Chapter 2 - The Truth Behind the DivorceThe silence inside the locked ballroom was so absolute that the low hum of the central air conditioner sounded like a rushing storm.
Serena stepped forward, her high heels clicking loudly against the marble floorboards as she tried to pull Gabriel back by his shoulders.
"Gabriel, get off the floor!" Serena demanded, her voice rising in high-pitched, hysterical rage. "Everyone is watching! The reporters outside are going to publish this! She left you five years ago because she didn't care about your family!"
I looked down at the woman who had spent five years enjoying my husband's wealth, my husband's position, and my husband's name.
"I didn't leave because I didn't care, Serena," I said, my voice calm, clear, and carrying across the entire room. "I left because five years ago, my medical records from Mount Sinai were altered by someone inside Gabriel's private office. A medical report was handed to Gabriel claiming I had taken synthetic contraceptives to prevent his bloodline from continuing."
Gabriel’s head snapped up. His gray-green eyes widened in total, horror-stricken shock as he stared at me.
"What did you say...?" Gabriel breathed, his chest heaving under his tuxedo.
"I didn't take contraceptives, Gabriel," I revealed deadpan, every word dropped into the silent ballroom like a slab of cold granite. "I had spent four months undergoing fertility treatments to give you a family. But five years ago, your private assistant gave you a forged toxicology report claiming I was secretly terminating my pregnancies."
Gabriel stood up slowly, his broad, six-foot-three frame rising like a dark, terrifying shadow over the dance floor.
He turned his head toward Serena, his expression transforming from grief into an absolute, apocalyptic fury that made the surrounding armed guards instinctively take half a step backward.
"The Mount Sinai report..." Gabriel whispered, his voice dropping into a razor-sharp register. "The report you brought to my study five years ago, Serena..."
Serena took two fast, clumsy steps backward, her face turning an ugly, mottled shade of grey. "Gabriel... no! She's lying! She's making up stories to turn you against me! I saved you from her!"
Gabriel reached into his jacket, pulling out his encrypted satellite phone, clicking the side button once.
"Leo," Gabriel ordered deadpan into the comms to his chief security director. "Bring Dr. Aris Vance from Mount Sinai to the private executive holding room. And tell my forensic team to seize Serena Vale’s personal server in Manhattan."
"GABRIEL! NO!" Serena screamed, thrashing wildly as two broad-shouldered Cross operators stepped forward, grabbing her arms, binding her wrists with plastic zip-ties.
Gabriel didn't look at her as she was dragged out through the side service corridor into the private holding suite.
He walked up to me, stopping inches away, his hands hovering carefully above my shoulders as if he were afraid I would disappear into thin air if he touched me.
"Claire..." Gabriel wept softly, his deep voice trembling with an eternal, unbroken regret. "Forgive me... My God, Claire... forgive me..."
I looked into his eyes—seeing no longer the arrogant crime boss who had signed my divorce papers, but a broken man who realized he had given away his entire world for a lie.
May you like
"I didn't come here for your forgiveness, Gabriel," I whispered softly, pulling my three boys close to my side. "I came to show my sons where their eyes came from before we leave for Maine."
"You aren't going back to Maine, Claire," Gabriel swore, his baritone carrying an absolute, unyielding covenant. "Not without me."
Related Stories
