The Life: Sacrifice (The Life 3)

I’m not sure I believe that, but would it be better for him in the long run? I don’t just want to find her for Gabe, though; she’d become part of the family, a sweet kid who I thought would be around for a while. Her loss has been hard on everyone, including the twins, and the fact that she’d disappeared so effortlessly with as little experience of the world as she had, makes me shiver to think what my two could pull off.

Instead, they’ve grown closer clingier, and my girls could cling long before that. Now, it’s like they go out of their way to be closer to their mother and I, inviting us into their lives more than before, and that was a lot still. I think it scared them somehow, and though I’m not complaining, I mourn their wild and uninhibited youth that I’d once been dreading.

“Okay, keep me posted!” They filed out of the room, leaving me none the wiser as to what to do next for my kid. Nothing anyone did has worked so far to pull him out of whatever this is. Not either of his uncles, his sisters, his mom, even Sheila has tried. The only time he seems remotely like the boy he used to be is after one of his chess games with Pop.

I don’t know; I’m at a loss for things to do to get him back to the place he was before if it’s even possible. He’d even stopped asking Gia’s grandmother if she’d heard anything from her, and like the guys just said, any mention of her name turns him to ice.

* * *

GABRIEL

* * *

“What did you tell him?”

“Jeez, boss!” Matthew scared himself silly at my voice and almost broke his back against the door they’d just walked through. I turned from looking out the window to look at the four of them as they filed in. “I didn’t see you standing there.” I didn’t bother to answer; there was no need. The four of them will run off to their hangout room slash office and discuss whatever they perceive to be going on with me anyway, so why bother.

“Well?”

“We told him that you’re fine. What else could we tell him?”

“Good, that’s good. Get ready to leave in a little bit.”

“Where are we going?” Robert asked, but my only answer was a pointed look. He knows better, which his sheepish look confirmed.

I turned and headed back to my own rooms, leaving them to their own device. I don’t think anyone noticed, but I’ve grown to hate being around others. I’m not sure when it started, but each day that I couldn’t find her, I grew more and more withdrawn from the person I used to be. I know why; it’s because I no longer have a heart.

Not in the physical sense, of course, it’s in there, still beating, but the part of it that feels died about six months ago when I used up all my resources and still couldn’t find Gianna. Accepting that had killed something inside of me. Not only because she was gone, but because it was my own doing.

I replay our last conversation in my head over and over again, picking it apart and wondering if I could’ve done something different. I still get through my days by telling myself that she’s just punishing me, which is her right, but I’d made myself stop dwelling on it for the last three months or so.

That’s how long it had taken me to stop obsessing over finding her and turn my attention to other things. I’d been torn between finding her and making sure she was okay before turning my focus back to Ricci, but now I can’t put it off any longer. After all, wasn’t this the whole reason for sending her away in the first place?

It’s coming on to a year since she’s been gone, and I’ve run the gamut of emotions time and again until it got to the point where I used my anger and fear to fuel my resolve to bring down Ricci and his cohorts. I’d probably have given it more time had Memnon not been keeping me up to date on his side of things.

It’s taken this long for him to even breach the surface of whatever this Luna person was involved in, and according to him, and he should know, this organization that she’s a part of is more sophisticated than most, with layers upon layers to peel back.

It’s been months, and he still hasn’t reached the core of it yet, but that could be because I’d asked, and he’d promised not to involve his team until I gave him the go-ahead, so he was going it alone for now. I didn’t tell him why I asked this of him, and he didn’t ask, though from the tone of his words when we communicate online, he’s grown suspicious of my intentions.