The Life: Sacrifice (The Life 3)

For the first few months, when we all held out so much hope of finding Gia, he was able to keep an almost positive outlook on things. But, somewhere in the last couple of months, he’d switched into some sort of mode that not even I recognized. Of course, life for everyone else has moved on, but my boy, I don’t know what’s true and what’s not.

He tells me daily that he’s fine. He’d thrown himself into his new studies at my old alma mater even though he’d opted into studying from home instead of heading to campus. His mother and sisters spend almost every day worried about him, and since he moved into the guesthouse that’s more than a few feet from the main, it’s gotten worst.

It’s almost like he’s decided to distance himself from life or at least from the rest of us. Nothing scared me more than when he stopped talking. About the only time he’s shown any life in the almost year since the girl left is when Lancelot decided not to join the program at the precinct. Gabe rightfully guessed that his friend was only thinking of dropping the one thing he’d always wanted to do so that he could keep an eye on him, and he’d lost his shit.

I’m still not sure what he meant when he kept saying he won’t be responsible for destroying another life or the life of someone else he loved, but I can take a guess. It’s no secret that something happened between him and Gia, but he’s never said so I can only speculate. Then there was the time I grew afraid that he was going to end up drinking his woes away or dipping into drugs.

He’d become so withdrawn; what else was I supposed to think? But I should’ve known better. Where most would’ve buckled under the pressure and done just that, my son had turned to his old passions. He’s now honed his body into something approaching perfection, I guess. I caught sight of him one day when I went over to the guesthouse to see him, and the boy has an eight-pack, arms that look like they could bend iron, and a chest that Michelangelo would’ve wept over as he sculpted.

That was the day I realized my son had become a man. Now, Gabe has always been old for his age, but there was always still a hint of innocence about him, or maybe that’s what I wanted to see. The boy I saw that day had shed all pretense at softness; there wasn’t a shred of it left. It’s not just his body that has changed either; when I look at him these days, there’s something in his eyes that had grown hard. If I wasn’t his father, he’d scare the shit outta me.

So, as I said, life has been going on. It’s taken me this long to compile the information I wanted on Dempsey, but only because the more digging I do, the more assholes I find hiding in plain sight, waiting to take me down. I thought it would be a quick and easy job, but now I have agita dealing with this shit. It’s all coming together, though, and Levi’s case is about to be wrapped up. Lance is looking at a nice chunk of change though he doesn’t need their shit.

My wife has settled down with her father in residence. I think after the whole Gia thing, we’d both believed that Gabe had given up on whatever he’d had planned for Ricci because he was too focused on her to do anything else, but I’ve kept the boys alert and on the lookout for anything off.

He hasn’t left the country to my knowledge, though I’m not sure the idiot pilot wouldn’t try pulling the wool over my eyes to please my son. Because you see, while he’s been withdrawn and turning his body into more of a machine than it had been before, his relationship with my men has been subtly changing as well.

They no longer just see him as the boss’s son but as someone who’s come into his own and can order them around in his own right, meaning they no longer have to check with me before carrying out his bidding. Even these four had changed and grown with him to the point that getting anything out of them these days is like pulling teeth.

“Okay, what’s he been doing?”

“Nothing, he stays on his computer when he’s not hitting the books. At least he’s eating again and taking care of himself, but I think he’s trying to turn his body into Teflon.”

“What do you mean, Marcus?”

“I don’t know; he works out like he’s training for something. We used to think it was because of the girl, but lately, he won’t even let us mention her name, and he seems to have stopped looking for her on his own.”