“Ask me again?”
“Gabriela Marchese, will you marry me and be my wife and the mother of my children?”
“How many kids are we talking?”
“A dozen. To start.”
“You’re crazy, you know that?” she asks, her eyes bright, her smile wide.
I wait.
“Yes. Yes, I’ll marry you, again, this time of my own free will, and I will have your babies and fill that house up. Fill it up with noise and laughter and happiness.”
I slide the ring onto her finger and pull her to me. “I love you.”
“I love you.”
I draw back to kiss her and that kiss, it’s as though it seals something between us. And when I lay her down and strip off her clothes and make love to her, I never once let her go. I hold her and I fill her up and I know this is it. I know that for me, she is it.
This woman, this pawn that I took from my enemy is mine. And ironically, we saved each other.
Epilogue 2
Gabriela
Six Months Later
* * *
The sky burns orange behind me. I’m wearing my mother’s dress. It was her mother’s before her and her mother’s before that.
The breeze blows from the sea, salty and cool, the sunset one of the most beautiful I’ve seen since coming to Italy. A gift, maybe.
“Are you ready?” Gabe asks me.
I turn to him, look up into his handsome, sweet face. I don’t think about what could have been for him. I can’t do that anymore. He is here. He is alive. And I think he’s happy. Maybe he’s happier than he would have been if none of this had happened.
“You look really handsome in your suit, Gabe,” I say, adjusting his tie.
“Thanks, Gabi. You’re so beautiful. You look like mom. You make me remember her face.”
Tears warm my eyes.
“I think she’s watching us sometimes,” he says.
“Me too. I know she is.”
He smiles.
I think about all that’s happened. All the things I know. The things I don’t want to know. Like what Stefan had on my father that made him give me up in the first place. I don’t want to know that. I know it will be terrible and what I know about him is terrible enough.
I think, instead, about what he did. His final act on earth.
He saved my life.
He died to save me.
When I told Gabe, he cried. But then he said something unexpected and so wise. He said he was happy dad was at peace. I love that about him. I love Gabe’s innocence.
The old door of the chapel creaks and someone peers their head out. It’s Miss Millie.
“Ready?” she whispers.
I nod.
Gabe lifts the veil to lay it over my head, covering my face. Yellowed lace obscures my vision as I turn to the chapel, look at the old stone walls, at the tall, arched stained glass windows depicting scenes from the Bible.
When Gabe takes my arm and tucks it into his, the doors open and organ music trickles out, the opening notes of the piece Stefan chose. We step onto the carpet and Gabe squeezes my arm when the few people gathered stand and turn to us.
I breathe in the scent of incense, remembering Alex. Knowing he’s watching over us too.
I only glimpse Miss Millie’s face for a moment before the soprano begins her song, the music rising, and my gaze falls on Stefan standing at the end of the aisle. He stands alone and I think Rafa should be here. Rafa should be by his side.
I hope one day he can be.
But I can’t think about that now. Past is past. Today is the beginning of our future.
Stefan smiles as I walk toward him and I feel Gabe’s grip tighten, feel that tender, reassuring squeeze again. Stefan looks as handsome as ever, even as the hair at his temple has greyed a little, even as there’s one more crease on his forehead.
When we reach the altar, the priest speaks.
“Who gives this woman to marry this man?” he asks.
“I do,” Gabe says.
The priest nods, and I turn to my brother. He lifts my veil and leans down to kiss my cheek. “Don’t cry,” he whispers.
I respond with a loud sniffle and hug my brother. He hands me to Stefan and takes his place at my side.
Stefan smiles, squeezes my hands and kisses my cheek. “You’re so beautiful.”
“So are you,” I say.
“And now you’ll stop crying. No more tears. Understand?” he asks, pulling back.
I nod and we turn to the priest and all I can think throughout the ceremony, as we listen to the mass, as we take our vows and exchange our rings, all I can think is how happy I am. How right this is.
How I belong here.
How I belong with Stefan and Stefan belongs with me.
And when the priest gives us his blessing and instructs Stefan to kiss his bride, I think this is it. This is my wedding day, even if on paper it’s months ago that we were married.
I remember saying to Rafa how it wasn’t the real deal when he congratulated me then. Well, this is the real deal.
And there’s nothing I want more.
Well, maybe a dozen of Stefan’s babies.
* * *
The End
Thank you
Thank you for reading The Collateral Damage Duet. I hope you enjoyed it and would consider leaving a review.
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If you loved Collateral Damage, you may enjoy The Dark Legacy Trilogy. Keep reading for a sample from Taken!
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Taken Sample
Prologue
Helena
* * *
I’m the oldest of the Willow quadruplets. Four girls. Always girls. Every single quadruplet birth, generation after generation, it’s always girls.
This generation’s crop yielded the usual, but instead of four perfect, beautiful dolls, there were three.
And me.
And today, our twenty-first birthday, is the day of harvesting.
That’s the Scafoni family’s choice of words, not ours. At least not mine. My parents seem much more comfortable with it than my sisters and I do, though.
Harvesting is always on the twenty-first birthday of the quads. I don’t know if it’s written in stone somewhere or what, but it’s what I know and what has been on the back of my mind since I learned our history five years ago.
There’s an expression: those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Well, that’s bullshit, because we Willows know well our past and yet, here we are. The same blocks that have been used for centuries standing in the old library, their surfaces softened by the feet of every other Willow Girl who stood on the same stumps of wood, and all I can think when I see them, the four lined up like they are, is how archaic this is, how fucking unreal. How they can’t do this to us.
Yet, here we are.
And they are doing this to us.
But it’s not us, really.