Don Take Your Love To The Deep Sea Chapter 04
Serena Cavallo stood timidly behind Gabriel’s mother. When I was walked in, she didn’t look surprised. Not even for a second.
When our eyes met, she looked away for a beat before her lips moved silently. It was a game we used to play at Choate. Reading each other’s lips across a crowded room.
I knew exactly what she was saying.
“I’m sorry, Chloe. You wouldn’t give him up. So I had to fight dirty. Don’t blame me, okay?”
The two enforcers forced me down onto my knees on the marble.
A wave of pure exhaustion washed through me. I had once believed Serena was my Family in every way that mattered. Now I understood her betrayal had no bottom.
Gabriel’s mother nodded to the butler. He disappeared and returned holding a long leather strap. Old, black, cracked with age. Barbed at the tip.
La disciplina.
Everyone in the Salvatti Family knew exactly what it meant.
Gabriel’s mother looked at me with nothing but contempt and disgust.
“This punishment is reserved for a Donna. The fact that you’re receiving it at all is more honor than you’ve ever earned.”
I struggled against the enforcers’ grip. “I broke it off with him. Gabriel and I are done.”
Gabriel walked down the staircase, his expression like carved stone, and moved to stand beside Serena.
“Lying to dodge responsibility. Typical.” He didn’t even look at me. “You’ve been indulged for too long, Chloe. A little discipline will be good for everyone. Maybe you’ll finally learn how to speak to a pregnant woman.”
I dug my nails into my palms until they broke skin. These two cheaters were standing in their marble tower, framing me as the villain of their triangle.
“Gabriel. Listen to me. I said we are done. Do you not understand English?”
Why was I the one being punished? I had done nothing but love the wrong people.
No matter how I tried to explain, my words didn’t reach them. It was like speaking into a locked room.
Gabriel’s mother sneered.
“You think you can just leave? After everything it took to get Gabriel, you really expect anyone to believe you’d walk away? Break up? Who do you think you’re fooling?”
She didn’t wait for another word. The enforcer raised the strap and brought it down across my back.
The world turned white.
The barbs tore through the silk of my blouse. Through skin. Within seconds my back was slick. Cold sweat soaked my clothes. I doubled over.
Serena went pale, looking like she might faint at the sight of blood. She started to reach for me. Gabriel’s mother was determined to break me and gestured for the enforcer to swing harder.
I tasted iron. A spray of red hit the polished floor.
Serena finally cracked. She sobbed and threw herself in front of me to block the next strike.
Gabriel panicked. He lunged forward and caught her in his arms.
“Serena. Are you trying to get yourself killed for her? She is not worth it.”
They stood there locked in an embrace while Gabriel looked at me with pure resentment. Resenting me. Because Serena had almost gotten hurt. Even though they were the ones who had ordered me dragged here.
Gabriel took the strap out of the enforcer’s hand himself. He brought it down on me with everything he had.
“Why can’t you ever just be quiet? Serena is pregnant. She cannot handle stress like this.”
I thought I was too numb to feel anything else. As the strap tore across my ruined back, I felt something inside me finally break.
Gabriel’s eyes were bloodshot. His face was twisted with rage.
“Chloe. I swear. I really, really…”
Serena reached up and covered his mouth before he could finish.
I knew exactly what he wanted to say. He wanted to say he regretted ever loving me.
I closed my eyes and let out a small, hollow laugh.
Gabriel, running on some manic wire, dragged me out to his car and drove like a man possessed to his private clifftop villa on Ocean Drive. He was going to lock me away. He hauled me inside and threw me down onto the floor of the great room.
Ignoring the fire tearing across my back, I forced myself up and ran toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Beyond the glass, the Atlantic stretched into a dark, endless void. Wind whipped the whitecaps below the cliff.
Gabriel watched me. A mocking smirk on his face.
“What now, Chloe? A suicide threat? You think you’re still a child?”
I looked at him for the last time. I whispered the words he hadn’t finished earlier.
“Gabriel. I really, truly regret ever loving you.”
“If this is what it takes to end this, then I’m ready.”
Something in my eyes must have registered. Gabriel’s smugness fell off his face. In its place, a jagged panic.
He took a step toward me. “You don’t get to say that. Serena and I have sacrificed everything for you. You do not get to give up.”
I felt a ghost of a smile touch my lips.
“It’s my life. I’m the only one who gets a vote.”
I turned. And I vaulted over the railing.
The last thing I saw was Gabriel’s face, contorted in a scream of pure terror.
“CHLOE, NO!”
