Keep Her From Harm (The Denton Family Legacy 4)

“She’s your girl then?” Maddox asked.

“Yes, she’s my girl. I’ve also got a problem with Ivan Smith. I’m going to do some more digging. When the time comes and I want to hurt that bastard, you’re going to let me.”

“We don’t get messed up in petty squabbles,” Maddox said.

Damian smirked. “No, according to you we just knock them up. I can’t do that to Ivan. First, he’s a guy, and second, I’d never dream of sticking my dick there. Goodnight.”

He wasn’t in the mood to deal with his family drama tonight.

****

Gabriel watched as Damian left the kitchen and then Landon, until it was just him and Maddox, his father. His real fucking father.

“I’m public enemy number one right now.”

“You fucked my mother, and knocked her up as some kind of revenge tactic on my father. I can understand their anger.”

“Really?”

He shrugged. “You strike me as the kind to spout off about family loyalty and shit like that, and yet you didn’t even wait around to see what screwing my mother did. I don’t know if she knew I was yours or Colton’s.” He didn’t like thinking of the man he’d grown up with as his father, and he didn’t have a clue about Maddox either. It was all … strange.

“I’m sorry.”

“For what exactly? I don’t actually know what to do anymore. I’m not a Colton, and I’m not a Denton. I’m … nothing.” He laughed. The only person who seemed to accept him was Jacob, and that shit was messed up as he was older than Jacob by a matter of days. From what Jacob had told him, all of this should belong to him, but Gabriel didn’t want it. He didn’t want any of it.

The truth was, he didn’t have a clue what he wanted anymore.

“I never meant for any of this to happen,” Maddox said.

“You really don’t know how to apologize do you?”

“You want to apologize for you being alive.”

Gabriel shook his head. There were moments when Maddox Denton seemed to be such a nice guy, much better than the man he’d grown up with, and then there were times he couldn’t fucking stand him, which was now.

He liked Charlotte, and he even liked all of his half-brothers. Jacob had told him that they would come around very soon, but he just needed to give them time. Everything was a new adjustment. Even his own siblings, Owen, Wyatt, and Emma, seemed to have taken a step back from him. They all lived in a flashy new apartment, and he knew that Lou had made friends with Emma, along with Harper and Ruby. All three women were wives of the Denton brothers.

“I’m going to head out.” He didn’t want to stay here, not with Damian hating him so much.

“Wait. You heard Damian. You are aware of the Denton legacy, right?”

Gabriel turned to look at his father, and frowned. “Legacy?”

“Yes. When we find the right woman, the woman destined to be ours, we will do everything and anything to claim her.”

“That’s not going to touch me,” Gabriel said.

“It is. You’re my son, as are Jacob, Abel, Oliver, Damian, Gideon, and Landon.”

“What about Tamsin?” he asked.

“It’s never been a guarantee that women feel that same urge. Anyway, when you find the right woman, and you seem to zone in on her and everything fades away, that’s when you know you’ve found the one.”

“That’s utter bullshit,” Gabriel said.

“It’s not. Look at Damian. He was suicidal the other week, and now he’s willing to fight for his woman. Trust me, it is very fucking real.”

Gabriel didn’t know what to believe or what to make of that. It seemed so far out of fucking reality, but when he thought about it, his father had mentioned about the Denton curse, how it made them weak.