Chapter 2 - THE SILENCE IN AISLE FOUR
“No one,” Claire whispered.
Her fingers trembled against the plastic basket handle.
“Only my doctor.”
Gabriel DeLuca did not blink.
His dark eyes remained fixed on her face.
Beneath the harsh white fluorescent tubes, the air turned freezing cold.
Nathan Brooks stood frozen five feet away.
The hundred-dollar bills were still clutched in his fingers.
Jessica had stepped behind Nathan, her designer bag pressed against her chest like a shield.
“Mr. DeLuca,” Nathan stammered.
His voice had lost every trace of smug arrogance.
“I didn’t realize you knew Claire.”
Gabriel did not turn around.
He didn't give Nathan the courtesy of a glance.
“Put the money away,” Gabriel said.
The command was soft.
Quiet.
Deadly.
Nathan’s fingers twitched, folding the bills back into his leather wallet in clumsy panic.
Gabriel stepped closer to Claire.
The smell of rain, expensive cedarwood, and cold wool washed over her senses.
His hand reached down.
His fingers closed gently around the plastic handle of her shopping basket.
He lifted the weight from her hand.
“You shouldn’t be carrying this,” he murmured.
Claire swallowed past the knot in her throat.
“Gabriel... you shouldn’t be here.”
“I have spent five months searching every borough in this city for you, Claire.”
His voice lowered, gravel-rough.
“Did you think I would let you disappear forever?”
Jessica cleared her throat nervously from the end of the aisle.
“Nathan,” Jessica whispered, tugging his arm. “We should go.”
Gabriel tilted his head slightly.
He looked over his shoulder.
One of his bodyguards—a broad-shouldered man with a scar slicing through his left eyebrow—stepped into the aisle.
He blocked the exit to the registers.
“You spoke to her,” Gabriel said to Nathan.
Nathan’s throat bobbed.
“We were just catching up, Mr. DeLuca.”
“We used to date.”
“I was offering her some financial assistance.”
Gabriel’s eyes drifted from Nathan’s pale face down to Nathan’s polished Italian shoes.
“You told her she was too poor and irresponsible to be a mother.”
Nathan went chalk white.
“I was... I was joking.”
“My family does not joke about our blood,” Gabriel said.
The word hung in the air like a blade.
Blood.
Nathan’s eyes darted to Claire’s rounded stomach.
Then back to Gabriel’s stone-carved face.
Terror, raw and sickening, spread across Nathan’s features.
“Your... your baby?” Nathan wheezed.
Gabriel turned his back on them completely.
He handed Claire’s basket to his second bodyguard.
“Pay for these items,” Gabriel ordered.
“Add whatever prenatal vitamins the pharmacy counter carries.”
“All of them.”
“Yes, boss,” the guard replied, taking the basket.
Gabriel took Claire’s cold wrist in his palm.
His grip was firm, but gentle as silk.
“Come with me, Claire.”
“Gabriel, my apartment is two blocks away—”
“You are not going back to that walk-up tenement.”
Claire pulled against his grip, her stubborn pride flaring.
“You cannot just dictate where I live!”
Gabriel stopped at the end of the aisle.
He looked down at her faded sweater, her worn canvas shoes, the faint dark circles beneath her hazel eyes.
“Your landlord was paid off yesterday morning, Claire.”
She froze.
“What?”
“A private demolition firm bought your building at three o'clock,” Gabriel said quietly.
“The gas lines were rigged two hours ago.”
Claire’s breath caught in her throat.
Her heart slammed against her ribs.
“Who bought it?”
Gabriel’s eyes hardened until they looked like obsidian glass.
“The Moretti family.”
“My uncle.”
“And he knows you were seen leaving my estate five months ago.”
Suddenly, the glass front of the grocery store shattered into a thousand razor-sharp fragments.
May you like
A deafening rifle crack echoed from the street.
Gabriel threw his heavy wool coat around Claire’s shoulders, dragging her down behind the steel shelving as bullets ripped through the cereal boxes above their heads.
