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Chapter 17
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The Life Rebirth Chapter 18
GABRIEL "Where are the children? What's going on?" Sal came down to the breakfast table the next morning to find only me in attendance. I'd had some time to think in the hours since awakening and sending them out of the house while waiting for him to show his face. "What do you plan on doing with your son?" I ignored his question. "Ah, this is a good question. I have many options, but I cannot decide on any one of them." "Tell me about them." He seemed to realize the change in my tone, but though he looked at me, askance did not make mention of it. "Do you think it's an easy thing for a man to kill his own son?" "Is that one of your options?" I didn't look at him as I continued sipping on my coffee. "I think you have the mind of my father. He saw no grey area, only black and white. I, too, wished to be like this." He seemed to get lost in thought as I waited for what else he had to say. If there's one thing I hate, it's an enabler. Anyone who makes excuses for evil is jus
The Life Rebirth Chapter 19
GABRIEL The bastard just logged off, leaving me with a mountain of questions. How does he know Gianna or that she was missing? Does it matter? I grabbed my stuff and packed my bags in haste, not caring what went where which is far from my usual style. I called Pop on my way out the door and didn't even take the time to tell Sal that I was leaving. "Pop, we have to leave right now." "Why what's happened?" "It's Gianna, I think, I don't know, but I think she may have been found. I'll meet you at the plane." Where is she? And who the hell is he? How did he find her when I couldn't? Memnon, I'm almost certain now that it's either him or someone he knows. What had the hacker said that first day? I heard you're smart. I heard someone else had told him, so it's definitely not Mem. But I'm leaning towards someone he knows. ANONYMOUS is known for finding people, but I know if any one of my fellow hackers could find her, so could I. But the organization Mem works with is even better, mor
The Life Rebirth Chapter 20
GABRIEL "We're here!" Pop's voice broke through the fog of my inner musings. "What are you thinking?" He was asking this because I hadn't moved. "I'm trying to figure out if we're walking into a trap." "It's not a trap; I met this Mancini guy; he's on the up and up." "Mancini, thanks." "Dammit, Gabe." I just smiled and grabbed my stuff before following him off the plane. I pretended to forget something, but what I was really doing was getting info from the pilot. Now I had two names to look into. Mancini and Andros, I'm betting that Memnon knew one or both of them at this point. While Pop was taking his eight-hour nap earlier, I was busy thinking in between watching over him. He looked tired. I only now realize how much stress he's been under because of me. I caught up to him in the car, where he was already on the phone with someone though it's only a five-minute drive from the private airstrip to the house. "Let's go by Gianna's house." I was sure she wouldn't be there;
The Life Rebirth Chapter 21
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
The Life Rebirth Chapter 22
GABRIEL "What are their names? My sons?" "Um, Gabriel and Gianni." I looked in the rearview mirror at the three very quiet kids in the back who were busy looking at each other. The twins used to do that, still do, in fact. It's one of the ways they communicate. I'm trying to remember if they started as young as this, but it's too far back to recall. "Gabriel, I can't go with you; I have to go back. I…." "Go back where? To him? You want this guy to die? Tell me; you say he's never been around my kids; how was he planning to marry a mother of three without ever meeting her kids?" "Does it really matter?" She recoiled against the door from the look I gave her. "I'm trying really hard here, Gianna." I wasn't about to have this conversation in front of my kids. In fact, I'm trying really hard to see things from her perspective and cut her some slack and was sure that once things settled down and I no longer had the fear of what-if playing around in my head, like what if I
The Life Rebirth Chapter 23
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
The Life Rebirth Chapter 24
GABRIEL Why the hell is she upset? Isn't she the one with a fiancé? I know she doesn't believe me that Natalia is my sister since she keeps shooting daggers at the girl with her eyes, and I'm not fairing any better. I almost wish I was the type to try to make her jealous, but I'm not. I have no time for games like that. But maybe it's good that she feels that burn; see how it feels to be the one on the receiving end. Of course, she's not marrying anyone, not as long as I'm alive, so I'm not even a little bit worried about that. But just the thought that she even considered it makes me mental. I don't know what world she's living in where she thought it would be acceptable to marry another man and have him raise Gabriel Russo's kids. Somehow, I don't see her being that delusional no matter what the hell has gone on in these last two years of separation. And to bring him here of all places, did she really think she was going to shack up with some guy just around the corner a
The Life Rebirth Chapter 25
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
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The Life Rebirth Chapter 39
GIANNA Sometimes I'm afraid to be as happy as I am. I think it's a fluke, an anomaly, and that someday something's going to go wrong, and it'll all be snatched away from me again. I find myself lying still in bed some mornings, waiting for the fog to clear, so I'm sure it's not a lingering dream but reality and then somedays like a child, I wanna pinch myself because my life has become too good to be true. I guess there was never any doubt that I'd forgive Gabriel; how could I not, once I heard his story? And even though I tried to hold onto that anger in the face of that because I thought it was justified, there was some innate part of me that knew it would've been wrong. Wrong to punish him further, to make him suffer even more than he already has. But now I see clearly that my forgiving him has wrought wonders in mine and my children's lives. In short, I've gained more by letting go than I would've had I held onto anger and hurt feelings. Gabriel says it means I've grown up, I
The Life Rebirth Chapter 38
GABRIEL I sat at my desk while my family slept, staring at the computer screen where I'd been following the continuing conversations between the women since that first day. I'm still amazed, blown away more like it, at what had transpired in the days since. At first, I had no idea what was going on. I thought I'd just picked up a conversation between the women here in this room, but then it stopped making sense until I saw the name Kat and recognized it as the name of Lyon's wife. I still wasn't a hundred percent sure from their first conversation what was going on because there was a lot of talk about kids and the island, pretty tame stuff, and nothing to ring any alarm bells. Until things started to not add up. I held off on contacting Lyon to get his take until I realized that I was getting only half of the conversation, and the other half was taking place in his neck of the woods. I wasn't sure what he could do at this point unless he had a similar setup to mine, with the aut
The Life Rebirth Chapter 37
GABRIEL "Gianna, baby, where are you?" "I'm in here!" I played with the ring box in my pocket as I made my way towards the bathroom, where the sound of her voice came from. I still get a little choked up these days when I walk into the house, and they're here. It had taken at least three or four days before the pit in my stomach disappeared. That feeling of dread that they'll all be taken from me again. Maybe that's why I've been rushing to do things, trying to bring us up to speed and correct what was wrong in the last almost two years. She doesn't know it, or maybe she does and just hasn't said anything, but everything is new to me too. When she was no longer here, there were things I didn't let myself enjoy or even participate in; now, I have a hankering for all those things. My sisters, in their bid to keep her here with me, keep giving me advice on dating. They seem to think that their brother is a colossal screw-up in that department, and there's no guessing who they hold
The Life Rebirth Chapter 36
DRACO I hate this, hate telling my children about their brother's birth, hate having to utter the words that would reveal that he didn't come from me. How can I ease the blow? Even now, I'm more worried about Gabe than the others because it's always been about protecting him. It's always been about him knowing that he belongs. I would've given my life, so he never knew about any of this, but it's too late; it's been taken out of my hands. I tried not to resent my wife once again for her selfish act that had brought us to this. She's been beating herself up for days over this and maybe even longer. "What do you mean not your son?" Anna was rightfully angry, and I wish I could take the hurt away, but it was only going to get worst. I had yet to tell them how their mother was abased. It was her choice to tell them the truth. I knew she was doing it in part for the sake of Ricci's other children, who were now under our care. In order for the girls to accept them as their brother's si
The Life Rebirth Chapter 35
LYON We were packing up to go since things were pretty much settled on this end. The boy seemed to be getting his shit together and was no longer hell-bent on destroying himself. Then again, the fact that he didn't know where Ricci was could have a lot to do with his easy acquiescence, but who knows. I don't exactly trust these brainy types because they always got some shit going on. If he's anything like the rest of them, namely my own kid, I know he could stand in front of me and lie with a straight face while plotting chaos and mayhem in his head. My phone rang, and I answered without checking. "Lyon!" "Hey Dev, is everything okay?" The others stopped what they were doing to look at me. Since the call was coming from the island, it could be anything. "Yeah, uh, Nia tried to hack into the secured again." "Wait, I'll put you on speaker. Say that again." He repeated himself. "How far did she get this time?" "A little further than before, but we caught her just in time." "
The Life Rebirth Chapter 34
GIANNA I made the call, not sure what to expect. Once the congratulations were over after I told them about Gabriel and I meeting again, and they got through asking about the kids, I kinda got down to why I was calling. Now that I had them on the phone, I wasn't even sure where to begin. I was just going on instinct at this point and hoping that they could see a way to help us out. I wasn't exactly asking them to have their husbands kill someone, but I figured with Natalia's story added to the mix, they'd at least want to investigate this Ricci guy seeing as how they were into rescuing women and young girls from such situations. The truth is, I had no idea what the guys' plans were now that things with Gabriel had been settled somewhat; no one had told me what the next steps were. They didn't say much more than that they'd get back to me after discussing it with the guys, but then they asked a lot of questions which I didn't have the answers to, like where in Sicily Ricci was, et
The Life Rebirth Chapter 33
LANCE I felt like Daniel heading into the lion's den when I approached the door to the twins' suite of rooms. Only I doubt any angel anywhere would tussle with these two. I knocked on the door and opened and entered when given the okay to come in. As soon as they saw that it was me, Anna turned her back while Rosa stuck her nose in the air. "So you're still upset with me, okay, let's hear it; what is it that has got you two so mad at me?" "You know the answer to that already, so why pretend?" "Are you two seriously jealous of this girl? Why? What is she going to take from you?" They didn't have an answer, just looked at each other with frowns on their faces. I guess it's mine and their brother's fault that they're so spoilt, though I've never seen them acting this shitty before. I'm trying to understand their position, hell I'm confused myself with a lot of things that are going on right now, but the one thing I know for certain is that I don't want them acting like this. The
The Life Rebirth Chapter 32
GABRIEL It's weird what comes back from the past to jar you in the present. As I watched Pop play with the kids, his words from earlier kept playing over and over again in my head. Until he said it, I don't think I'd have realized that I'd stopped addressing him the way I used to as a child. It had been so long that it just got lost in the fog of everything else that has been my life. I remember the twins calling him Poppa, but vaguely and only because he mentioned it, recall myself doing so as well, which leads me to believe that since my sisters had always followed my lead, that they'd stopped calling him that when I did. I felt just a little bit sad that I'd robbed him of that. We stayed for a good half an hour until he got all the hugs and kisses in, and then it was time to go meet with Lyon, Mancini, and whoever else they had hanging around. I'd given up trying to find anything on these guys because they were ghosts. From their public persona, you would be hard-pressed to fi
The Life Rebirth Chapter 31
GABRIEL "I've already told you, none of you are leaving here. If there's something you need, just say the word, and it's yours." Why does my patient tone set her off? She's been like a grizzly ever since waking up this morning. Maybe I'd kept her up too late. It's not my fault I find her body so appealing. Now that I don't have impending death hanging over my head, I find new freedom in our lovemaking. In fact, I'm finding freedom in a lot of things that I never gave myself a chance to enjoy. But as much as I have changed, she seems to have done some changing of her own. Her mouth, for one, has gone through a drastic metamorphosis. She never used to talk back before. In fact, I can count on one hand the times she'd raised her voice before and never at me. Now she gives me looks, sucks her teeth, and rolls her eyes. Italian brat! "I'm guessing your ass isn't sore anymore, right." And the truth just positively enrages her. It's like stating the obvious is anathema to her. I have to
