Page 86 of Corrupted Queen

Silvano bends over the table, inspecting the tests. When he rises, he adjusts his suit jacket, frowning to himself. I take profound enjoyment out of his reaction to my little dig. Serves him right for swanning in here thinking he could take my son from me.

“Don’t go anywhere,” Silvano instructs, leaving the room.

He doesn’t trust me though, and a second later two guards appear in the doorway, blocking my exit. Damn.

I wait over an hour for Silvano to return. Harry starts to get restless around the half an hour mark, sensing something is up, and I try to keep him calm. I try to keep myself calm too. The shit has hit the fan, and what happens next will have life-changing consequences for Harry and for me.

I want to believe that Gabriel will make the right choice, but I can’t imagine what’s going through his head at the minute. He obviously feels hurt and betrayed. He obviously wants me to feel a similar pain. I almost don’t blame him, except that I do. How dare he try to take Harry from me? What kind of small, spiteful man would do that?

When Silvano finally returns, I jolt to my feet and eye him warily as he crosses the room.

He shakes his head. “People have been tortured and killed for lesser crimes,” he says. “And yet you get away scot-free.”

I can’t tell if he disapproves of the decision Gabriel has handed him or if he just finds it morbidly fascinating.

“So?” I ask.

“So, you can leave,” he says. “You and Harry will be set up in an apartment in the city and will be kept under surveillance.”

Relief floods my bones, but the elation is short-lived.

“Gabriel wants nothing to do with you,” Silvano continues. “A word to the wise, I wouldn’t try to contact him or push him in any way. He is done with you.”

Done with me.

The words reverberate in my skull. I knew what I was doing when I wrote that article. I knew this divide was inevitable. But fuck, it still hurts. I will never feel his arms around me again, never kiss him, never listen to the sound of his breaths in the dark. Gabriel and I are over, and when I leave this mansion today, I will be leaving a pathetic, still-thumping chunk of my heart on the foyer’s marble tile.

“Okay,” I say, forcing myself not to break composure. “When do we leave?”

32

Gabriel

It feels good to be back in my office, after two days of holding cells and courtrooms. The charges against me are a problem for my team of lawyers now, and they are doing their part to keep the police busy. The evidence is damning, but will it be enough to put me behind bars? That remains to be seen.

Besides, I have bigger problems.

I stare at the computer screen, watching as Alexis and Harry play with his toy airplane on the floor of their new living room. My decision to take Harry away was an emotionally charged one, and had I not been in a police station with an army of reporters trying to bust through the front doors, the Cartel’s threats dangling over my head, and my enemies converging on my empire, I might have responded a little differently.

I’m still tempted by the notion. I want Alexis gone, banished. That is what she deserves after her betrayal, and it’s a more lenient sentence than most men in my position would be inclined to offer. Letting my son remain in her custody is a move I will be criticized for by my men and by my enemies. They will see it as weakness.

But when I heard Alexis was pregnant, I couldn’t do it, and I realized that it was wrong of me to try in the first place. She may be the worst thing that has ever happened to me, but she’s a good mother, and Harry needs her, especially with my fate so uncertain.

Harry reaches his chubby fist for the plane, laughing. Alexis laughs too, but it doesn’t reach her eyes. I wonder why. She got everything she wanted. She wrote an article that made a difference. She proved herself as a journalist. Perhaps me ending up behind bars was a sweet little bonus for her, a way to put distance between her son and the wolf who would raise him to lead the pack.

She said she wanted us to be a team, that she wanted to be with me, but I can’t trust a word she has ever said to me. This whole time, she was scheming behind my back.

I take a breath. One problem at a time.

My cell phone rings. Silvano.

I close the laptop screen and answer. “Yes?”

“I’m in the basement with a friend of yours,” Silvano says. “From the Cartel.”

In the background, I hear Miguel Garcia cursing my men in rapid Spanish.

“I’ll be right down.”

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