The Reaper (Dark Verse 2)

Tristan looked at her, and shook his head. “Let’s leave, Morana.”

Gabriel’s eyes fell on her and he laughed. “Morana, the little whore in his bed.”

He stayed on his knees in the blood, grinning like a madman. “You aren’t my Morana! I don’t even know who the fuck you are!”

Morana raised her gun and pointed it to his head, her heart hurting. “Did you kidnap girls and trade them twenty years ago?” she asked, her voice shaking.

But Gabriel was too far gone to answer her.

“My Morana is lost. My Morana is gone. My Morana doesn’t even exist! And me? I would kill you every day I could. I want you to feel the pain my girl was feeling somewhere; I want you to bleed as she bleeds. I want you to question why Daddy didn’t love you like my baby must have wondered.”

Morana stepped forward, her heart bleeding, hurting, for a girl she had never met, for herself, and for all the other girls who had been brutalized by these men. “Did you kidnap girls twenty years ago?”

She was aware of Tristan’s eyes on her, of Dante watching the scene alert, but she couldn’t look away from the eyes of the man she had loved as her father for so many years.

Those eyes darkened as they came to her and his laughter got worse.

“You fucking whore,” he spit at her feet. “You don’t deserve to be happy, not when my baby isn’t.”

“I was a child,” Morana told him, her eyes burning. “An innocent child.”

“And I was a father!” he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. “I was a father to a beautiful baby girl who was replaced overnight! Gone! And you took her place. You’re not her! You’ll never be her!”

“Did you kidnap girls twenty years ago?” she continued asking relentlessly, her arms shaking with the strain on her mind and her muscles.

He stood up, taking a step towards her, the hatred in his eyes burning her, not answering her question. “Every time I looked at you, it reminded me of my baby. How she must have suffered. How she must have cried for me. You didn’t deserve her life.”

Morana felt each word assault her like a bullet, finding its mark, digging into her skin.

In the second that it took her to process his words, Gabriel took out his gun and pointed it at her head, his dark eyes unhinged on her. “Oh, he has a gun on me. He might kill me but I’d get my shot in. And I’d hit right between the eyes.”

Morana stared at the dark hateful eyes, unmoving. “Did you kidnap Luna Caine?”

“I’ve been crazy for a long time but I had to pretend, for the sake of my daughter, for the hope that one day Lorenzo would tell me where she was.”

Morana elevated her own arm, pointing it to his forehead.

Tristan’s calm voice came from her right. “Don’t do it, Morana.”

“Oh, do it, Morana,” Gabriel’s voice mocked her name. “Your father is dead. Your mother is dead. I will kill your lover too. And your children-”

“Don’t let him get to you,” Tristan’s voice came from the periphery, cool and collected. “I’ve got him. You don’t want to do this.”

“Oh you want to do this, don’t you, Morana,” Gabriel cajoled, his eyes feral like she’d never seen before. “You know if you have daughters, I will steal them-”

“Morana, don’t listen to him-”

“-and put them in the trade. Just like I did twenty years ago-

”

“I’ve got him, don’t do it.”

“Stop it!” Morana screamed at both the voices coming at her, her hands shaking, her entire form trembling with pain and rage that just kept accumulating inside her body. She felt the ice and fire battle inside her, taking her from cold-blooded detachment to burning fury in moments.

“Did you take Luna Caine?” she bellowed at Gabriel, her voice breaking.

Gabriel laughed. “Yes, I did!”