Gabriel's Light (Doms of Chicago) (6 page)

“Concerned.” Jude shook his head. “You haven’t been the same
since her death. You never come to the club anymore. You just started hosting
the munches again at the restaurant, but other than a brief hello to everyone,
you disappear into your office until it’s over. That’s not the Gabriel the
community knows. Then you get pissed because we worry about you.”

Anger rose in Gabriel. If it weren’t for the table between him
and the other man, he’d have decked the asshole. “I’m not going to sit here and
discuss what you think is a proper mourning time and what isn’t.”

“We’re not trying to do that, Gabe,”
Caelan
reassured him as he placed his hand on Gabriel’s arm.

Shrugging it off, he stood. “I think it’s time for me to go
home.”

“Don’t.” For the first time since the subject had been brought
up, Dominic spoke up from the end of the table. “If anyone here knows what
you’re going through here, it’s me. Don’t shut us out. Don’t take the route I
took.”

The melancholy in Dominic’s voice wasn’t a surprise. During
Katrina, the Cajun had lost his submissive because he hadn’t wanted to abandon
his property. Gabriel softened a bit, the man did know what he was going
through - at least the part about losing a submissive. None of the men present
knew about the baby and he was going to keep it that way.

“So what is this? An intervention?” He sank back into his chair.

Josh nodded. “In a way. Jude just wanted to beat you over the
head with a two-by-four until you figured it out, but we convinced him this way
was better.”

Gabriel drew a ragged breath and looked around the atrium at his
friends. In truth they were more than friends, even if he wanted to kill each
and every one of them at the moment. “Well, my head thanks you, but I still
don’t want to talk about her.” He glared at Jude. “What would your Mistress say
if she knew what you were up to?”

“That it’s been over a year, it’s time to let her go. Sara
wouldn’t want this for you.” Olivia joined the men.

“You’re in on this too?” His voice came out sharp as he realized
the lengths his friends were willing to go. The sinking feeling in his stomach
intensified as he wondered how many of the counterparts of those present knew
this was going on.
Fuck, that’s all I
need,
Nisey
and
Kalinda
worrying about me along with Olivia.

“Of course. Don’t think for a minute I’d have let Jude and Micah
do this if I didn’t whole-heartedly agree with them.”

Gabriel squeezed the bridge of his nose. “So you all want me to
just forget she ever existed? Is that it? Like she never gave me her
submission…that we were happy…that we weren’t expecting a child…” His voice
cracked, but he forced himself to keep it together. Horror washed over him, as
Olivia’s eyes widened and the sudden inhale from the every one of the men made
him realize what he’d just said.

“Fuck.” He let the first tear fall. This was exactly what he
hadn’t wanted.

Chapter
Six

Pulling up in front of his home, Gabriel was surprised
Caelan
had even brought him. After his breakdown at the
club, he’d lashed out at his friends, taking his anger and despair out on all
of them. He wasn’t proud of the way he’d acted, but the wound festering since
Sara’s death was now clean. It had been exposed until he felt like nothing more
than one large aching mass, but one that could now heal.

“I…” He turned to face
Caelan
. “I
don’t know what to say…”

Caelan
,
who also looked a little rough around the edges, sighed. Gabriel really put his
best friends through the wringer tonight, spewing obscenities as the men poked
and prodded until they’d gotten the whole sordid tale out of him. Of how he’d
thought he’d failed not only Sara but their unborn child as well, even how he’d
planned to marry his little blonde sub.

“Don’t say anything. We knew going into this it was going to be
rough.”
Caelan
shut off the SUV “You’re a proud man,
Gabe. You play your cards close to your chest and the only person I’ve ever
seen you truly open up with was Sara. I can only imagine how it would be to
lose that closeness. But as your friends, we couldn’t let you continue to live
like this - numb to the world, or keeping yourself so busy you can’t feel the
pain. It’s not good. Christ, the only time I’ve seen any honest to God emotion
from you was the day Sophia was born.”

Gabriel tipped his head back to stare at the ceiling. “Well it
was a pretty intense situation. It’s not every day a man is asked to deliver a
baby.” He rubbed his hand over his face. “But dammit, did you have to be so
brutal with your intervention? I was just healing when you had to tear me back
open. Man, you just didn’t rip the bandage off, you poured fucking salt into the
wound.”

“And you’d do the same if it was me.”
Caelan
drummed his fingers on the wheel. “But it wasn’t healing, Gabe, it was
festering. So, hell yes, I’d do it again. Chew us out for sticking our noses
where they didn’t belong, but it won’t change anything. At least you can heal
now.”

Gabriel threw his arm over his eyes. “I don’t know whether to be
pissed off at you or be thankful right now,
Caelan
.
I’m not even sure where to go from here. I realize it’s been a year since her
death, but there are times I expect her to walk around the corner, to smile at
me in the special way she had.”

“And hopefully that’ll ease in time. I have faith in you. You’ll
figure it out. We’re not saying you have to go out and find a submissive right
now. Hell, it’s probably the worst thing in the world for you to do at this
moment. We just want our Gabe back. The one who dropped into the club, the one
who smiled all the time.”

He dropped his arm. “I don’t know if I can go back to being that
man,
Caelan
. Her death ripped something out of me.
Something I can’t get back.”

Caelan
nodded. “I imagine it did. But now you have a chance to heal. Maybe once that’s
happened, you’ll find out you’re a better man for it.”

“Maybe.” He looked up at the dark house. “I don’t know if I want
to go in there right now,
Caelan
. She’s everywhere.
She helped me pick out the furniture, she made her mark on every room.”

For the first time since the intervention,
Caelan
actually took mercy on him. “Then don’t. Come home with me tonight. You can
spend the night with
Nisey
and I. Tomorrow is soon
enough to face your demons. You’ll probably do better on a good night’s sleep
anyway.”

“Are you sure?” Gabriel hated the idea of acting like a needy
child.

Caelan
chuckled. “What do you think?
Nisey
has texted me at
least three times tonight. She’s worried about you just as much as us guys
were. So why don’t you come to my place? You can use the spare room, and let
Nisey
give you some good ‘ole fashion loving.”

“All right.” Even though he was raw and still wanted to pound
Caelan
for putting him through hell, he didn’t want to be
alone tonight.

“Good then, we’re agreed.” He pulled his cell out and punched a
few buttons. “I’m heading home,
grá
,
and we’re
having a guest tonight. Make up the guest room for him.”
Caelan
chuckled softly. “Yes, it’s him. Now quit worrying and have his room ready, or
you’ll be over the spanking bench when I get home.”

Gabriel couldn’t hear what
Nisey
said
in return, but it must’ve amused
Caelan
because he
outright laughed at her. “I mean it, little
subbie
.
It better be ready when we get there.” Then he closed the cell and grinned at
Gabriel. “She’s absolutely incorrigible.”

Even though witnessing the interaction between
Caelan
and his sub was difficult, Gabriel loved both of
them like the family he’d never had. “You’re the one who wanted her,” Gabriel
reminded him.

“Of course I do. But that doesn’t mean I can’t keep her on her
toes.” After checking the mirrors,
Caelan
shifted
into gear, before easing back into traffic. “Something has been a bit off with
her as of late, and I’m pretty sure I know what it is. If she doesn’t come
clean soon about it, there’ll be a trip to the playroom she won’t like.”

Eager for a change of subject to a topic which didn’t focus on
him, Sara, or their unborn child, Gabriel latched on to it. “So what is it?”

As
Caelan
drove towards Evanston, he
explained
Nisey’s
recent behavior, her
absent-mindedness, from her trying to fill every moment of the day with
activity, to her physical changes, tender breasts, and missed cycles. The short
and sweet of it was,
Caelan
thought his sub was
either pregnant, or trying to hide something more serious from him.

Gabriel mused as the SUV headed north. For
Caelan’s
sake, he hoped it was because
Nisey
was expecting,
because if not, there was a very real chance
Caelan
could end up in the same situation he was in himself, and he wouldn’t wish that
on anyone, even his worst enemy.

* * * *

Zhenya was just finishing up Sophia’s feeding when she heard
Caelan’s
SUV pull into the drive. She idly wondered how the
intervention
Nisey
had spoken about earlier had gone.
Her heart went out to Gabriel. She wouldn’t have wanted to be in his shoes
after experiencing her own semi-intervention with
Kalinda
,
Nisey
and Olivia. They had peeled away her layers
until she’d felt exposed, then found a support group for abused subs for her to
join. She still attended their meetings, but she just wasn’t sure if the stuff
she’d been told was true or not. There were still times, logical or not, she
doubted her own self-worth as a sub. The five years under
Ossie’s
thumb was going to take time to overcome.

The sound of male voices entering the foyer below her apartment
had her pausing.
Caelan
wasn’t alone? It was probably
one of the other
Doms
from the club. She was tempted
to peak out of the door, but decided it was none of her business whom
Caelan
brought home with him. In the time she’d lived above
him, he’d always been respectful of her privacy and kept the noise level to a
minimum, so she could do no less for him in return.

After burping her daughter, she stripped the little one down to
her diaper. Sophia cooed and kicked her legs, always happy to be free of her
sleeper. A smile crossed Zhenya’s face. Her little girl was such a sweetheart,
and so much like her father in looks, it sometimes broke Zhenya’s heart.

“Come on,
mikró
pontíki
,
it’s
time for Momma’s little girl to have her bath.” Swinging Sophia up in her arms,
she carried her down the hall. Once Sophia was bathed and settled in bed, she’d
consider going to bed herself. Being a new mother was tiring work, and their
little outing today had really taken it out of her. Starting the water, she was
just getting ready to remove Sophia’s diaper when she thought she heard
something. Was someone knocking on her door? It couldn’t be the phone, the
cordless handset was sitting on the bathroom counter.

Frowning, she turned off the water and listened intently. When
it came again, she stood and carried Sophia back out to the living room.
Grabbing the receiving blanket off the back of the couch she bundled Sophia up,
all the while wondering who could be calling at eight o’clock at night. Opening
the door, she was shocked to her toes when she saw
Caelan
and Gabriel standing in the tiny landing. As big as the men were, they filled
the hall to overflowing.

“Yes?” Concern laced her voice as she took in their appearances.
Both men looked like they’d gone through hell tonight, which she could only
assume they had.

“Can we come in? We didn’t wake Sophia, did we?”
Caelan
requested, ever the considerate landlord.

“No, I was just getting ready to give Sophia her bath, but you
can come in.” Stepping back, she ushered both men into the tiny apartment,
which suddenly felt even smaller with the men inside of it.

“I’m sorry to come up so late, but
Nisey
just told me about what happened today.”
Caelan
sank
down on the futon while Gabriel leaned up against the breakfast bar separating
the kitchen from the living room.

She gave him a tight smile as she gently bounced her squirming
daughter. Sophia would getting fussy soon. She needed to get through this
quickly as possible so she could put her daughter down. “Yes it was a rather
unpleasant surprise. I thought I’d left all the drama behind in Greece.”

“When it comes to family there’s never such a thing as no drama
when you’re dealing with a Greek male.” Gabriel drummed his fingers on the
counter behind him.

She snorted. “When it comes to the half-American wife of his
son, there is nothing but, Master Gabriel. Not only wasn’t I good enough for
his precious son, Sebastene
Sikkenga
believes women
to be second class citizens, only good for fucking or making babies. You
probably can guess which he labeled me as. His hatred of Americans left little
room for affection. Even if he knew I’d had
Ossie’s
daughter, he might be concerned, but I doubt it’ll be enough for him to leave
his little kingdom to fly over here.”