“Gabriel Matthew Mariano, watch your language,” Grandmama says, and I flinch.
“I’m sorry, Grandmama, I thought?—”
“Oh, I can make out who you thought I was. Now tell me why you didn’t come over last night for supper and why you are mad at Reed.”
“I had some things to take care of last night for work.” The lie comes to me easily because I don’t think Tara wants anyone to know that she is alive. It’s too dangerous for her right now, or at least she thinks it is. On the other hand, I’m not so sure because she didn’t stick around this morning for me to find anything else out. The people that we have talked to truly believe she is dead, but that doesn’t matter because if anyone thinks that they can lay a finger on her, I will steal their life away quicker than they can blink.
“You couldn’t take an hour away from work to come see your Grandmama, and don’t think I didn’t notice that you only answered one of my questions.” Grandmama uses the same tone she has always used when I’m in trouble. I might be thirty-two, but that tone always makes me feel like a child again.
“I really couldn’t, Grandmama, but I promise I will make it up to you. As for Reed, he is just being an ass.” Guilt from lying, even if it’s by omission to Grandmama, makes me feel dirty. I have never told her a lie since I was five and saw the look of disappointment in her smokey gray eyes the first time a lie slipped from my lips. She knows what I do for work, and if it is something that could potentially put her in danger, I tell her as much as I can. She knows not to ask too many questions.
Grandmama has been the one constant my whole life. My earliest memories have her as the star. My mother was young when she had me, basically a baby herself. She had me at sixteen. Grandmama stepped up to help raise me, thinking that as Helen—my mother—got older, she would grow into motherhood, but that never happened. By the time I was five, Helen was too far gone, lost in the world of drugs and alcohol, not caring that she had a son at home. Grandmama was the one that providedeverything I needed and the things I wanted in life. When I was scared, hurt, and, yes, even in trouble, I would run to her. Running to Helen never crossed my mind.
As for my father, he was never in my life. To this day, all I know about him is that he was Italian. I don’t even know his first name because I genuinely just didn’t care about him. He was an out-of-sight, out-of-mind kind of thing. Helen met the same fate when I was ten, and Grandmama came home from a work trip to find me all alone, scared, and hungry because Helen had disappeared for the entire week. Grandmama told Helen to pack her shit and never come back. I remember standing on the stairs of Grandmama’s house, feeling nothing as I watched the woman who gave birth to me walk out of the door.
Grandmama sold the house and moved us into the apartment she still lives in. She got another job, one that didn’t require her to go on as many work trips. She saved enough to put me through college, and once I got my first big paycheck, I offered to buy her a house, but she refused, saying that she liked her apartment. When I built my house, I offered to create a mother-in-law suite just for her, but she once again refused. When I met Tara, I told Grandmama all about her and how I had met the one. The day that the police declared Tara dead, I showed up at Grandmama’s and cried in her arms all night long. She cried with me, telling me how much she loved Tara and how she wished there was some way to take my hurt away. So, to keep the fact that Tara is alive a secret doesn’t sit right with me.
“You boys will work it out. You always do,” Grandmama says in her all-knowing voice.
“I know we will. Look, Grandmama, I hate to cut this call short, but I’ve got to go and handle a few things. I’ll call you tonight, and we will have dinner as soon as I’m back in town. I love you.”
“Love you more,” Grandmama says, and then the line goes dead.
The whole drive, my phone pings with messages, and Reed calls multiple times, but I ignore it all, focusing on getting to my girl. Following the directions from my GPS, I pull up to an unassuming white split ranch-style home. You wouldn’t know from the outside that a man who makes Reed Black hesitate to show up lives here. I pull up into the driveway, parking behind a silver Ford Taurus, and shut my truck off. I always carry a pistol when I leave my house, but I choose to leave the gun in the truck. I’m not here to cause trouble; I just want my girl.
Stepping out of my truck, I shut the driver’s door but don’t get to turn around before I hear the front door of the house open and shut. “You lost?” Elio asks from behind me. If I hadn’t heard his voice last night, I wouldn’t have a clue who was standing there.
Slowly, I turn around, and my hands raise up in front of me because, unlike me, Elio didn’t leave his gun inside. Pointing straight at me is the business end of some sort of pistol. I’m too far away to tell the make and model, but that doesn’t really matter right now. After quickly looking at the gun, I lock my eyes on Elio’s and don’t move my gaze. I’ve always found it weird that when we look someone in the eye, we have to pick one eye to stare at.
“I will only ask you one more time, you lost boy?”
“No, sir. I’m not lost. In fact, I’m right where I need to be, considering my girl is currently inside your house.” My voice is even, calm, but a little rough. This isn’t the first time I’ve had a gun pointed at me, and it’s surely not going to be the last. While I want to rush him and take the gun from him, I resist because the way Elio spoke to Demon last night about Tara means that they have formed a bond in the year she has been living here. I reallydon’t care how people view me, but I want this man to like me because I feel his opinion will mean a lot to Tara.
“Your girl? The last time I checked in with her, she wasn’t yours. In fact, if she was anyone’s, I would say she was mine.” Elio’s eyes turn ice-cold and narrow. Those are fighting words to someone like me, but I grind my teeth and try to keep my breathing even.
“No,” I say. That simple word comes out much harsher than I wanted it to but fuck him.
“Excuse me. I don’t think you know who I am.” Elio steps forward, and I match his one step but take an additional three until I’m standing with my chest against the barrel—of what I can now see is a Glock 22. My actions must have surprised Elio because for a second, his eyes widen, and his jaw goes slack. But he quickly recovers and hardens his facial expressions.
“Sir, with all the respect in the world, I don’t give a shit who you are, what family you work for, or the fact that you could put a bullet in me faster than I could blink. All I care about is that you are standing between me and the woman I love. Let me make it very clear: that is not a place anyone wants to be standing. You could be the fucking devil reincarnated, and I wouldn’t blink or cower away from you. So either shoot me or move the fuck out of my way. I have some things that Tara needs to be reminded of.” I raise one eyebrow at him and wait. I might have wanted his seal of approval, but the consequences of not having it isn’t going to keep me from getting what I want.
Elio processes my statement very fucking slowly, but after a minute, he lowers his gun, nods his head, and says, “That’s what I like to hear. Come in.” He turns around and heads inside, leaving the door open for me.
I quickly shake my head and follow him inside. I don’t have time to look around at the furnishings before I’m pulled into thearms of a woman waiting right inside the door. “What a speech,” she says, patting me on the back.
My arms hang loosely by my side. “Ava, let the boy go,” Elio says, staring at the woman, squeezing me with adoration in his eyes. “She’s upstairs. The second door on the left.” He nods toward the stairs.
“Thank you,” I say after Ava lets me go and steps back. I don’t pause to look at the woman before racing up the stairs. I take them two at a time, and the whole house seems to shake under me. Looking left, my eyes stare at the door like I could open it with just a single thought. I pause for a second to take a breath but then cross the small landing and throw open the door.
Tara screams as she jumps back against her headboard. Her hands slide under the pillow, but before she can pull whatever weapon she has stashed under there out, I’m already across the room and pulling her off the bed. “Gabe, what the fu?—”
“No, the time for you to talk is over. Now it’s time for you to fucking listen to me. You don’t get to do that. You don’t sneak out of our house in the middle of the night and run away. You don’t leave my fucking arms without me knowing ever again. Do you understand?” Tara’s blue eyes tell me that she is pissed that I’m here.Well, that makes two of us, sweetheart; I’m pissed that I had to come find you.When she doesn’t answer me, I grit my teeth and growl at her like her dog growled at me last night. “Tara! Do you understand?”
“Oh, I get to talk now. Who the fuck do you think you are coming into my house and speaking to me like that,” she growls back at me.
My hands are holding onto her shoulders, meaning she doesn’t move an inch when she goes to step back. Leaning down to close the distance between our faces I growl, “I’m your fucking man. That’s who I am, or did you forget that? Because I have no problem reminding you who you belong to.”
“Let me go, Gabe,” she demands.
