Don Take Your Love To The Deep Sea Chapter 03
This was the thousandth time.
The thousandth time Gabriel Salvatti had blindly taken Serena’s side without a second thought.
A year ago, I would have fought tooth and nail. Argued until I’d proven my innocence. Now, all I felt was an all-consuming exhaustion.
Serena knew me well. Before I could speak, she reached out and timidly tugged on Gabriel’s sleeve.
“Don’t talk to Chloe like that, Gabe. It was my fault. I just tripped.”
Predictably, her defense only made Gabriel’s eyes turn colder.
“You don’t need to cover for her, Serena. We both know exactly what she is.” He looked at me, his voice dropping to a threat. “Chloe. If you want to walk out of this hospital on your own two feet, you’ll apologize to Serena. Now.”
I was done with the theater. I pointed to the security camera above the nurses’ station.
“The truth is right there. Watch the footage yourself.”
I tried to step past him. A hand clamped down on the back of my head. Gabriel yanked my hair back hard enough that I was forced to meet his eyes.
“You think you can put your hands on Serena and walk away?”
Serena’s tears started instantly. “Gabe, stop! What are you doing? I told you, I fell. Let her go.”
My scalp felt like it was tearing open. I winced. Gabriel, the same man who used to panic if I so much as got a papercut, looked at me with pure disgust.
“Stop acting,” he mocked. “You aren’t a Cavallo princess. You expect me to believe this hurts?”
I tried to twist out of his grip. He moved faster and drove his foot into the back of my knee. I went down hard on the polished floor.
“Apologize.”
Looking up at his face, I felt a strange, sick vertigo.
I remembered when we were eighteen. A rival capo tried to kill Gabriel at a private club, and I stepped in front of him before the blade could reach him.
It pierced my shoulder instead, leaving the scar beneath my collarbone.
He held me as I bled in his arms, his eyes red, swearing on his grandfather’s grave that no one would ever hurt me again as long as he lived.
Now, every wound I carried came from his hand.
I closed my eyes and pulled in a jagged breath. “I will not apologize for something I didn’t do.”
“Gabe, please, just let it go…” Serena sobbed, reaching for me. Gabriel pulled her back behind him.
Then his fist came down.
Not a slap. A closed backhand across the temple.
My vision whited. My knees buckled. The taste of copper flooded my mouth.
The hallway went dead silent.
Serena stopped crying, her eyes wide with real shock, and lunged forward to shield me.
“Gabe! Stop!”
Gabriel ignored her struggle and pulled her into a protective embrace. He glanced at the red welt swelling across my temple without a trace of remorse.
“I’m warning you for the last time. The Salvattis owe the Cavallos for this arrangement. If you’re angry, take it out on me. But if you touch her again, I will make you pay a thousand times over.”
Then I threw my hand up and slapped him across the face with every ounce of strength I had left.
“You already gave her your body and your soul as payment, Gabriel. What exactly do I still owe her?”
He stumbled back, stunned. “Chloe Moretti!”
I didn’t stay for the rest of the roar. I turned and walked away.
That night, I checked into a hotel and stared at the ceiling until dawn. My phone buzzed in the dark. A message from Serena.
“I’m so sorry, Chloe. I had no idea Gabe would get that worked up. I scolded him for it, so please don’t be mad, okay?”
I didn’t reply. I turned the phone off.
The next morning, I took a car straight to Logan. I called a senior from my MIT days.
“Evan Ferraro. I’m at the airport. I’ll be back in Boston tonight.”
After years of being Gabriel’s shadow, I was finally going back to the research work I had walked away from for him. I used to be at the top of my cohort, a girl with a brilliant future. A future I had set on fire to keep Gabriel warm.
But as I approached the gate, three men in dark suits stepped into my path.
They didn’t ask questions. They walked me straight into an SUV waiting at the curb and drove me back to the Salvatti estate.
Gabriel’s mother sat in the drawing room, looking down at me with practiced elegance. Coffee in one hand.
She came from one of Sicily’s oldest Families and ruled it as its Donna.
Every morning, she prayed for God’s forgiveness.
Every afternoon, she treated the gunshots echoing through the courtyard as background music, never seeing the slightest contradiction between the two.
“Miss Moretti. I used to think you were a sensible girl.”
Her voice was cold. “I never imagined you’d have the audacity to lay a hand on Serena. When a girl steps out of line in this house, she answers for it.”
“ In this house, every rule broken comes with a price.”
“Get the whip.”
