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“Gabby, stop,” I said, cutting her off. “Why doesn’t she think that? What is she planning?” I stopped picking at the linoleum and flattened my palms on the counter. With a deep breath, I finally dared to meet her warm brown eyes.
“You can’t stop it, Frankie,” she said. “Levi is going to use his position as his right hand. Beast will never see it coming.” She hesitated after she spoke, watching to see my reaction like she was worried I would hate her.
“Oh, Gabby…” My voice broke. It wasn’t my love in danger, it was hers.
“Beast has been missing for a few days, but once Levi finds him, it’s over.” Gabby couldn’t look at me as she walked over. It was clear she felt terrible, but I was the terrible one. How did I tell Gabby what was really going to happen?
She grasped my hands in hers. “I’m so sorry Frankie. I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but we really need to go.” Nausea built up inside me again.
“Gabby…” I couldn’t finish. She held my hands and I focused on her tiny, red manicured fingernails, wishing I didn’t have to say the next words. “He knows.”
“We need to g—what?” She stopped in the middle of her sentence, head whipping to mine.
“He knows about Levi,” I clarified.
“How?” Her brows drew tight, fear and concern dripping from her pores. Though her hands still held mine, they were no longer gentle, clenching until the flesh turned white.
“I told him.”
Gabby opened and closed her mouth, small sounds escaping but no words coming out. Eventually she gave up trying. It must have been minutes before she spoke again, silence like an ocean wave forcing me under and stinging my eyes and throat. She still held my hands and when she realized, she dropped them like I had the plague.
“If Levi finds Anteros, Anteros will kill him,” I said.
“Anteros?” she screamed, stepping back so fast she almost knocked over the chair behind her. “Who are you?”
“There’s still time,” I continued. “Go find Levi, go live happily ever after.” If anyone should have it, it was Gabby. She may have been born into the life, but she never deserved it. That night she watched movies with Levi in comfy clothes had been the highlight of her life. Gabby was the kind of girl who should have been doing simple things.
Not this.
Not talking murder.
“How could you?” Gabby spun away, her heels clicking furiously against the linoleum. “Lucia was right—you’re a traitor.” I couldn’t disagree. I was a traitor. A liar. A terrible friend. She walked perilo
usly close to the spill and I almost yelled at her to watch out, but she turned back around.
“Tell me where he is,” she demanded.
“I—” I hesitated. I knew where he was, but I just couldn’t. “I can’t.” Gabby expelled a frustrated breath through her nostrils and walked back to the counter, facing the window and the yellow-dotted linoleum countertop. Once upon a time, way back when my mother was still alive, we’d lived in a house with curtains on the window. Now it was bare, just like everything else in the house.
“I’ve changed my mind.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “I’m not going to help you.” For a second it looked like she might walk away, but then I spoke, and I said the wrong thing.
“I understand. You can still find Levi.”
“You don’t get it, you fucking—” She broke off, choked with rage. “You don’t get it. It’s too late.” Her eyes reddened with tears until they escaped, falling down her cheeks silently. “Are you even sorry?”
“Yes.” I was.
“With him, I wasn’t Gabriella de Luca, daughter of a whore, destined to be a whore, to live the life of my mother, good for only one thing. With him, I was Gabby.” She spoke like she was stuck in a nice memory, trailing her fingers over the linoleum countertop until they reached the knife block.
“You were never those things to begin with,” I hedged, watching her movements. It was like being with a bomb about to go off. “Your mom wasn’t a whore—
Gabriella De Luca is not the daughter of Sofia De Luca. She was born years later to some random whore Cuck had been fucking.
The memory assaulted me and I nearly lost my train of thought. I didn’t think it was a big deal if Gabby’s mother was a prostitute, didn’t think it was a big deal to be a prostitute period, but Gabby wouldn’t see it that way. It didn’t matter, anyway. I’d tried telling Gabby she had a different mother, but she wouldn’t listen. Gabby had been born to another woman, but she was defined by Sofia De Luca. I pressed on.
“Your mom wasn’t a whore,” I repeated. “I read her diary. Sofia was in love and the history you were told was a lie, Gabby. It was your father—”
“Don’t tell me about my mom,” she snapped, voice hoarse with anger. “I know about my mom. I lived this life. I know about my mom. You’ve been here for a few months and you read a few pieces of paper and you think you know things.” I wasn’t sure what to say to that. I felt I knew quite a few things, but maybe that made me arrogant. She was right—I hadn’t been in this world very long.
