This Thing of Ours (The Gamblers Spin-off Novel) Page 5

  He held her close, making his way through the room, up the stairs, and out the front door. He’d never realized just how slight she was. Larger than life when passionate about something, she was always a force to be reckoned with, lending presence to her small stature.

  Nico caught his eye on the way to the car, but Marco couldn’t read his expression. That Nico let him keep control of his sister, especially at such a time, perplexed him, but he wouldn’t relinquish his hold without a fight, so his acceptance was a blessing in disguise.

  He got into the back seat for their return trip home, wanting to keep Gabriella on his lap and knowing there’d be more room. Frankie took Marco’s spot in the front next to Nico without a word. Gabriella’s eyes were closed, but he knew she wasn’t asleep by the way her small hand fisted the front of his shirt.

  He watched the rest of the men pile out of the house as Nico started the car. Johnny and Ricky held some fucker between them, bound and gagged. Guess they were going to have a little fun later, after all.

  After a few minutes on the road, Nico spoke. “She all right?”

  He looked down, and Gabriella gave him big, pleading eyes, clutching his shirt tighter. He caught Nico’s eyes in the rearview mirror. “She’s sleeping.”

  He felt Gabriella relax into him, her stiff muscles softening in his arms. She still hadn’t spoken since they’d first found her, and that worried him. He’d never known a silent Gabriella.

  He thought back to the first time he’d seen her soon after Nico had brought him home. She couldn’t have been more than twelve. He’d been barely more than a kid himself when Nico had found him, living in a rat-infested apartment he’d shared with his drunk-ass father.

  Things had always been tough—growing up with a gambler who’d lost more than he won hadn’t lent itself to a fruitful environment. But the year he would turn eighteen, things had come to a head. His sister had bailed that year, and while it was one less mouth to feed, it was also one less paycheck. Already a few months behind on the rent, their shithole landlord had finally roused himself enough to leave a pay-or-quit notice on their door, and that had been the beginning of the end.

  The piece-of-shit job he’d had while trying to finish his last year of high school hadn’t paid more than the bit of food he’d managed to keep in the kitchen and the gas and electricity it took to cook it. And he’d known he’d have to drop out of school and find himself a full-time gig. He hadn’t been foolish enough to have lofty dreams, but even the small dreams he’d had would’ve been crushed without a high-school diploma.

  After ten years of service to the family and more money than Marco had ever hoped to achieve in a single lifetime, he knew it’d been fate that had brought Nico to his door that long-ago night, expecting payback for gambling debts incurred by his old man but taking Marco instead. He knew he owed Nico his loyalty and he had it a hundredfold. But even his loyalty to Nico couldn’t protect against the consequences of his feelings for Gabriella Conti. Feelings he’d always known might one day get him exiled from the family if they were ever revealed.

  Looked like that day might be upon him.

  Gabriella’s soft voice pulled him from his thoughts, and he looked down to find her eyes on him. “What?” He leaned in closer to catch her words over the wind blowing through Nico’s open window and the tires speeding over asphalt.

  “I said, go ahead and say it.”

  He drew his brows together. “Say what?”

  She exhaled a small sigh before whispering, “I told you so.”

  He squeezed her a little tighter, too relieved they’d found her—and found her alive—to worry about anything as petty as gloating. His lips touched the top of her head where he closed his eyes and breathed her in before murmuring, “Never.”

  Chapter Seven

  The steady hum of the tires and the warmth of Marco’s arms almost lulled Gabby to sleep, but they pulled through the gates of her home before she could completely succumb. Seeing her parents’ house come into view jolted her to full wakefulness and panic set in. She wasn’t ready to be interrogated. Wasn’t ready to face the consequences of her stupidity. The anger from her father. The worry from her mother. She just needed some time… alone.

  As Nico put the car in park, her whole body tightened, which must’ve alerted Marco because he asked, “What’s wrong?”

  She clutched the front of his shirt. “I want to go home.”

  A frown appeared between his brows. “You are home.”

  “No, my home. I’m not ready to face anyone yet.”

  “You need to see a doctor.”

  She desperately shook her head. “I’m fine. Truly. I just need a shower and some sleep.”

  “Gabriella—”

  “Please.” She leaned in closer, abusing his shirt further, and with a heartfelt whisper, repeated, “Please.”

  The back door was whisked open, and Nico was there, reaching for her. “Come on, polpetta.”

  Marco’s arms tightened around her as the two men stared at each other.

  Nico was the first to speak. “Don’t overstep, my friend.” While the words sounded like friendly advice, the warning was clear in his tone.

  But Marco didn’t back down, and Gabby had never been more grateful. “She needs a little time. Just tonight.”

  “You’re an authority now?”

  The tension was thick, sucking all the oxygen from the car and making it hard for Gabby to breathe. Or it might have been Marco’s arms which had grown tighter around her.

  “Her request.”

  Nico’s eyes flashed to hers and held. She watched the tension leave his face as something like sympathy overtook his expression the longer he held her gaze. If it got her what she wanted, she’d take all the pity she could get.

  He sighed, his shoulders deflating. “I’ll go in and explain, but Greene has been called, and you will see him.”

  “I don’t need a doctor, Nico.” Her voice was so low it was a wonder he’d heard her.

  “Tough. Let’s call it a condition of your reprieve. Unless you’d like to go see the folks now?”

  She shook her head.

  “I didn’t think so.” He gave Marco one last meaningful look before backing out of the car and heading for the main house.

  Gabby expelled a sigh of relief. Nico had called it a reprieve, but she considered it more a stay of execution. For tomorrow, her metaphysical neck would be on the chopping block. While her father wasn’t cruel, he was stern and had exacting standards.

  As the baby—and an unexpected one at that—she’d been allowed a little leniency, and she’d taken advantage. But she’d never been in a scrape such as this, and she had no idea what her father’s reaction would be.

  Marco negotiated them from the car and carried her to her door. “I don’t have my key.”

  “We’ll have to get the locks changed then.” He looked at her door. “You got the deadbolt done up?”

  She shook her head. “Just the bottom lock.”

  He placed her on her feet. Her legs were unsteady, and he held on to her until she was sure of her balance. “Step back.”

  She did as he asked and stood transfixed as his leg came up, his foot landing solidly beside the doorknob. He was a big guy—easily noticed when he dwarfed her small frame—and strong—which his bulging muscles would attest to—but it was still hard not to be impressed with how effortlessly he kicked in her door.

  He walked over the threshold and scanned the darkness before flicking on the light switch and scanning again. He held a hand out to her, and she took the few steps to take it.

  “Where’s your bedroom?”

  She pointed to the open door just past the kitchen, and he did the light-switch-on-room-scan thing again before pulling her in.

  She went to the foot of the bed and sat down, feeling exhausted both physically and emotionally. She watched Marco disappear into the bathroom through a mist of tears that filled her eyes as the events of the last three days fin
ally made their appearance. Her body started to shake, and she sat on her hands to hide their tremors as she took a few deep breaths to gain control of her emotions.

  A Conti never cries. A Conti inspires tears. How many times had she heard that growing up? Too many. Every skinned knee. Her broken arm when she was eight. When her senior prom date had canceled at the last minute. When was the last time she cried? She couldn’t remember.

  Marco reappeared. “I ran you a bath. I couldn’t find any stuff to put in it.”

  “Stuff?” she asked, perplexed.

  Marco shrugged. “Bubbles. Salt. That smelly shit.”

  Gabby bit the inside of her cheek to hold back a smile. “I don’t have any. I never take baths.”

  His frown was back. She noticed he did that a lot around her. “Would you rather take a shower?”

  Would she? Gabby thought a moment and realized a long, hot soak actually sounded nice. “No. A bath sounds good. Thank you.”

  She approached the bathroom, and he stepped out of the doorway and started for her bedroom door. “Marco,” she called, halting his progress.

  He turned back to her.

  “I don’t want to be alone.” She didn’t mention she was, in truth, scared to be alone. As it was, she sounded pathetic enough. “Do you mind, um, staying outside the door?”

  At his nod, she stepped fully into the bathroom and shut the door behind her. Then came face to face with herself for the first time. Her right cheek was swollen and tender to the touch, as was her bottom lip. She closed her eyes.

  She wouldn’t think about that.

  Taking a deep breath, she slowly opened her eyes, and fingered her ripped t-shirt, noticing she had two torn nails, dried blood visible where they had pulled away from the quick. She trailed her fingertips down the line of scratches from her bruised neck, over her chest, to the swell of her breast, stopping at the edge of her bra. Pulling her shirt off, she dropped it on the floor. Her bra came off next, uncovering teeth marks, reddened and swollen, surrounding her nipple.

  She wouldn’t think about that, either.

  Not wanting to see anymore, she turned her back to the mirror, toed off her shoes, and quickly removed the rest of her clothes. Scooping them up, she threw them in the small wicker wastebasket at the side of the sink, cramming them down to make them fit.

  She let out a sharp hiss as she sank into the tub, the water feeling almost cold it was so hot. Blindly, she grabbed at the soap on the dish, dunking it into the water and lathering it between her hands. It stung as she rubbed the bar over her arm, the foam entering the tiny cuts and scrapes. But she didn’t care. The pain only made her scrub harder. Her eyes filled again, and she sniffed, fighting back the tears that wanted to fall. She wouldn’t give those men the satisfaction.

  She noticed the markings on her wrists, scrubbing the soap over the abrasions. She never did see Peter again after Derek had saved her, but by that point, she’d been so traumatized, any man coming near her had been terrifying. Lashing out, repeatedly, had earned her the restraints. She didn’t regret the marks on her wrists. Not one bit. Proved she was still a fighter—that Peter hadn’t broken her.

  With only the occasional lap of water breaking the quiet, a sudden panic seized Gabby’s chest, and she called out, “Marco?”

  “Yeah?”

  A gust of air blew past her lips. “Just checking.” She transferred the soap to her other hand, and she scrubbed at her right arm. “Will you talk, so I, um, know you’re still out there.”

  Endless moments of silence met her request until she heard his throat clear. “I’m not good at conversation.”

  Gabby held back a snort of agreement. “I don’t care what you talk about. I just want to hear your voice, so I know you’re still out there.”

  “I’m not going anywhere, Gabriella.”

  “Please, Marco.”

  There was another pause of silence before she heard a thump against the door, which she imagined was his head tipping back, followed by his voice. “I had a dog once. A mangy mutt, mostly skin and bones. I’d found him in an alley. We weren’t allowed pets at our apartment, so I stuck him under my jacket to sneak him in. I named him Fred.”

  “Fred?” she asked, captivated. He rarely spoke and never about himself.

  “We had a piece of shit TV. Old and out of date. Only got a few channels, and the ones we did get were mostly static. But one station came in clear or at least clear enough to see the picture and hear the sound. It played mostly old shows, the ones in black and white—Andy Griffith, Leave it to Beaver, shit like that. I liked I Love Lucy the best. Always tried to watch it when it was on. I’d remembered an episode where Little Ricky brought home a dog. Lucy had to hide it from her landlord. She ended up naming him Fred. I’d figured our situations had been similar and did the same... I had him a month.”

  A few beats of silence passed before Gabby asked, “What happened to him?”

  “Came home one day and he was gone. My dad said he was sick of feeding an extra mouth. I never knew what happened to him.”

  There were a few more beats of silence where Gabby stared into the water, seeing nothing. “How old were you?”

  “Seven.”

  She sucked in a breath. “So young.”

  “What?”

  She cleared her throat and raised her voice. “Where was your mom?”

  “Gone. Dead. I don’t know. Just knew she was never there.”

  The silence stretched again, but this time neither filled it. After a time, Marco said, “You almost done?”

  “Yes, just a few more minutes.”

  Gabby rushed to wash her hair then when she had finished, she drained the tub and turned on the shower to rinse herself clean. After drying off, she realized she had no clothes. Wrapping herself in the towel, she cracked the bathroom door. Marco was all she could see through the gap, leaning against the jamb, arms folded across his chest.

  “I need clothes.”

  His eyes drifted down before returning to meet her gaze. After the story he shared, she wasn’t sure what she expected, but his hard eyes and tense jaw weren’t it. “I’ll be in the living room.”

  He didn’t give her a chance to argue before he was out of view, and a few seconds later, she heard the soft click of her bedroom door.

  She dug comfy clothes from her dresser, slipping into fresh undergarments, a baggy shirt, and leggings. She wasn’t looking forward to Doctor Greene’s visit but knew it was unavoidable. After refusing to see her parents, the least she could do was give them assurance from the doctor that she was okay.

  Her bed called to her, but she didn’t give in to the allure of soft sheets and a fluffy comforter. Instead, she headed to the living room and the only person she really wanted to be with.

  She found Marco slouched on the couch, head tipped back with his eyes closed. He hadn’t heard her enter and she was able to take him in at her leisure. His tie was undone—the ends trailing off either side of his chest—as were the top three buttons of his shirt. No longer crisp, the white cotton showed its day’s wear, wrinkled in front where she’d clutched it and a slight shadow of dried sweat under his arms. At some point, he’d rolled up his sleeves and untucked the hem from his slacks. She’d never seen him so disheveled.

  His neck was bared, his Adam’s apple prominent, with the dark scruff on his jaw trailing down the underside of his chin before transitioning into smooth, olive skin. She’d think he was asleep if not for his hands, clenched into fists, resting on the cushions to either side of where he sat.

  She hadn’t made a sound, but he must have sensed her presence because his head suddenly popped up, and he speared her with his eyes. He didn’t say anything as they followed her as she moved farther into the room and took a seat at the far end of the sofa. Tucking herself into the corner, she planted her feet on the cushion and pulled her t-shirt down over her legs. Her chin hit her knees and rested there. His eyes didn’t leave her.

  “Can I get you anything? So
mething to drink?”

  She raised a brow. “A shot of tequila would be nice.”

  He closed his eyes and sighed. “Please tell me you’re okay.”

  “I’m fine.”

  His eyes snapped open, maybe from her tone or lack of one, and he reached out a hand. “Streghetta—”

  A commotion at the door interrupted whatever he was going to say. His hand arrested mid-air before falling and landing on the cushion that separated them.

  Nico and the doctor filled the room. Marco stood, running his fingers through his hair and scrubbing his hands down his face before tucking them into his front pockets.

  Nico looked between them. “The door’s broken.”

  Marco dipped his chin. “It’ll be fixed tomorrow.”

  The doctor cleared his throat. “If I may, I’ll examine Gabby in the bedroom.”

  Nico flashed her a look then gave the doctor a curt nod.

  “Come, my dear.”

  Gabby reluctantly stood from the couch and led the doctor to her bedroom.

  “I’m fine, really,” Gabby said once Greene shut the door.

  He looked her over with a critical eye. “You don’t look fine.”

  Gabby took in the elderly doctor’s stern expression. Used to treating hardheaded men, he didn’t have the best bedside manner. Never going the traditional route, the Conti family doctor had been treating Gabby for as long as she could remember. And he knew her well. She put her game face on and replied, “It’s just a few scrapes and bruises.”

  “Are you sure that’s all?”

  “Yes.”

  Sighing, the doctor walked to the bed, set his bag down, and opened it. “You know I can’t leave here until I’ve examined you.”

  “And by examine you mean…?”

  “Exactly what you think I mean.”

  “You can’t examine me without my consent.” She eyed the syringe and small vial he pulled from his bag. “What’s that?”

  He didn’t bother looking at her as he filled the syringe. “Just a light sedative to help you relax. It won’t drug you or make you unaware.”