Chapter 7 - An Uneasy Truce
Back in the green room, the holographic cargo ship had finally been powered down, though the boys were still chattering excitedly about the futuristic vessel.
Claire stood by the window, her arms crossed tightly over her chest, staring out at the rain that had begun to slick the New York streets outside. Gabriel walked over, stopping a few feet away, handing her a glass of still water he had poured from the silver pitcher on the sideboard.
“You need to hydrate,” Gabriel said quietly. “You haven't eaten anything all evening.”
Claire didn't take the glass. She didn't even look at him. “You think buying them a holographic toy makes up for five years of absence, Gabriel? You think you can just snap your fingers, wave your corporate magic wand, and absorb us into your life like a hostile takeover?”
“No,” Gabriel replied honestly, setting the glass down on the windowsill. “I know an apology isn't going to cut it. I know I missed their first steps, their first words, their birthdays, their Christmases. I know you had to lie awake at night wondering how you were going to raise three boys alone in a world you didn’t sign up for.”
Claire finally turned her head, her dark eyes flashing with a mixture of lingering resentment and profound exhaustion. “Then let us go. If you actually care about our safety—if you have an ounce of decency left beneath all that corporate armor—you will let us walk out the back exit of this hotel and go back to our lives.”
“And if my rivals find you by Tuesday?” Gabriel challenged softly. “What happens then, Claire? Do you think I could live with myself if something happened to them? If something happened to you?”
Before Claire could fire back a retort, the green room door swung open violently.
Serena Vale stood in the doorway, her chest heaving, her expression twisted into an ugly, desperate mask that bore no resemblance to the glamorous socialite who had stood beside Gabriel under the crystal chandeliers an hour earlier.
“Gabriel, have you completely lost your mind?!” Serena demanded, marching straight into the room, completely ignoring the three little boys who stared at her in wide-eyed silence. “You’re hiding down here playing domestic god while the entire New York press corps is buzzing upstairs like a swarm of hornets! If you let these bastards ruin—!”
The word died in her throat.
Gabriel moved with terrifying, predatory speed. Before Serena could finish her sentence, he was standing directly in front of her. His massive frame completely eclipsed her, and the look in his eyes was so intensely lethal that Serena staggered backward, her breath catching in her throat.
“Finish that sentence, Serena,” Gabriel whispered, his voice dropping into a register so chillingly cold that the temperature in the room seemed to plummet ten degrees. “I dare you.”
Serena swallowed hard, trembling violently as she stared up at him. “Gabriel… I… I didn’t mean—”
“You called my sons bastards in front of me,” Gabriel interrupted, his voice a razor-sharp blade. “And you walked into a private room containing my family without knocking.”
He turned his head slightly, locking eyes with Robert Vance, who had quietly slipped through the door behind Serena with two towering private security guards in tow.
“Robert,” Gabriel ordered without breaking eye contact with Serena. “Escort Miss Vale out of the building. Have her personal belongings cleared out of my penthouse by midnight. And ensure her family’s shipping contracts with Cross Freight are terminated effective immediately.”
Serena’s face drained of every drop of color. Her knees buckled slightly, and she grabbed onto the back of a chair to keep from collapsing. “Gabriel, you can’t do this! I gave you three years! I built your social standing! You can’t throw me away for a washed-up ex-wife and a bunch of random kids!”
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“They aren't random kids,” Gabriel said quietly. “They are my legacy. And you are trespassing.”
The two security guards stepped forward, each taking Serena firmly by the elbow. Without a single word of protest left in her, Serena was hoisted up and half-dragged out of the room, the heavy oak door slamming shut behind them with a definitive, thunderous crash.
