely registering its crash to the ground. His thoughts were going to drive him insane. He couldn’t sit here in this house and wait. He had to do something.

  Staying another minute in this house was out of the question. She was everywhere here. In his room, his kitchen, his living room and especially this office. They’d made their deal here and he couldn’t stop hearing the words. “I don’t want to say no anymore. I just don’t know how to say yes.”

  He punched the wall again, this time making pain radiate up his arm and into his shoulder. He focused on that. Let the hurt wash over him. He wasn't often on the receiving end of pain, but he certainly understood well how thoroughly experiencing it could wipe everything else away.

  In fact, he got so caught up in his own head, he missed the front doorbell ring. It wasn't until someone pounded on it with their fists that he jerked to attention.

  He rushed through the house as the pounding continued. What the ever loving fuck?

  "I'm coming!" he yelled, hoping whoever was on the other side was ready to receive his wrath.

  The mystery guest continued to pound and each loud thud and subsequent vibration reverberated through his skull. If he wasn't careful he was going to have to kill the asshole on the other side of the door.

  Finally, he reached the door, unlocked the deadbolt and jerked the door open.

  "What the—" He got a quick flash of who stood there before a flurry of motion caught him off guard as a fist landed on his face and sent him reeling backward, unable to finish his question. As pain exploded, Gabe grabbed his head at the same time trying to steady himself on his feet. He spent a lot of time training in a boxing ring to stay in shape so he was able to recover rather quickly. Good thing because Tucker stormed into his house and punched at him again.

  This time Gabe saw the move coming and he raised his arm to block the brunt of it.

  "Motherfucker!" Gabe yelled at him, shoving at Tucker's shoulder with enough force that it pushed the other man into the opposite wall.

  "Me? That's fucking rich." His friend didn't say anything more before he came at him yet again. This time Gabe couldn't catch himself before falling and his shoulder connected with the entry table on his way down. More pain erupted.

  Unfortunately for Tucker, Gabe had built up a lot of anger and stress over the last three days and it had conveniently just found an outlet. With the other man advancing, Gabe had to act fast. He swung out his right leg, hitting Tucker behind the knee and knocked him off his feet.

  He slammed against the opposite wall as he fell causing the pictures hanging there to crash down on him. Glass shattered and littered the floor.

  “What the hell is wrong with you?” Gabe demanded with a bellow.

  “Me? Fuck you,” Tucker spat.

  Both men got to their feet. Gabe tested his aching jaw to be sure nothing was broken.

  “What the hell did I do?” he asked.

  Tucker lunged. “You hurt my sister, mother fucker.”

  Gabe sidestepped, but damn Tucker was fast, he managed to clip him again on the side of his head. Fresh pain exploded across his temple. Gabe spun again and this time lunged for Tucker, tackling him to the ground.

  “Enough!” he yelled. “I did nothing to hurt, Nina. You know better than that.”

  “You married her. Without saying a word to any of us I might add. What kind of bullshit is that?”

  “She’s a grown woman capable of making her own decisions. She doesn’t need your permission to do anything. Maybe you need to remember that.”

  Tucker didn’t seem to care for his response considering the brute strength he used to wrestle free from Gabe. He stood to his full height, but instead of behaving like the casual billionaire he normally did, his face twisted in agonized anger as he attacked again.

  Both men slammed into the wall behind Gabe, again shaking the walls and sending more artwork crashing to the floor. It wasn’t until Maggie came through the door screaming at them that Tucker finally broke focus long enough for Gabe to get the upper hand. He rolled them across the floor until he had Tucker pinned below him.

  “Stop,” Gabe demanded.

  “Let him up.” Maggie pushed at his shoulders and although it was against his better judgment, he did as she asked. It was hard to not do as the pregnant woman requested considering her condition. The look of distress on her face bothered him and he hated being a part of anything that could cause her discomfort.

  “Tucker Lewis.” She turned the full extent of her distress onto her husband. “What is wrong with you? Gabe is our friend and you know he cares about Nina. Get a hold of yourself.”

  Tucker wiped a touch of blood from his busted lip before he responded. “It’s his fault. If he hadn’t gone and married her none of this would have happened.”

  A loud sigh sounded from Maggie. “Don’t act like a petulant child over this. Nina is an adult capable of making her own decisions. The last thing she needs is any of her brothers trying to hold her back like a parent gone wrong. Not to mention she deserves the truth about her own life AND she deserved it long before now. Imagine being in her shoes right now. Would you have done anything different?”

  Gabe perked up at Maggie’s defense of his wife. “Do you know where she is?”

  Maggie started to answer, but Tucker cut her off before she could. “That’s none of your business, now is it?”

  He narrowed his eyes. “I am her husband. I think that gives me rights.”

  Tucker snorted. “That doesn’t give you shit as far as I’m concerned. If my sister doesn’t want you to know where she is, I’m sure as shit not going to be the one that betrays her. She’s been through enough of t
hat lately.”

  Gabe stifled the urge to remind Tucker that Nina was not his sister. Despite the ache in his jaw and the likely blackening eye, he understood how shocking the news of Nina’s parentage or lack of parentage had to be for the man now standing in front of him—belligerence and all.

  She’d always been closest to him. Long before that fateful college night when he’d lost his parents and gained three unlikely friends that brought him into her life, Nina had turned to Tucker for everything.

  “Have you talked to her?” He was desperate for information and he didn’t care if he sounded needy or not.

  Maggie shook her head. “No. She’s not answering her cell phone for anyone that I know of.”

  Gabe nodded. He’d lost count how many times he’d tried her phone. Or the number of voicemails he’d left for her, almost begging her to talk to him. No, he wasn’t lacking in pride at the moment, but his worry for her safety outweighed his pride. Besides, once he got to her there’d be time enough to deal with her behavior. To say his hand itched to bend her over his knee and paddle her ass red was a massive understatement and he couldn’t get it out of his head.

  They had a lot to work through. But first, he had to find her.

  “I’m worried about her. The bombshell Mason dropped on her… Well, it came at about the worst time possible.”

  “Why is that?” Tucker sneered, not even bothering to hide the derision he obviously felt. “Did it inconveniently interrupt your plans to get my sister in your bed?”

  Gabe clenched his jaw. He wasn’t about to get into the nitty gritty details of he and Nina’s relationship up to this point nor what his future plans were. No one outside their marriage needed to know about the deal they’d made or the finer points of her disappearing virginity. If he and his wife wanted to take drastic measures to recover her lost memories, that was their business and no one else’s.

  However, he had to give him something if he had any hope that Tucker would tell him where Nina might have disappeared to. And he didn’t doubt for a second that he either knew where she’d gone or suspected her location.