Page 63 of Vengeful Lies

The words were spoken with such confidence that his pain thudded through his body with each beat of his heart.

His daughter was right. Gabriella would never willingly leave Essie. She’d proven that in how she’d protected his child at great physical and psychological cost to herself. If he hadn't kicked herout, Gabriella would have prioritized his daughter’s healing over her own, and it would have only made him fall harder for her.

What she needed was someone to make sure she was taken care of while she was busy worrying about others.

He could have been that person.

He could have her there with him right now, could have slept beside her all night. He wasn't really worried about what Essie would think about him and Gabriella being a couple, his daughter already loved her like a mother. Could have been sitting his girls down at the kitchen table and taking care of them, cooking them breakfast, making sure they had appointments to speak with a counsellor, making them laugh so they forgot for a moment the trauma they’d endured.

But he didn't have her there.

Right or wrong, he’d made his choices, and now they all had to live with the consequences, his daughter included.

“Gabriella isn’t here,” he repeated as he lifted Essie into her chair at the table. “Now what do you want for breakfast?”

“I want Gabby. Where is she? Why did she leave?” Essie asked, her big gray eyes growing watery and her bottom lip trembling.

Just because he had Gabriella there as a full-time, live-in nanny didn't mean he didn't parent his daughter as actively as he could. He was used to dealing with her occasional tantrum and soothing her tears when she was sad, hurt, or scared.

What he wasn't used to doing was explaining to his daughter that he was the reason she was hurting. It was easy enough to say no to her over little things, staying up too late, eating too much candy, and not buying her a treat at the store. But this was nothing like that.

His daughter was hurting because of him.

He was going to break her little heart.

It would be easy enough to lie and say that Gabriella had left because she needed to heal from what had happened and that she couldn’t be there for that. But saying those words would make her daughter hate Gabriella, and there was no way she deserved that. He’d hurt her enough, he wasn't going to let her take the blame for his actions.

Pulling out the chair beside Essie, he took a seat and reached out to take his daughter’s little hands in his. “I asked Gabriella to leave.”

“Why?”

“Because I thought it was for the best.” How could he explain to an almost five-year-old that neither she nor her beloved nanny were safe, and it was because he was consumed with a need to clear his dead mother’s name? The last thing he wanted to do was scare Essie even more than she had already been. If she knew the danger she was in, his daughter would never feel safe again.

“Why?”

“Because you and Gabriella both got hurt and I don’t want her to get hurt again.”

“Am I gonna be hurted ‘gain?” Essie asked, eyes wide with fear.

“No, princess. I’m going to make sure that no one ever hurts you again,” he promised. There was nothing he wouldn't do to fulfill that vow.

“Then who’s making sure that no one’s hurting Gabby?” Essie asked.

Since he’d asked Prey to hack her credit card information, he knew she had contacted a security company early this morning and hired some bodyguards. It hurt to know she was out there alone with strangers watching over her when what she needed was him and his family, but he couldn’t get over the fact that itwas him and his family that had put her in danger in the first place.

How selfish would it be to keep her close knowing she wouldn't be safe?

With John Gaccione in prison and Gabriella out of his house, it should be clear enough to this remaining rapist that going after her was pointless, she wasn't family and she wasn't a useful tool.

“Gabriella is safe, I promise,” he assured his daughter.

“But I want her to come home,” Essie said, pouting.

“She’s not coming back.” As badly as it hurt to say the words aloud, and as much as he knew he was hurting his daughter by saying them, they were the truth, and they all needed to adjust to their new normal.

“But I want her!” Essie yelled, pushing him away. “I want her here, and what ‘bout my birthday? I'm going to be five years old, and Gabby said we’re going to put up balloons and streamers and make cupcakes. And she’s going to get me a unicorn cake.”

“I can do all those things,” he told her.

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