Don Take Your Love To The Deep Sea Chapter 05
The dark seawater swallowed her figure in an instant.
Gabriel stood frozen at the window, his body rigid. His brain refused to process what his eyes had just seen.
Serena arrived at the villa moments later. She burst through the front door and found Gabriel balanced on the edge of the balcony, looking like he was about to follow Chloe into the water below.
“Gabe! Are you insane? Get down from there. Right now.”
For the first time in five years, Gabriel didn’t react to her voice. He remained hyper-focused on the churning waves below. His eyes were shot through with blood. A single tear traced down his pale face.
“What happened?” Serena’s voice trembled. “You said you were going to keep her here until she calmed down. Where is she? Where is Chloe?”
Gabriel turned his head slowly. He looked at Serena as if seeing her for the first time.
“Chloe… she’s gone.” He pointed a trembling finger toward the vast, empty Atlantic.
Serena felt the floor tilt.
She had only wanted Chloe to see that she and Gabriel were the perfect match. She had wanted Chloe to give up and leave on her own. She had never wanted her dead.
“You’re joking. Right?” Her voice went shrill. “Chloe is strong. She would never kill herself. Gabe. Tell me you’re lying.”
She searched his face for any sign of cruelty. She found only silence. The icy sea wind was the only response.
Gabriel’s voice was hoarse. “Serena. It was us. Our betrayal. We pushed her over that edge.”
Serena’s legs gave out. She collapsed onto the marble.
“No. That isn’t true. It can’t be.”
Chloe was her best friend. How could she have been the one to kill her?
As she sat on the cold floor, a sudden thought sparked in her eyes.
“She played us, Gabe. Don’t you remember? Chloe swims like a fish. Her father used to make her train in the Newport bay every summer. This is just another stunt. She’s trying to force us apart.”
She lunged forward and grabbed Gabriel’s arm like a lifeline.
“Call the Family. Call all of them. We have to find her before her little plan works. We can’t let her win like this.”
A flicker of desperate hope crossed Gabriel’s dead eyes.
“Right. Right. Chloe has a temper. She’s just trying to scare us. We just need to find her and bring her home.”
Gabriel put every man the Salvattis had on the coastline. He hired every private search operator on the Eastern Seaboard. Deep down, both he and Serena forced themselves to forget one critical detail.
Chloe had been severely wounded when she hit the water. Her back had been laid open by the strap. She had been bleeding for over an hour before she jumped.
Neither of them could accept the word murderer. And neither of them wanted to live with the weight of it.
For a full month, they scoured the coast from Newport to Montauk. As days turned into weeks, hope began to rot.
Gabriel spent hours staring at the horizon. The image of Chloe’s face, not the angry one, but the girl who had once loved him, began to haunt him. The thought that she might never come back spread through his mind like a virus.
He began to shake uncontrollably.
For years, he had balanced himself between two women. He had felt guilty toward Serena, so he had given her everything. Time. Money. His body. He had known he was hurting Chloe. He had let his heart drift anyway. He had figured Chloe was easy to keep. She loved him too much to ever really leave.
In his twisted logic, Serena had been the thrill. Chloe had been the one he intended to grow old with.
Now he understood she had seen through him all along. And she had chosen the cliff over another minute at his side.
Gabriel, who had quit smoking years ago at Chloe’s request, started again. The villa was filled with a thick, suffocating gray.
Serena walked into the room, her eyes watering from the smoke.
“I’m pregnant, Gabriel. Can’t you at least try to control yourself?”
