Page 92 of Tattletale

“Really?”

“Yes. I was a server at her wedding… I fucked her not even an hour after she said ‘I do.’ I could feel it. She was as addicted to me as I was to her. Vienne introduced me to Sal as her honorary nephew. Sal treated me like a son, but all the while, I was messing around with his wife.” Gabriel drops his eyes again in shame.

“So how long were you guys—”

“Disgusting, deplorable people?” Gabriel asks.

“I was going to say, ‘hooking up’?”

“Right up until Sal started his campaign for the presidency. From then on, Vienne was on her best behavior. She dropped me like a bad habit. I thought we were star-crossed lovers. Apparently, I was just a phase to her.”

I pat his leg underneath the comforter. “Oh, Gabriel.”

“If I’m being honest, I thought the invitation to President Baker’s birthday party was Vienne opening up lines of communication again.”

My eyes widen at his reply. “You’d still go back to her?”

Gabriel grabs the crumpled movie list and tosses it in my direction. “That reaction is not fair. You just told me you’re in love with your friend.”

“No, it’s not that, it’s just—”

“Save it, Fiona. I know what you must think of me. And I didn’t say I’d sleep with her again. But I still have a lot of questions about what fell apart or where I fell short for her. I was only nineteen when I fell for her, but it still feels so fresh. I want to be free of it.”

“Love?” I ask.

“The trauma,” Gabriel replies. “Loving her was traumatic.”

My eyes drop down and to the right, as my own trauma bubbles to the surface. It’s funny to think of an assassin as having trauma. I end lives. In a way, I’m a monster who hunts monsters. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel.

“I was forced my first time. It’s been ten years, and I still think about it every night.”

Gabriel’s neck muscles flare as he grows tense. “What happened?”

“I traded sex to stay alive. My father was part of the criminal underworld, and his family paid the price. I was kidnapped. I let a man have me in every imaginable way, just to live.”

“A natural reaction.”

“I feel like a real warrior would’ve taken death. They wouldn’t have been so afraid. I let him take my virginity, and he misinterpreted that as love. When I refused to be the bride of a mafia prince, he left me to die anyway, locked behind a steel door. It was a slow, painful death where I had nothing but my thoughts, regrets, and all the awful memories. I would’ve been better off with a bullet to the head.”

“Fiona…” Gabriel’s jaw slackens, and he tilts his head to the side, sympathy filling his expression. “You can’t compare unrequited love to rape and torture. My grievances pale in comparison.”

I shake my head. “No, not really. We all feel love and pain at different decibels. What haunts us, and the degree to which we’re tormented, varies from person to person. I’ve learned thatin my…line of work. Sometimes, what turns someone into a villain seems miniscule. But the impact has a ripple effect so wide, that people pay forsmall grievancesfor generations to come.”

“I’ll humor you,” Gabriel says, ducking his chin. “How do we escape our trauma?”

“I thought the key was revenge. I went after him recently. I was forbidden any contact, but consequences be damned, I thought evening the score would set me free. I would’ve given up everything to just stop living in my trauma every day.”

“Well, that makes sense.”

I move my heel from the side of the bed to the edge of my chair before resting my chin on my knee. “It doesn’t, actually. Because what I was going to give up—my job, my family—was the only reason I survived my trauma in the first place. I was literally throwing away my only remedy. It took me a long time to see that.”

“Well, my parents are both gone. I’m an only child. I either have staff or shareholders, no real friends. I don’t think that remedy is going to work for me. Do you have any other suggestions?”

“I think ultimately being free is accepting that you’ll actually never be free. Once we just live, instead of fixating on how we want to live… I think it gets better. Luca Accardi will always be a part of my life, but he no longer rules it.”

“Luca Accardi. What a name,” Gabriel murmurs. He exhales and pulls himself up, trying to sit up straighter in bed. “That was surprisingly profound. And helpful. Thank you. I’m really glad we met, Fiona. I know you love him, but I think if you gave us a real chance, you could love me too.”

My heartbeat kicks up in a flurry as the guilt washes over me. Gabriel has spent ten years in the graveyard of his heart, pining after a woman who doesn’t see him. I can’t watch him go throughthis again. “I’m not… Gabriel, I’m not your friend. I’m not who you think I am.”

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