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“I can come and get you,” he offered.
“Do you want to just meet in the lobby?” She asked.
“Sure, I’ll be there in five minutes.” He said before disconnecting the call.
As soon as they hung up, he blended in with the crowd and made his way back to the hotel undetected. He quickly dialed Mariano’s number. “I have a phone number I’m going to send to you. Run a check on it.”
He sent Layla’s cell phone number directly to Mariano. Gabbriello heard a few clicks of a computer before his brother responded. “Okay, it looks like this number is registered to a Layla Bancroft. It’s encrypted so I can’t get much more info than that, but I can see where she’s been for the past week. So, it looks like her primary location has been at an apartment in Montgomery County and also…, what the fuck?”
“What is it, Mariano?”
“The FBI field office in Philadelphia. She’s probably an agent.”
“Shit. Thanks, I will call you later.” Gabbriello tried to contain his anger as he shoved his phone back into his pocket and waited inside the lobby for Layla. As he contemplated how to handle this situation. He hoped it wouldn’t end with him having to kill her. He immediately noticed her red, swollen eyes as she entered the lobby.
What type of game was she playing? One way or another, he would find out tonight. Beautiful or not, he would kill her to protect his family.
“Are you okay?” Gabbriello asked. The sight of her somehow disarmed him. He wanted to comfort her, but he also knew that if she didn’t give him the answers, he needed that he would have to do the unthinkable.
“Yes, I just miss Samantha,” she responded as she inhaled deeply. His dark eyes stare right through her.
Gabbriello studied her sad expression and saw the vulnerability in her eyes. “Let’s go,” he said as he placed his hand gently at the base of her back and guided her to the elevators.
Layla felt a strange sense of security when she stepped into the elevator and the doors closed.
He lowered his hand, pulled out a key, put it into one of the key slots, and turns it forty-five degrees to the left before pressing the button to the twentieth floor.
As the elevator moved, she ignored everything she knew about Gabbriello. The fact that he was a suspected criminal, he may have something to do with Samantha’s murder, and the pending investigation the FBI was working on him. She forced all of it out of her mind. For one night, she needed to feel his comfort. She needed to not think, just enjoy whatever the night would bring, and she would figure the rest out tomorrow. “You have a special key?” Layla asked, gesturing to the key and breaking the silence between them.
“It allows me to get to my floor. The first nineteen floors are rooms for guests. I live on the twentieth. The key makes it go past all those floors without revealing where I live.”
The elevator let out a ping, and Gabbriello took out his key. The doors open to one of the largest penthouses she had ever seen.
“Wow,” Layla said, unable to contain her surprise.
“Let me give you the tour.” Gabbriello stepped forward onto the marble tile and into the large room. The living room and dining room were open and spacious. On the left, there is a theater-size home movie screen with a row of reclining seats in front. On the right is his kitchen. With an island in between the kitchen and living room, there were granite countertops, layering each counter.
Layla walked deeper into the room and noticed a black oven and stove top that looked like a picture from a magazine. Above the white cabinets was an array of wine bottles organized neatly in alphabetical order. “Here we have the kitchen and theater room.”
Layla followed him as he walked around the kitchen and through a long hallway. The first door on her right was a bathroom which looked identical to the one in her hotel room, but only twice as big. To her left was a small door that led to a linen closet that was almost as big as her bedroom. At the end of the hallway was his bedroom. Layla stopped at the doorway and her eyes widen. The walls were painted dark gray and there was a large king-size bed in the center of the room with a fluffy black comforter.
“This is my room and there is a balcony over there.” Gabbriello pointed beyond the bed and towards a section of long hanging curtains.
“Can I see?” Layla asked, curious about the view.
“Sure,” he led the way and pressed a button on the wall that retracted the curtains, revealing a set of white glass double doors. He opened both and she stepped onto a wide balcony. The view immediately took her breath away. It gave her the perfect sight of Philadelphia’s skyline. It was lit up like a million stars in the night sky. Layla looked down and she can barely see the people walking below. She glanced around at the buildings and her eyes fall on the large green Emerald gem hanging above the entrance to the Emerald Club.
“Do you like it?” Gabbriello asked.
She could barely take her eyes off the view. “I love it. You get to wake up to a beautiful sunrise every morning?”
“Not exactly. The sunrises on the other side of the building, but I get the sunset. So technically, I go to bed to this every night.”
Layla laughed at his joke. When she turned to face Gabbriello and found him staring right at her. “How can you be looking at me when there is an amazing view right in front of you?”
He didn’t take his eyes off her when he replied in his deep, confident voice. “I guess I just gravitate towards the most beautiful thing I see.”
She looked away as she blushed and stared back down at the people below. “Does that line get you laid?” she asked without turning to face him.
