The Life - Rebirth (The Life 4)

“Leave my mama alone.” This little whirlwind came out of nowhere and attacked my legs. I pulled her off with one hand while holding Gianna against the wall with the other. My gut twisted as the child's words sunk in, and my knees almost gave out.

My girl had a kid. From the size of her, she wasn't conceived too long after we'd parted. It hurt that she'd found someone so soon after...a whole lot of shit ran through my head in those first few seconds until the fog cleared, and I looked down at the little face that was peering up at me full of fury and looked into my own image. "Fuck me; she's mine….”

GABRIEL

“Gianna, what did you do?” I got down on one knee, not quite believing my eyes. I couldn’t breathe around the lump in my throat and had to swallow twice before I could find my voice. There was nothing I could do about the moisture gathering in my eyes as I looked over the little one from head to toe just as I’d done with her mother and had to fight back the tears.

I had to clear my throat a couple of times and must’ve looked like a fish when I kept opening my mouth to speak, but the words wouldn’t come. She just stared at me, this kid, with no fear.

“What’s your name, sweetheart?” I cupped her little face so much like mine; in fact, not so much; it was my face. How fickle is the heart? How can it hold so many different emotions? One minute dark and the next, the next filled with a love that’s so instantaneous it’s all-consuming.

“My name is Gaby. I’m two.” She held up two fingers. I looked up at her mother before getting to my feet.

“You kept my child from me? You? You betrayed me like this?”

“I betrayed you? You sent me away, remember.”

“I sent you away to protect you. How could you believe that it was okay to keep my child a secret? Don’t make me hate you.”

“You hate me? You took my virginity and sent me away. Do you know how hard it was to be alone and pregnant at eighteen?” Gaby tugged at me before I could answer her mother, and I turned my attention back to her. I felt like I’d fallen down the rabbit hole when I looked into her eyes. “Yes, sweetheart.”

“Are you, my daddy?” I almost smiled at her temerity, so much like me, like her dad.

I knelt beside her again; I just wanted to touch her again, feel how real she was. “Yes, yes I am. I’m your daddy.” She put her thumb in her mouth and rested her head on my shoulder, and battered against the walls of my already bruised heart.

I couldn’t even look at Gianna when I got to my feet. “I came here willing to grovel, willing to do whatever it took to gain your forgiveness. Now you’ll be lucky if you ever get mine.” I started to walk out the door with my kid in my arms, ignoring Gianna’s calls to stop.

“Daddy, wait.” Gaby pulled her thumb from her mouth and pointed down the hallway. From the way her mother reacted, I figured the fiancé was down there somewhere hiding the fuck.

“No, Gabriel.” Gianna tried to stop me, which only made me hotter to get down there. I tried putting the baby down to keep her out of harm’s way, but she stiffened like a bamboo reed and hung on with both arms and legs. Now I can’t break his damn neck in front of my kid. I looked at her, and the kid smiled at me around the thumb she’d stuck back in her mouth.

I turned the corner and walked down the hallway into the only bedroom downstairs, which happened to be a second suite, and almost dropped the baby who was pointing at two male replicas of herself, fast asleep on the little playmat looking thing, arms, and legs wrapped around each other like an ultrasound photo.

I didn’t know where to look or what to do. The room was spinning, and my chest felt full. I couldn’t find words, couldn’t form thoughts; all my training went out the window because nothing in life had ever trained me for something like this.

Gianna appeared in the doorway, eyes wide with fear as they very well should be. I went cold, cleared my mind, and worked it out. What should my next move be? There was one sure thing that was going to happen here, no matter what else followed, that much I knew.

“Where are the keys to your car?” She was too stunned by the unexpected question, said so calmly to think of denying me, so she went back down the hallway and grabbed her purse to hand them to me. “Gabriel, what’re you doing?” I took Gaby outside and opened the backdoor. Just as I expected, there were three car seats back there.