Chapter 3 - Don't Call Me Your Wife
Gabriel reached Wisconsin in forty-seven minutes.
He remembered none of the drive.
The private clinic stood behind an abandoned farmhouse surrounded by frozen fields.
One black SUV was burning near the barn.
Another had crashed into a fence.
Gabriel stepped from his vehicle with his men.
“Luca!”
“Here!”
Luca emerged from behind the clinic, blood running from a cut above his eyebrow.
“Norah?”
“Inside.”
Gabriel moved.
Luca grabbed his arm.
“Listen to me first. Marco's men weren't trying to take her.”
Gabriel turned.
“What were they doing?”
“They were trying to kill her.”
Everything inside Gabriel went still.
He entered the clinic.
A frightened nurse stood in the hallway.
Samuel Vale appeared behind her holding a handgun.
He aimed it directly at Gabriel.
“Stop.”
Gabriel stopped.
“Where is she?”
“You don't get to ask.”
“I need to see my children.”
Samuel's expression hardened.
“You needed to see them yesterday.”
Gabriel accepted the blow.
Then a baby cried somewhere behind the closed door.
The sound changed him.
His face crumpled before he could stop it.
“My son?”
“Your daughter.”
Gabriel stared at the door.
Samuel lowered the weapon slightly.
Then Norah spoke from inside.
“Let him in.”
Gabriel entered.
For three years, he had seen Norah in silk dresses, elegant coats, and expensive jewelry.
He had never seen her look so fragile.
She lay propped against white pillows, pale from blood loss, her hair loosely braided.
A tiny sleeping infant rested against her chest.
Another slept in a clear bassinet beside her.
Gabriel forgot how to breathe.
His children.
His knees nearly failed him.
Norah watched without expression.
“Don't touch them.”
Gabriel stopped.
“I won't.”
His voice was barely audible.
He looked at the baby in the bassinet.
A boy.
Dark hair.
Tiny clenched fist.
“What's his name?”
Norah hesitated.
“Elias.”
Gabriel looked toward the child against her chest.
“And her?”
“Rose.”
Something tightened painfully behind his ribs.
His mother's name had been Rosa.
Norah knew that.
“You named her after my mother?”
“I named her after the only Costa you ever described as kind.”
Gabriel absorbed that quietly.
Then Norah looked at his collar.
He realized he was still wearing yesterday's shirt.
The perfume was probably still there.
Humiliation burned through him.
“I know about Anthony Vale,” he said.
Norah's expression changed.
“I found his recording.”
“You shouldn't have.”
“Marco killed your father?”
“I believe he ordered it.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
She laughed once.
It contained no humor.
“Tell you what, Gabriel? That your beloved uncle murdered my father? You trusted Marco more than you trusted me.”
“I would've protected you.”
“Like you protected me last night?”
He had no answer.
Norah looked down at Rose.
“When my contractions started, I called you nineteen times.”
Gabriel's eyes closed.
“Nineteen.”
“I know.”
“No, you don't.”
Her voice remained quiet.
“That is the problem. You think guilt means understanding.”
Gabriel looked at her.
Norah's eyes filled with tears.
“I was terrified.”
Those three words hurt more than anger would have.
“I sat in that bathtub wondering if our babies would survive, and every time Harris told me to push, I looked at the door because some stupid part of me believed you would come through it.”
Gabriel's jaw trembled.
“But you didn't.”
“I can't change that.”
“No.”
She wiped her cheek.
“You can't.”
Gabriel approached one step.
Norah immediately tightened her arms around Rose.
He stopped.
“I ended it with Bianca.”
Norah stared at him.
“You think this is about Bianca?”
“Isn't it?”
“No.”
Her answer stunned him.
“Bianca was the symptom. You were the disease.”
Gabriel flinched.
“You lied. You disappeared. You made promises and broke them. You came home smelling like other women and expected silence because everyone in your world gives you silence.”
She looked directly into his eyes.
“I did too.”
Gabriel whispered, “Until yesterday.”
“Until yesterday.”
A siren sounded outside.
Samuel rushed in.
“We need to move.”
Luca appeared behind him.
“More vehicles coming.”
Gabriel looked through the window.
Three SUVs approached along the frozen road.
Marco's men.
Gabriel turned to Samuel.
“Take Norah and the babies out the rear.”
Samuel stared at him suspiciously.
“Why should I trust you?”
“You shouldn't.”
Gabriel pulled his handgun.
“But trust what I'm about to do.”
He kissed two fingers and gently touched them to the air above Elias's head without making contact.
Then he looked at Norah.
“I'll buy you time.”
She stared at him.
For one brief second, the old Norah appeared.
Worried.
“Gabriel—”
He turned away.
“Go.”
Gunfire erupted outside.
Gabriel walked into it.
Not because he expected forgiveness.
Not because one brave act could erase years of betrayal.
He did it because for the first time in his life, Gabriel Costa understood that loving someone did not mean possessing them.
Sometimes it meant standing between them and the danger carrying your own last name.
Twenty minutes later, Norah's vehicle disappeared into the snow.
Gabriel watched it go.
He did not follow.
But before leaving the clinic, Norah had given Luca something for him.
A folded piece of paper.
Gabriel opened it.
There was an address.
May you like
And beneath it, four words.
Come alone. Prove it.
