Page 19 of Healed

The word wasn’t loud, but it didn’t need to be.

“Look at me,” she whispered.

I was looking at her.

That was the problem.

I could see how much blood there was and how pale she’d become. I could see the tremor in her hands and how much effort she had to put into just keeping her eyes open.

I could see it all and I fucking hated it. After everything she’d survived, after everything Gabriella had sacrificed for her, this was how it ended.

Sacrificing herself for a man she couldn’t stand—a man she had actively plotted to kill alongside her old man numerous times before.

A man never good enough for her daughter, a man from the wrong side of the tracks, with a drug addict mother and a club she loathed behind him.

And for that man, she would die on a cold, disgusting basement floor.

“Do you know what Gabriella’s first word was?” Michelle asked suddenly.

I frowned. “What?”

“Mine.” Despite everything, a small laugh escaped her. “She pointed at Harley’s bike and announced it belonged to her. She was one. Harley was so proud you’d have thought she’d solved world hunger.”

My throat tightened.

Michelle smiled faintly at the memory.

“Every birthday she wanted to rescue something. A dog. A bird. Once it was a bloody squirrel that she found in the garden. She carried it around for three days before Harley realised it wasn’t injured. It just liked the free food.”

A tear slid down her cheek.

“That’s who she is, Luke. That’s who she’s always been.”

I already knew this. I knew Gabriella inside and out.

And I knew what Michelle was saying.

Gabriella saved who she could save. Even if it meant destroying herself in the process. And now, Michelle was finally going to do the same thing.

Her fingers tightened around my wrist.

“And for ten years, she’s been trying to save me. Trying to save both of us, really. She stayed here because of me. Because she thought distance kept you safe. Even when everything screamed in her to go back to you, she tried to keep us both safe. But it was me that she suffered for. It was because of me that she let that monster hurt her.”

The guilt on her face nearly destroyed me.

“I watched it happen, and I was powerless to do anything about it. But the truth is out there now. Now she can be saved. You can save her.”

Michelle lifted a shaking hand to my cheek. “Set us free, Luke. Put me out of my misery and give my daughter her life back.”

The gun was heavy when Dante placed it in my hand.

Michelle closed her eyes.

And because I loved Gabriella, because Michelle was right, because there are some mercies so cruel they look like sins, I pressed my forehead to hers, the gun to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

Chapter 7

Vienna