The woman smiled. “Yes.”
“Congrats, by the way,” Gabriel’s immediately older brother, Alessandro, said. He’d just finished setting the guns back in the cabinet, closed the doors, and then went and plopped down next to a modelesque brunette on the couch. “Hey, baby.”
She wrapped her hand around Alessandro’s head and petted it gently. “I’d hit you if I weren’t so happy you were okay.”
I backtracked through Gabriel’s stories to put names to faces. Luca’s wife was Molly. That one was easy. He’d talked about them at length because he was so worried about them splitting up. I watched Luca pull Molly against himself and comb his fingers into her hair. He showered her with kisses on the left side of her face while her hands gently stroked up and down Luca’s side. I didn’t share Gabriel’s concern. Rough patches, maybe, but that love was too strong to warp.
I let my gaze drift over to Marco and his wife. I believed Gabriel had said her name was Kelly. She was spritely-looking, and I wondered how old she was compared to Marco. Either he was robbing the cradle a little bit, or she’d found the fountain of youth. The way Marco clung to her was impassioned and protecting. Of the brothers, that relationship stood on the soundest foundation.
I looked at Alessandro and his wife. I’d learned the most about Alessandro, but he hadn’t talked about his wife very much. I knew her name was Willow by process of elimination, but I wondered more about their marriage. Even as they sat together with love curling around them in nearly visible ribbons, I could sense a darkness around them, as well. It was probably too soon to hit them with my holistic mumbo-jumbo, but even though the light shone almost brightest off of them, the shadows they cast were just as significant. They had troubled waters ahead. I just hoped for them and their family’s sakes, they were strong enough to brave the storm.
As if they’d noticed that I was done analyzing them, all of their eyes fell to me. Luca walked over and settled into his desk chair, bringing Molly to sit against the arm to his left, and Gabriel pulled me over to sit on the other couch that Alessandro and Willow weren’t on.
“Well, Stacy,” Luca started. “You make a hell of a first impression.”
I chuckled. “Oh. Yeah.”
“How?” Gabriel asked. “I…how?”
“I panicked when you hung up on me,” I told him. “I respected your wishes when you said not to call the cops, but I couldn’t just abandon you. Knowing you, you were going to be reckless, and given that I found you and your brothers tied to chairs, I would say I was right.”
Gabriel frowned at me. “I had to come in here, baby. I couldn’t just leave them.”
I swatted him against the back of the head. “You almost got them killed. Be smarter.” I felt his aura cloud up, so I kissed him on his cheek and started to pull the invisible clumps of dust away.
“Um,” Marco started, looking around like he was watching a strange TV show. “What the hell is she doing?”
Gabriel held up a hand. “She’s cleaning my aura. Just give her a sec.”
I finished cleaning out what I could, but he’d need a more thorough cleaning later, both physical and spiritual.
“Wait!” Molly screeched. “I knew I recognized you! You’re the yoga instructor.”
Marco and Alessandro burst out laughing, and Luca’s jaw dropped.
“Wait,” Luca started. “How the hell did you meet a yoga instructor?”
Alessandro chuckled darkly. “Go ahead, Gabe, tell him.”
Gabe looked at Luca, an embarrassed smile on his face. “At yoga.”
All of the brothers fell out laughing, and Willow started to, as well. Both Kelly and Molly seemed content to berate their husbands for their mockery, even if they were also chuckling along.
Luca held a hand out towards me. “Okay. Okay. Okay. How was he at yoga?”
“Miserable at first,” I said with a laugh, before looking at him sweetly, “but he got better.”
“I bet he did,” Marco hissed, and Kelly slapped his back.
“Can we just get back to Stacy running in here like a badass, please?” Gabriel diverted the subject.
Molly raised her hand. “I am also very interested in that.”
“How did you get a gun? I can’t imagine you need that much protection at a yoga studio,” Marco questioned.
I led the Varasso family through the story of my evening. I backtracked all the way to my house when I had to lie to Mira to say I was going to bed because I was tired. I even fed the ruse that I was taking my meds and would be conked, and I waited until I heard her snores from the living room to call Gabriel. I had intended just to confess to him and convince him to come over, but then he told me that he was in trouble. When he hung up on me, dread filled my body. I didn’t know if he would survive whatever encounter awaited him, so I looked up the address Molly had provided when she signed Gabriel up for yoga and came to back him up. Mentioning yoga sent the brothers over the edge with laughter again, while Gabriel made a snide, obviously not serious comment about the invasion of privacy.
I explained that I rummaged through Gabriel’s car, looking for a gun, and found one under his driver’s seat. It was at this time that all the brothers revealed that they had, unbeknownst to each other, inherited the exact same caution from their dad of a gun under the driver’s seat. It’d spared each of their lives now, counting the fact that I used that gun to save Gabriel, and for a moment, they sat silently while the reality washed over them that their father had actually left something behind that they all agreed was good.