Diavolo Ch 14
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Diavolo Prologue free porn video
Prologue
Gabriel entered the dimly lit room. Machinery whirred and blipped. His sweet grandmother lay in a nest of wires and tubes, her silver hair a frothy halo around her head.
She looked so frail, this woman who’d raised him with an iron fist. She’d wiped his nose, swatted his behind when he misbehaved, and soothed his fears when the nightmares had threatened to overwhelm him.
She’d been his rock, his fuel, backing him up in his crazy dreams of stardom until they became a reality.
Touring had been bittersweet, having to leave her behind, until tonight.
Guilt assailed him as he approached her. Always accustomed to seeing her so strong, it felt so wrong seeing her here now…like this.
Her eyes fluttered open, revealing the startling blue within. She blinked them closed again and smiled weakly.
“Mijo,” she sighed in Spanish, calling him son, as she always did.
He took his baseball cap off, tossing it on the unoccupied chair to the right of the bed and bent over the railing. Gripping the hand she offered, he gave her a kiss on her pale cheek.
“Save your strength, ma,” he whispered. “You’re going to need it. I got another tattoo.”
Her eyes snapped open, her lips pressing into a scowl.
Ah. There was the old girl he knew and loved.
Gabriel smirked. She’d thrown a fit the first time he’d gotten ink. Of course, most likely it was because he’d only been sixteen at the time.
Since then, he’d sleeved both arms, had wings inked into his back, as well as started some fancy scrollwork across his chest.
Straightening up, he lifted his black t-shirt, exposing his belly button.
His newest addition, a black lined tribal in the shape of a sun surrounded the scar of the long ago severed connection to his mother.
His grandmother’s frown faltered.
“And what does this one mean, mijito?” she asked sadly.
Gabriel looked at her through the fall of jet-black hair that had slid over his shoulder to cover half his face.
“A black sun. It’s me. So different from you and my parents.”
He had a picture of his mother. She’d been blond and blue-eyed, just like his grandmother. Apparently, they had ancestors that hailed from the Netherlands before settling into Spain. His father, Brendan Brinks had also been blond and blue-eyed, but neither Gabriel or his grandmother ever mentioned him.
“You look so much like your father,” she said in a soft voice.
Gabriel’s head snapped up, giving her a perplexed stare. Maybe her meds were confusing her, but the pale blue eyes that stared at him were as sharp and lucid as ever.
“Right,” he deadpanned, blinking at her.
She scowled at him through the oxygen mask. “Don’t contradict me, Gaby.”
His eyes rounded as he shook his head, “But I di—“
She waved her hands dismissing what he was about to say. “Sit. I need to talk to you.”
“Ma, it’s late. You shouldn’t wear yourself—“
“Sit I said,” she snapped angrily, and promptly broke into a fit of coughing that had Gabriel yanking the empty chair closer to the bed.
His heart was in his throat as he gripped her hand and gaped at her. “Okay-okay, I’m sitting. Ma, please.”
About to ask her if she needed water or a nurse, she finally calmed and sighed.
He held her tiny hand in his much larger one and stroked it. She closed her eyes and breathed for a moment.
As time passed, he thought she’d drifted off to sleep.
Tears blurred his vision and he ducked his head, ashamed of his moment of weakness. He just wasn’t used to seeing her so defeated. The doctors said it was her heart. She was almost ninety years old and the prognosis wasn’t good. She was the only family he remembered ever having, the memory of his dead parents a foggy memory he only had nightmares about.
Gabriel would be completely alone if…when she died.
“I was your age when I had your aunt Paulina.”
The sound of her speaking again startled him and he gripped her hand tighter. She never spoke of his auntie Paulina. That was even more taboo than talking about his dad, Brendan Brinks.
“She was such a beautiful child, but your grandfather’s family spoiled her rotten. She looked just like Francisco, bless his soul. Right down to his dark brown eyes.”
She looked lost in her own thoughts, a smile playing about her thin lips. He petted her hand some more and listened intently. Whatever she had to say was obviously important if she was dredging up the memory of his aunt Paulina and grandfather.
“Five years later I had your mother. She looked more like me. Of course your great grandmother wasn’t too pleased about that and always favored Paulina. Rosalina never let that bother her. She was such a good soul, that one. Always putting others before herself. She was good and self sacrificing, always. It’s what won Daniel Montenegro over.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Who?’
His grandmother continued as if not hearing him. “He was a fancy rich man, tried to seduce her as she attended him in the hospital. She’d been a nurse back then, but never fell for his playboy ways.” The old woman laughed. “Ah, but he was persistent. He wooed her for almost half a year. By the time she finally let him kiss her for the first time, the man was head over heels for her. They dated a while and he proposed quickly. Rosalina brought him home and he sure was a looker. Had Paulina green with envy.” Her expression grew angry. “That one…always with an eye for the rich ones. Daniel was both filthy rich and sexy as the devil.”
“Ma, are you talking about the Daniel Montenegro, owner and CEO of North Star Records?”
“I’m talking about…” she began to cough again, flailing her hands at him when he stood to adjust her oxygen mask.
A nurse walked in and rushed to her side. “Anna Maria, you shouldn’t tire yourself by talking so much,” she scolded gently adjusting the amount of meds dripping into the IV.
His grandmother glared at the girl, but the nurse had eyes only for Gabriel.
Gabriel frowned. He was used to women fawning over him, but didn’t enjoy it when their attention should be centered on his grandmother.
Anna Maria Arroyo’s eyes fluttered closed after a few seconds and Gabriel knew a moment of panic.
“Ma?’ he held her hand tighter, “What’s wrong with her.”
“It’s just a sedative,” the nurse, whose nametag read Amber, said with an over bright smile.
His grandmother was squeezing his hand again. He looked down at her. She was whispering something.
“I’m right here,” he said softly, leaning in close.
“The trunk in the attic. The key…it’s in that old jewelry box your grandfather made me.”
Gabriel breathed in her sweet scent. She always smelled like baby powder and rose water, only now it was mixed with the unpleasant scent of disinfectants used in the private hospital.
Again, he kissed her cheek when she sighed, sleep overtaking her.
Shaking his long hair back, he pulled his ball cap back on before grabbing the leather jacket he’d discarded on the dresser by the door.
The nurse darted in front of him, her chest sticking out provocatively as she twirled a strand of her dark blond hair around a finger.
“Don’t worry about, Anna Maria. I’ll take really good care of her.” She said as he shrugged back into his jacket..
Gabriel tipped his head to the side, licking his lips. Her eyes followed the movement hungrily. “I don’t doubt that for a moment, Amber. Thank you. She means the world to me.”
Amber’s eyes widened when he said her name. She looked as if she were about to melt into a puddle at his feet.
He gave her a lop-sided grin and walked out.
The drive to his childhood home didn’t take long. He drove out of the city into the suburbs. Quiet had descended upon the stately neighborhood with its tall oaks lining either side of the street. The night air rustled the trees as he pulled into the driveway of the two-story stone colonial. The automatic light over the garage door winked on as the door slid open. He rolled his Audi R8 Spyder into the enclosed garage and waited for the garage door to close again before stepping out. The car’s automatic security system blipped twice as he walked toward the door that would let him into the entry between the kitchen and pantry in his grandmother’s house.
Sharmane was waiting near the door wearing a loud pink fuzzy robe with matching slippers and bright green curlers in her hair.
The housekeeper’s big, dark-brown eyes blinked at him expectantly.
“How is she doing, Mr. Gabriel?’ the elderly black woman asked wringing her fingers together.
Gabriel shoved his hands in his pockets, desperate to get to that key and unlock that mysterious trunk his grandmother had mentioned. He just didn’t want to be rude to the poor woman. After all, she cared for his grandmother in his absence.
“She’s stable, Sharmane. I went straight from the airport to the hospital and talked to the doctors. They have her sedated and are doing everything they can.”
Sharman crossed herself and called upon the good Lord Jesus. “I’ve been praying for her speedy recovery for the past two days. She just don’t listen to reason, Mister Gabriel. Always wantin’ to be weedin’ and rakin’ the leaves in the front and back yard…”
Gabriel gripped her large arms and squeezed. The woman went silent hanging on to his every word. “I really appreciate everything you do, Sharmane. I really do.”
Her eyes grew suspiciously bright before she sniffed and stood straighter. “Are you hungry? I can fix you up somethin’ right quick.”
Gabriel laughed softly. “No, Sharmane. It’s really late and I just want a shower and bed. You wanna help me out with that?” He waggled his brows at her making her grow flustered.
Sharmane sputtered and waved her hands at him, giving a good belly laugh. “Oh, you don’t change, do ya? Such a rascal, you are. Go on,” she chuckled, waving him off. “Go on with your randy self. Don’t be flirtin’ with me. I’m old enough to be yo mama now.”
Gabriel grinned playfully at her. “Yeah and I bet you could teach me a load of things, eh?”
Sharmane swatted at him as he sauntered past. “You big tease. Go on now, git.”
He heard her chuckling and muttering “Lawd-have-mercy” to herself as he traversed the area between the formal dining room and living room to the stairs.
Taking them two at a time, he ascended the stairs to the second floor. His grandmother’s room was the first door at the top of the landing to the left.
Opening the door, he clapped his hands once to activate the lights.
Soft golden light bathed her room, making the brass bed gleam. Her room was done in shades of cream and white with dark wood furniture. A dark purple bedspread covered the large king-sized bed and lacy Priscilla curtains covered the windows to either side of it.
Striding past the bed, he went straight to the dresser, with its big ornate mirror hanging on the wall behind it.
She didn’t have much on her dresser, just an old photograph of his mother to the left, in an antique frame, a smaller picture of him when he was about ten-years-old in front of that one, a porcelain lamp to the right, and in the middle of the dresser was the big wooden jewelry box his grandfather had made her.
He’d never looked through her things, and felt a little strange doing so now, but his curiosity burned. What did she mean by saying he looked so much like his father. He looked nothing like his father. He didn’t even look like his mother.
He opened the lid to the ornately carved box, focusing on the picture of his grandmother and grandfather when they were young just inside the lid. Both blond and blue-eyed, Gabriel looked like no one in his family. His eyes rose to the mirror before him.
His complexion was dark, naturally tanned and his hair was like a raven’s wing, jet, almost blue black. His nose was sharp, not snub, his lips full over a squared jaw. His eyes were a startling shade of green surrounded by black lashes that just made them stand out more.
Looking back at his fair-faced grandparents, he shook his head, once again wondering if he’d been adopted.
Shuffling around his grandmother’s feminine baubles, he found the old key he was looking for at the bottom of the box.
Gripping it tightly he made his way out of the room and into the linen closet a ways farther down the hallway. Pulling down the cord to the attic, he stepped up the old wooden ladder after having flicked on the lights from a switch near one of the shelves.
The attic was pretty big, and relatively spotless. It was hot though, the heat from the prior day’s summer sun still radiating within.
The floorboards squeaked under his footfalls as he approached the area where he knew she kept various trunks.
She had traveled much when she was younger and collected many things. Most were packed away in boxes.
He noticed a trunk with his mother’s initials carved into the lid. He knew it wasn’t locked because when he was younger he always looked through the items within it. There were photo albums with pictures missing, most likely the ones with his father. There were baby shoes, some clothes, a few necklaces and hats, and an old eight by ten picture of his mother in a wedding dress with his aunt standing next to her. That picture had always bothered him. Auntie Paulina was giving his mother a sly sideways glance with a slight smirk on her lips. His mother had looked beautiful in the photo with her simple white gown, but there was a sadness in her eyes the belied the smile on her face.
Sighing, he moved the trunks around a bit and stumbled on his old toy box. It was shaped like a pirate’s chest and had a big padlock on it.
Frowning, he vaguely remembered telling his grandmother to get rid of his childhood toys. She’d had a garage sale about fifteen years back to help a family down the street when they’d lost all their belonging in a fire. He could have sworn she’d brought this whole chest down.
He snorted, shaking his head. It would be so like her to hold onto it for sentimental reasons.
Eying the padlock and the key he held, he knelt and tried the lock.
It opened with a snick. He set the antique looking lock aside.
Nothing prepared him for what he found within.
There was an enormous box with a beautiful wedding gown inside. It wasn’t the one in the picture of his mother.
Who’s bridal gown had this belonged to? His aunt? Why would it be here?
Sifting through the mounds of aged tissue paper, he found a leather-bound diary, tied closed with a red ribbon. Gabriel’s eyes widened when he noticed a ring threaded through the ribbon. His jaw went slack when he saw the size of the rock on the dainty ring. The thing had to be at least ten carats and worth a fortune.
What the fuck!
Below the box were stacks of letters bound in ribbon, the same shade of red as the one holding the diary closed.
“Daniel Montenegro,” Gabriel read. “What the hell?” he gasped.
The only Daniel Montenegro he knew, was the CEO of North Star Records, the company that was currently negotiating with his band mates and manager for a big recording deal. And that guy was a year younger than Gabriel’s thirty.
Good-lord! Had his mother been involved in a romance with Daniel Montenegro’s father, the original owner and founder of North Star Records?
Below the stacks of letters, he found another diary. This one was all frayed and dog-eared.
He opened it and began reading,
June 4, 1982:
Today I died. The man I loved with all my heart just married my sister, Paulina. I am devastated.
I can’t believe Daniel would do this to me, and yet, I believe when he told me it was all a misunderstanding. The night of our betrothal I’d promised him I would finally give myself to him. I really wanted to wait until our wedding night, but I could not resist any longer. His kisses were drugging and the feel of him…
Gabriel made a face. He really didn’t want to know his mother’s sexual fantasies with some other man—or any man for that matter.
Skimming down a few more lines past the erotic drivel, he read:
Paulina kept our glasses full the whole time even though I was not accustomed to drinking. When I grew dizzy she generously helped me up to her room because my bed was covered with gifts from all our guests. It was only when I’d awoken, did I realize I’d gone back on my word to wait for Danny in my room.
A month and a half later, just two weeks away from our wedding, Paulina declared she was pregnant and that my Daniel was the father.
He swore to me that she’d tricked him. That she’d waited in my room, naked, and had allowed him to take her, pretending to be me in the darkened room, kissing him the whole time. He’d been drunk too and had tried to convince the woman he thought was me that perhaps we really should wait, that he wanted our first time to be special. Paulina just continued to kiss him. In the morning he’d awakened alone and confused, thinking he’d dreamt the whole incident.
But the nightmare was true. My love had lain with another and then Paulina threatened to kill herself. I didn’t know she was also so very smitten with him. She cried and cried until my mother and I feared for her mental health.
Daniel, the honorable man that he is married her today in a small gathering at the magistrates office. She begged me to be witness after begging for my forgiveness. How could I not. She is after all my little sister.
So, though my heart is broken, I will endeavor to put all this behind me and go back to school for my masters degree in nursing. My dear friend Brendan Brinks is helping me fill out the paperwork for my scholarships. He is so sweet. I know someday the pain of losing Daniel will lessen, though right now I feel as if my heart has been torn out of my chest and sliced into a million pieces.
Gabriel slammed the diary closed. His heart raced and he blinked in the dimly lit attic. His mother had been in love with someone else? Memories of a long ago night echoed in his memory. His father storming into his room and screaming at his mother. He gripped her, shook her, slapped and kicked her. Gabriel had been terrified. His dad had always been cold and distant with him.
He remembered his mom struggling with his dad and a loud bang going off. A gun.
A dark-haired man had run into his room where his mother now lay bleeding on the floor. She’d pulled his father down with her when she fell and was still trying to get the gun away from him.
The dark-haired man fought with his father, knocking him out.
After that, his grandmother had picked him up and ran from the house with him. He’d never seen his mother or father after that. They’d died. Apparently his father killed his mother before being shot by the dark haired man who had also been fatally wounded in the tussle.
Gabriel ran back down the stairs, wondering why his grandmother had waited until now to talk about this.
His body shuddered when he realized the only reason she did so now was because she probably thought she was close to dying and needed to get this off her chest.
Stepping into his old room, he turned on his computer and did a search on Daniel Montenegro Senior.
His eyes went round and he tapped on images before sucking in a ragged breath.
He was staring at an older version of himself.
He was without a doubt Daniel Montenegro’s son, which meant his aunt Paulina had been married to the man and…Daniel Montenegro II was his half brother.
Why did he never know this?
His grandmother was too frail to drill with questions. He would have to seek the answers in the hundreds of letters and the two diaries up in the attic.
Tapping in a new search, he drew up the pictures of Daniel Montenegro II.
He looked to be about Gabriel’s age, with short dark brown hair and light brown eyes. He was dressed in a sharp Armani suit and had a shy looking young blonde anchored at his elbow.
Gabriel scratched his chin, staring at the plain looking girl. She had enormous blue eyes behind awful-looking nerdy glasses, and a sweet pouty mouth. The rounded neckline of her dress and high empire waistline disguised her feminine form.
Gabriel was accustomed to barely-dressed groupies with too much makeup and attitude throwing themselves at him with their big fuck me eyes.
The little blonde at his brother’s arm intrigued him so much he almost forgot the reason why he pulled up the man’s picture in the first place.
There were more pictures, most of Daniel receiving awards or performing at charity functions.
His brother, it seemed, had earned quite the reputation of being an upright honorable man with many achievements.
Gabriel suddenly felt inadequate, but quickly squashed that feeling. It wasn’t his fault he’d grown up middle class while his brother grew up in the lap of luxury like a king. Besides, it wasn’t as if Gabriel was poor now anyway. He was lead singer to a rapidly rising band already known around most of the world. A little more than twenty-four hours ago, he’d been in Finland performing before thousands at a metalfest.
Shaking his head, he focused on Daniel Montenegro II again.
Daniel looked nothing like him. His skin was fair and his face soft and classically handsome. He looked like he was very tall, or the girl was very petite, though she had long coltish legs.
Vaguely, he wondered how a sweet, shy, little thing like her would react if she ever saw him, the lead singer of Diavolo. Would she give him the fuck me eyes too, like every female he came across, or would she blush and turn her eyes away, deeming him too vulgar and wild for the likes of her?
She looked like an uptight prude. She’d run screaming, thinking he was a devil worshipper because he was in a metal band. Typical.
He snorted, his own thoughts filling with amusement. Narrowing his gaze, Gabriel looked from his brother to the little Pop Tart on his arm.
Was she his girlfriend? They looked like they belonged together. Daniel II was straight laced and respectable, the little Pop Tart looked like the kind of girl who might just lay there passively as her man got off.
Gabriel would never let her get away with that of course. He’d get her wound up, panting and scratching at his back in mere seconds or he’d whack off his own dick.
Shaking his head at the wayward path of his thoughts, he switched off his computer and rose from the chair. He couldn’t very well drill his grandmother for answers due to her delicate health, but he was going to get to the bottom of this. The answers as to why he was the bastard son of Daniel Montenegro Senior lay in those letters and diaries up in the attic.
Gabriel entered the dimly lit room. Machinery whirred and blipped. His sweet grandmother lay in a nest of wires and tubes, her silver hair a frothy halo around her head.
She looked so frail, this woman who’d raised him with an iron fist. She’d wiped his nose, swatted his behind when he misbehaved, and soothed his fears when the nightmares had threatened to overwhelm him.
She’d been his rock, his fuel, backing him up in his crazy dreams of stardom until they became a reality.
Touring had been bittersweet, having to leave her behind, until tonight.
Guilt assailed him as he approached her. Always accustomed to seeing her so strong, it felt so wrong seeing her here now…like this.
Her eyes fluttered open, revealing the startling blue within. She blinked them closed again and smiled weakly.
“Mijo,” she sighed in Spanish, calling him son, as she always did.
He took his baseball cap off, tossing it on the unoccupied chair to the right of the bed and bent over the railing. Gripping the hand she offered, he gave her a kiss on her pale cheek.
“Save your strength, ma,” he whispered. “You’re going to need it. I got another tattoo.”
Her eyes snapped open, her lips pressing into a scowl.
Ah. There was the old girl he knew and loved.
Gabriel smirked. She’d thrown a fit the first time he’d gotten ink. Of course, most likely it was because he’d only been sixteen at the time.
Since then, he’d sleeved both arms, had wings inked into his back, as well as started some fancy scrollwork across his chest.
Straightening up, he lifted his black t-shirt, exposing his belly button.
His newest addition, a black lined tribal in the shape of a sun surrounded the scar of the long ago severed connection to his mother.
His grandmother’s frown faltered.
“And what does this one mean, mijito?” she asked sadly.
Gabriel looked at her through the fall of jet-black hair that had slid over his shoulder to cover half his face.
“A black sun. It’s me. So different from you and my parents.”
He had a picture of his mother. She’d been blond and blue-eyed, just like his grandmother. Apparently, they had ancestors that hailed from the Netherlands before settling into Spain. His father, Brendan Brinks had also been blond and blue-eyed, but neither Gabriel or his grandmother ever mentioned him.
“You look so much like your father,” she said in a soft voice.
Gabriel’s head snapped up, giving her a perplexed stare. Maybe her meds were confusing her, but the pale blue eyes that stared at him were as sharp and lucid as ever.
“Right,” he deadpanned, blinking at her.
She scowled at him through the oxygen mask. “Don’t contradict me, Gaby.”
His eyes rounded as he shook his head, “But I di—“
She waved her hands dismissing what he was about to say. “Sit. I need to talk to you.”
“Ma, it’s late. You shouldn’t wear yourself—“
“Sit I said,” she snapped angrily, and promptly broke into a fit of coughing that had Gabriel yanking the empty chair closer to the bed.
His heart was in his throat as he gripped her hand and gaped at her. “Okay-okay, I’m sitting. Ma, please.”
About to ask her if she needed water or a nurse, she finally calmed and sighed.
He held her tiny hand in his much larger one and stroked it. She closed her eyes and breathed for a moment.
As time passed, he thought she’d drifted off to sleep.
Tears blurred his vision and he ducked his head, ashamed of his moment of weakness. He just wasn’t used to seeing her so defeated. The doctors said it was her heart. She was almost ninety years old and the prognosis wasn’t good. She was the only family he remembered ever having, the memory of his dead parents a foggy memory he only had nightmares about.
Gabriel would be completely alone if…when she died.
“I was your age when I had your aunt Paulina.”
The sound of her speaking again startled him and he gripped her hand tighter. She never spoke of his auntie Paulina. That was even more taboo than talking about his dad, Brendan Brinks.
“She was such a beautiful child, but your grandfather’s family spoiled her rotten. She looked just like Francisco, bless his soul. Right down to his dark brown eyes.”
She looked lost in her own thoughts, a smile playing about her thin lips. He petted her hand some more and listened intently. Whatever she had to say was obviously important if she was dredging up the memory of his aunt Paulina and grandfather.
“Five years later I had your mother. She looked more like me. Of course your great grandmother wasn’t too pleased about that and always favored Paulina. Rosalina never let that bother her. She was such a good soul, that one. Always putting others before herself. She was good and self sacrificing, always. It’s what won Daniel Montenegro over.”
Gabriel’s eyes widened. “Who?’
His grandmother continued as if not hearing him. “He was a fancy rich man, tried to seduce her as she attended him in the hospital. She’d been a nurse back then, but never fell for his playboy ways.” The old woman laughed. “Ah, but he was persistent. He wooed her for almost half a year. By the time she finally let him kiss her for the first time, the man was head over heels for her. They dated a while and he proposed quickly. Rosalina brought him home and he sure was a looker. Had Paulina green with envy.” Her expression grew angry. “That one…always with an eye for the rich ones. Daniel was both filthy rich and sexy as the devil.”
“Ma, are you talking about the Daniel Montenegro, owner and CEO of North Star Records?”
“I’m talking about…” she began to cough again, flailing her hands at him when he stood to adjust her oxygen mask.
A nurse walked in and rushed to her side. “Anna Maria, you shouldn’t tire yourself by talking so much,” she scolded gently adjusting the amount of meds dripping into the IV.
His grandmother glared at the girl, but the nurse had eyes only for Gabriel.
Gabriel frowned. He was used to women fawning over him, but didn’t enjoy it when their attention should be centered on his grandmother.
Anna Maria Arroyo’s eyes fluttered closed after a few seconds and Gabriel knew a moment of panic.
“Ma?’ he held her hand tighter, “What’s wrong with her.”
“It’s just a sedative,” the nurse, whose nametag read Amber, said with an over bright smile.
His grandmother was squeezing his hand again. He looked down at her. She was whispering something.
“I’m right here,” he said softly, leaning in close.
“The trunk in the attic. The key…it’s in that old jewelry box your grandfather made me.”
Gabriel breathed in her sweet scent. She always smelled like baby powder and rose water, only now it was mixed with the unpleasant scent of disinfectants used in the private hospital.
Again, he kissed her cheek when she sighed, sleep overtaking her.
Shaking his long hair back, he pulled his ball cap back on before grabbing the leather jacket he’d discarded on the dresser by the door.
The nurse darted in front of him, her chest sticking out provocatively as she twirled a strand of her dark blond hair around a finger.
“Don’t worry about, Anna Maria. I’ll take really good care of her.” She said as he shrugged back into his jacket..
Gabriel tipped his head to the side, licking his lips. Her eyes followed the movement hungrily. “I don’t doubt that for a moment, Amber. Thank you. She means the world to me.”
Amber’s eyes widened when he said her name. She looked as if she were about to melt into a puddle at his feet.
He gave her a lop-sided grin and walked out.
The drive to his childhood home didn’t take long. He drove out of the city into the suburbs. Quiet had descended upon the stately neighborhood with its tall oaks lining either side of the street. The night air rustled the trees as he pulled into the driveway of the two-story stone colonial. The automatic light over the garage door winked on as the door slid open. He rolled his Audi R8 Spyder into the enclosed garage and waited for the garage door to close again before stepping out. The car’s automatic security system blipped twice as he walked toward the door that would let him into the entry between the kitchen and pantry in his grandmother’s house.
Sharmane was waiting near the door wearing a loud pink fuzzy robe with matching slippers and bright green curlers in her hair.
The housekeeper’s big, dark-brown eyes blinked at him expectantly.
“How is she doing, Mr. Gabriel?’ the elderly black woman asked wringing her fingers together.
Gabriel shoved his hands in his pockets, desperate to get to that key and unlock that mysterious trunk his grandmother had mentioned. He just didn’t want to be rude to the poor woman. After all, she cared for his grandmother in his absence.
“She’s stable, Sharmane. I went straight from the airport to the hospital and talked to the doctors. They have her sedated and are doing everything they can.”
Sharman crossed herself and called upon the good Lord Jesus. “I’ve been praying for her speedy recovery for the past two days. She just don’t listen to reason, Mister Gabriel. Always wantin’ to be weedin’ and rakin’ the leaves in the front and back yard…”
Gabriel gripped her large arms and squeezed. The woman went silent hanging on to his every word. “I really appreciate everything you do, Sharmane. I really do.”
Her eyes grew suspiciously bright before she sniffed and stood straighter. “Are you hungry? I can fix you up somethin’ right quick.”
Gabriel laughed softly. “No, Sharmane. It’s really late and I just want a shower and bed. You wanna help me out with that?” He waggled his brows at her making her grow flustered.
Sharmane sputtered and waved her hands at him, giving a good belly laugh. “Oh, you don’t change, do ya? Such a rascal, you are. Go on,” she chuckled, waving him off. “Go on with your randy self. Don’t be flirtin’ with me. I’m old enough to be yo mama now.”
Gabriel grinned playfully at her. “Yeah and I bet you could teach me a load of things, eh?”
Sharmane swatted at him as he sauntered past. “You big tease. Go on now, git.”
He heard her chuckling and muttering “Lawd-have-mercy” to herself as he traversed the area between the formal dining room and living room to the stairs.
Taking them two at a time, he ascended the stairs to the second floor. His grandmother’s room was the first door at the top of the landing to the left.
Opening the door, he clapped his hands once to activate the lights.
Soft golden light bathed her room, making the brass bed gleam. Her room was done in shades of cream and white with dark wood furniture. A dark purple bedspread covered the large king-sized bed and lacy Priscilla curtains covered the windows to either side of it.
Striding past the bed, he went straight to the dresser, with its big ornate mirror hanging on the wall behind it.
She didn’t have much on her dresser, just an old photograph of his mother to the left, in an antique frame, a smaller picture of him when he was about ten-years-old in front of that one, a porcelain lamp to the right, and in the middle of the dresser was the big wooden jewelry box his grandfather had made her.
He’d never looked through her things, and felt a little strange doing so now, but his curiosity burned. What did she mean by saying he looked so much like his father. He looked nothing like his father. He didn’t even look like his mother.
He opened the lid to the ornately carved box, focusing on the picture of his grandmother and grandfather when they were young just inside the lid. Both blond and blue-eyed, Gabriel looked like no one in his family. His eyes rose to the mirror before him.
His complexion was dark, naturally tanned and his hair was like a raven’s wing, jet, almost blue black. His nose was sharp, not snub, his lips full over a squared jaw. His eyes were a startling shade of green surrounded by black lashes that just made them stand out more.
Looking back at his fair-faced grandparents, he shook his head, once again wondering if he’d been adopted.
Shuffling around his grandmother’s feminine baubles, he found the old key he was looking for at the bottom of the box.
Gripping it tightly he made his way out of the room and into the linen closet a ways farther down the hallway. Pulling down the cord to the attic, he stepped up the old wooden ladder after having flicked on the lights from a switch near one of the shelves.
The attic was pretty big, and relatively spotless. It was hot though, the heat from the prior day’s summer sun still radiating within.
The floorboards squeaked under his footfalls as he approached the area where he knew she kept various trunks.
She had traveled much when she was younger and collected many things. Most were packed away in boxes.
He noticed a trunk with his mother’s initials carved into the lid. He knew it wasn’t locked because when he was younger he always looked through the items within it. There were photo albums with pictures missing, most likely the ones with his father. There were baby shoes, some clothes, a few necklaces and hats, and an old eight by ten picture of his mother in a wedding dress with his aunt standing next to her. That picture had always bothered him. Auntie Paulina was giving his mother a sly sideways glance with a slight smirk on her lips. His mother had looked beautiful in the photo with her simple white gown, but there was a sadness in her eyes the belied the smile on her face.
Sighing, he moved the trunks around a bit and stumbled on his old toy box. It was shaped like a pirate’s chest and had a big padlock on it.
Frowning, he vaguely remembered telling his grandmother to get rid of his childhood toys. She’d had a garage sale about fifteen years back to help a family down the street when they’d lost all their belonging in a fire. He could have sworn she’d brought this whole chest down.
He snorted, shaking his head. It would be so like her to hold onto it for sentimental reasons.
Eying the padlock and the key he held, he knelt and tried the lock.
It opened with a snick. He set the antique looking lock aside.
Nothing prepared him for what he found within.
There was an enormous box with a beautiful wedding gown inside. It wasn’t the one in the picture of his mother.
Who’s bridal gown had this belonged to? His aunt? Why would it be here?
Sifting through the mounds of aged tissue paper, he found a leather-bound diary, tied closed with a red ribbon. Gabriel’s eyes widened when he noticed a ring threaded through the ribbon. His jaw went slack when he saw the size of the rock on the dainty ring. The thing had to be at least ten carats and worth a fortune.
What the fuck!
Below the box were stacks of letters bound in ribbon, the same shade of red as the one holding the diary closed.
“Daniel Montenegro,” Gabriel read. “What the hell?” he gasped.
The only Daniel Montenegro he knew, was the CEO of North Star Records, the company that was currently negotiating with his band mates and manager for a big recording deal. And that guy was a year younger than Gabriel’s thirty.
Good-lord! Had his mother been involved in a romance with Daniel Montenegro’s father, the original owner and founder of North Star Records?
Below the stacks of letters, he found another diary. This one was all frayed and dog-eared.
He opened it and began reading,
June 4, 1982:
Today I died. The man I loved with all my heart just married my sister, Paulina. I am devastated.
I can’t believe Daniel would do this to me, and yet, I believe when he told me it was all a misunderstanding. The night of our betrothal I’d promised him I would finally give myself to him. I really wanted to wait until our wedding night, but I could not resist any longer. His kisses were drugging and the feel of him…
Gabriel made a face. He really didn’t want to know his mother’s sexual fantasies with some other man—or any man for that matter.
Skimming down a few more lines past the erotic drivel, he read:
Paulina kept our glasses full the whole time even though I was not accustomed to drinking. When I grew dizzy she generously helped me up to her room because my bed was covered with gifts from all our guests. It was only when I’d awoken, did I realize I’d gone back on my word to wait for Danny in my room.
A month and a half later, just two weeks away from our wedding, Paulina declared she was pregnant and that my Daniel was the father.
He swore to me that she’d tricked him. That she’d waited in my room, naked, and had allowed him to take her, pretending to be me in the darkened room, kissing him the whole time. He’d been drunk too and had tried to convince the woman he thought was me that perhaps we really should wait, that he wanted our first time to be special. Paulina just continued to kiss him. In the morning he’d awakened alone and confused, thinking he’d dreamt the whole incident.
But the nightmare was true. My love had lain with another and then Paulina threatened to kill herself. I didn’t know she was also so very smitten with him. She cried and cried until my mother and I feared for her mental health.
Daniel, the honorable man that he is married her today in a small gathering at the magistrates office. She begged me to be witness after begging for my forgiveness. How could I not. She is after all my little sister.
So, though my heart is broken, I will endeavor to put all this behind me and go back to school for my masters degree in nursing. My dear friend Brendan Brinks is helping me fill out the paperwork for my scholarships. He is so sweet. I know someday the pain of losing Daniel will lessen, though right now I feel as if my heart has been torn out of my chest and sliced into a million pieces.
Gabriel slammed the diary closed. His heart raced and he blinked in the dimly lit attic. His mother had been in love with someone else? Memories of a long ago night echoed in his memory. His father storming into his room and screaming at his mother. He gripped her, shook her, slapped and kicked her. Gabriel had been terrified. His dad had always been cold and distant with him.
He remembered his mom struggling with his dad and a loud bang going off. A gun.
A dark-haired man had run into his room where his mother now lay bleeding on the floor. She’d pulled his father down with her when she fell and was still trying to get the gun away from him.
The dark-haired man fought with his father, knocking him out.
After that, his grandmother had picked him up and ran from the house with him. He’d never seen his mother or father after that. They’d died. Apparently his father killed his mother before being shot by the dark haired man who had also been fatally wounded in the tussle.
Gabriel ran back down the stairs, wondering why his grandmother had waited until now to talk about this.
His body shuddered when he realized the only reason she did so now was because she probably thought she was close to dying and needed to get this off her chest.
Stepping into his old room, he turned on his computer and did a search on Daniel Montenegro Senior.
His eyes went round and he tapped on images before sucking in a ragged breath.
He was staring at an older version of himself.
He was without a doubt Daniel Montenegro’s son, which meant his aunt Paulina had been married to the man and…Daniel Montenegro II was his half brother.
Why did he never know this?
His grandmother was too frail to drill with questions. He would have to seek the answers in the hundreds of letters and the two diaries up in the attic.
Tapping in a new search, he drew up the pictures of Daniel Montenegro II.
He looked to be about Gabriel’s age, with short dark brown hair and light brown eyes. He was dressed in a sharp Armani suit and had a shy looking young blonde anchored at his elbow.
Gabriel scratched his chin, staring at the plain looking girl. She had enormous blue eyes behind awful-looking nerdy glasses, and a sweet pouty mouth. The rounded neckline of her dress and high empire waistline disguised her feminine form.
Gabriel was accustomed to barely-dressed groupies with too much makeup and attitude throwing themselves at him with their big fuck me eyes.
The little blonde at his brother’s arm intrigued him so much he almost forgot the reason why he pulled up the man’s picture in the first place.
There were more pictures, most of Daniel receiving awards or performing at charity functions.
His brother, it seemed, had earned quite the reputation of being an upright honorable man with many achievements.
Gabriel suddenly felt inadequate, but quickly squashed that feeling. It wasn’t his fault he’d grown up middle class while his brother grew up in the lap of luxury like a king. Besides, it wasn’t as if Gabriel was poor now anyway. He was lead singer to a rapidly rising band already known around most of the world. A little more than twenty-four hours ago, he’d been in Finland performing before thousands at a metalfest.
Shaking his head, he focused on Daniel Montenegro II again.
Daniel looked nothing like him. His skin was fair and his face soft and classically handsome. He looked like he was very tall, or the girl was very petite, though she had long coltish legs.
Vaguely, he wondered how a sweet, shy, little thing like her would react if she ever saw him, the lead singer of Diavolo. Would she give him the fuck me eyes too, like every female he came across, or would she blush and turn her eyes away, deeming him too vulgar and wild for the likes of her?
She looked like an uptight prude. She’d run screaming, thinking he was a devil worshipper because he was in a metal band. Typical.
He snorted, his own thoughts filling with amusement. Narrowing his gaze, Gabriel looked from his brother to the little Pop Tart on his arm.
Was she his girlfriend? They looked like they belonged together. Daniel II was straight laced and respectable, the little Pop Tart looked like the kind of girl who might just lay there passively as her man got off.
Gabriel would never let her get away with that of course. He’d get her wound up, panting and scratching at his back in mere seconds or he’d whack off his own dick.
Shaking his head at the wayward path of his thoughts, he switched off his computer and rose from the chair. He couldn’t very well drill his grandmother for answers due to her delicate health, but he was going to get to the bottom of this. The answers as to why he was the bastard son of Daniel Montenegro Senior lay in those letters and diaries up in the attic.
Latisha
- 17.01.2021
- 57
- 0
- Category:
- Love Stories
