Page 23 of Corrupted Queen

“Walsh?”

Gabriel nods. “Andrew Walsh’s younger son. Watch.”

Fabrizio Belluci saunters up to the chair and pats Damien’s head. I would recognize the family resemblance even if Gabriel didn’t have a photo of his father hanging in his office. I glance over at it now, noting the contrast between the stern expression he wears in the picture and the jovial lift of his mouth in the video.

Fabrizio looks back, talking to someone off screen. He laughs at something they say and then slams his fist across Damien’s face. I jump at the sudden violence. I am just about to ask Gabriel why he’s showing me this and what the hell it has to do with my mom or her cancer when a familiar figure walks to stand next to Fabrizio, partially blocking the view of the bound Irish mobster.

“No,” I whisper.

The man claps Fabrizio on the back, grinning. He has dark hair that he wears slicked back. His thick brows and dusting of stubble always made him look tired in my memories. He doesn’t look tired now. I get closer to the screen, practically mashing my nose against it in my desperation to prove my eyes wrong. Because if what I’m seeing is true …

“That’s my father,” I croak.

My gaze snaps to Gabriel’s, but he taps on the screen. “Keep watching.”

I do, feeling sick as my father delivers the next blow to the prisoner. He bends over Damien, ripping his head back by the hair and yelling into his face. He looks up and says something to Fabrizio, who walks off-screen and returns a moment later with a knife.

I slam the laptop closed. “I can’t watch any more of this.”

My stomach roils. I try to walk to the door, needing to escape this room and all the horrors it contains, but dizziness hits me hard in the gut and I stagger, gripping the lip of the bench for support.

“He was a state prosecutor,” I saw, mouth dry. “He helped people.”

Gabriel nods, gaze even. “He helped my father. Quite a bit. They were good friends and worked together for years.”

I shake my head. “No. That’s not possible.”

“That’s not all, Alexis.” Gabriel clears his throat and goes back to the safe, pulling out two folders. “He was poisoning your mother. Her cancer was mild and she could have survived it. It was the poison that killed her.”

“No, she died of cancer,” I object. “I visited her in the hospital. I talked to her doctor.”

Gabriel opens the folders on the bench and spreads out their contents. “Even doctors can be bought.”

He taps on one of the pages, which has my mom’s name written on top. It looks like medical results of some kind.

“This is your mother’s toxicology report. Look at the difference between her report and a patient who actually had cancer.” He taps a page from the other folder. “He slipped in the poison with the cocktail of chemo drugs.”

“No!” I shake my head and lurch away from the table. “No, you’re lying!”

If I choose to believe Gabriel then everything I know about my life is a lie. My mother’s death could have been avoided. My father was just as much of a criminal as the ones he put behind bars. Not only that, but I named my son after a wicked man. The sort of man who smiles as he tortures a kid half his age and murders his loving wife of twenty years.

“I have no reason to lie, Alexis.”

“Because you’re sick!” I scream. “You’re just trying to control me!”

“It’s the truth.” He tries to grab my shoulders and I wrench away.

My legs shake, threatening to give out beneath me, and I hang onto the bench for dear life as the first sob crushes my chest. I can’t breathe. I choke, dissolving toward the floor as gravity becomes too much for me to bear.

Gabriel reaches for me again, and this time I collapse into his arms. I can’t take it. My chest heaves with sobs and I bury my face into Gabriel’s shoulders as his strong arms hold me upright. His thick frame surrounds me and I melt into his comforting scent.

I don’t know how long we stand there. I only know that I cry for what feels like an eternity, and Gabriel is the only thing keeping me from crumbling into a thousand pieces on the floor.

9

Gabriel

“Dada, plane!” Harry insists, pointing to the toy airplane on the floor by his toy chest.

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