Chapter 81: Chapter 81

E - P - I - L - O - G - U - E

After waiting for the garage door to open, Yago Cabrera parked his Camaro next to Gia's Mustang. He pulled into a parking spot, retrieved his gym bag from the seat next to him, and got out of the car.

He approached the Mustang and noticed the Expedition seated on the opposite side of the vehicle. Gia referred to it as the "station wagon" and detested operating it due to its size. Falcone, though, had a command. She was driving an Expedition and had their boys in the car with her. She could take the Mustang because she was on her own. She sneered at him and informed him that he was being much too bossy, but only because it was what she always did. Gia would stop at nothing to keep her boys safe, and she was aware that the Expedition was safer.

As he entered the home through the front door of the Expedition, he dropped his suitcase in the utility room before making his way to the huge, open-concept kitchen. The under-counter lighting had been left on for him by her. He made his way to the large, carpeted staircase, where a nightlight was lighted in an outlet halfway up, and he exited the room after turning out the lights. He didn't need her to light his path, but she did it nevertheless, partly out of concern for the boys in case one of them woke up and partly to let her man know she was thinking about him when he arrived home.

Despite not being aware of it at the time, he had lied to Gia. It was necessary for him to have some room. Or, to put it more precisely, he required a Falcone and Gia zone, his boys required their own zones, and the entire family need a family zone. He therefore relocated his family from Gia's farmhouse to this "monstrosity," as Gia described it, with five bedrooms and three garages.

She only agreed to the move after Janine agreed to clean it. She claimed to have a life rule according to which she wouldn't reside in a home that required more than two hours to clean. She now resided in a home that required more than two hours to clean; Falcone just structured it so she was exempt from doing so.

He discreetly up the stairs, made a right turn, and proceeded through one of the several family zones in the roomy open area at the top. Although he couldn't see the images, he was aware of their presence. In pictures, Gia decorated. Thank god, she wasn't the kind of lady who collected trinkets.

Falcone admired his wife's interior design choices. There were images stuck to everything, including the walls, surfaces, and even the fridge, which was so covered in pictures that you could hardly see it. There were photos of her, him, their two boys, their relatives, and their friends; they were all candid, unposed, and virtually all of the people in the images were grinning.

or giggling

Additionally, there were images of Sophie and Simone. Simone and Sophie had their positions among her decorations thanks to a plot by Gia and his mother, who also had his lady adorned in the family.

It took some time to get used to this, and more time passed before the pain of seeing them every day grew less intense. It then grew monotonous. He no longer felt the loss of it when he seen what was in the photographs. And recollections may be found in the pictures. Those were bittersweet memories, but with time and with Gia's help, the sweetness won out.

The bitterness of those recollections eventually gave way to sweetness with the help of Gia.

At the first door, Falcone made a second right turn.

Alessandro was sprawled out across the bed, taking up more room than a four-year-old boy should on a double bed when the man stepped in. He was wearing loose shorts and a t-shirt, and his black hair was a tangle.

The coverings had already been removed. He had kicked off his covers even as a newborn. Al enjoyed freedom. There are none. even while you are sleeping. Falcone learnt not to be astonished by this once his mother revealed that he had done the same thing.

In many respects, Alessandro was his son. Al was intense and had been almost from the moment he emerged from Gia's womb. Alessandro was also present if Falcone was at home. Alessandro has always been sitting on his ass and waiting for his dad to enter the house whenever Falcone opens the door since the moment he could crawl. It wasn’t clingy. Even as an infant, Alessandro had been able to entertain himself.

He just liked to do it close to his Dad.

Falcone walked to him and bent, doing what he did frequently, in fact every night he got home when his boys were asleep. He rested his hand light on the heat of his son’s back and felt him breathe. Once his son’s life communicated itself through Falcone’s hand, he lifted that hand and slid it over Alessandro’s thick hair. Then he left the room, crossed the hall and entered another door.

Bianco was on his back, one arm thrown wide, one knee up and dropped, the other leg straight, hand on his belly. Covers half-on, half-off. The stuffed bear with an ill-fitting Broncos t-shirt had fallen from his outstretched hand. They love Broncos when they watch it on TV.

Each Broncos home game, Bianco would silently sit on his grandfather's lap. It was incredibly strange, but Ray seemed to be studying the game with more vigor than his two-year-old son, Falcone thought. Even if there was a game on TV, Bianco would pause, sit on his ass, and squint. He was wearing a football helmet if he was awake, and whenever Falcone or Gia tried to take it off him, the youngster threw a tantrum. The only places they forbade him from wearing it were to bed and mealtime. When Bianco wasn't eating, watching football on television, or engaging in competitive brotherly wrestling, he was attacking everyone and everything, so this was a wise decision.

Falcone bent, his hand going to Bianco’s chest, resting lightly and his eyes roamed his son’s face as his hand felt his son’s heartbeat.

Both his boys looked like him, black hair, black eyes. Bianco got his dimples and Gia praised the Lord loudly, and hilariously, that he did and she did this often. Nearly every time she saw them which was a lot. Bianco, like his Mom, liked to laugh and, like his Mom, he did it often.

At that memory, Falcone smiled at his son.

His wife liked her husband’s dimples. Falcone just liked his son’s.

He walked out of the room and his cell went. He headed to the master suite pulling it out of a pocket of his cargoes. He turned the display to face him and his brows knit.

It said “Gia Calling”.

He didn’t answer as his eyes went to their door, seeing weak light coming from under it.

She was awake. This was surprising. It was late.

Fuck.

She was nearly nine months pregnant with their, what Gia decreed, final child. She’d decreed this because the ultrasound showed it was a boy. She was done. Giving up the ghost. She had a lifetime ahead of her of fights, blood, drunkenness, puke and pregnancy scares. She wasn’t going to make it worse.

This was why he let her name their kids. Damian was gestating in her belly. Falcone didn’t like the name Alessandro until Alessandro made it into the world. He really didn’t like the name Bianco until he met Bianco. And he seriously didn’t like the name Damian but he reckoned he’d grow to like it.

His mother had a hand in these names but Falcone didn’t complain. He saw the signs with Alessandro’s intensity and Bianco tackling everything. Gia was fucked.

He shoved the still ringing phone in his pocket as he twisted the knob and opened one of the double doors to the master suite.

Falcone walked through and stopped dead.

The bedside light on Gia’s side was on. The covers thrown back. The bed empty. A pool of blood was in the bed, a trail of it leading to the bathroom.

“Yago, honey, you get this, go to the hospital.” He heard his wife’s voice, jerked out of his freeze and ran to the bathroom. “Something’s wrong. I’m calling…”

She stopped talking when he hit the bathroom and her head came up to look at him. She was sitting in her nightshirt on the floor, one arm around her swollen belly, one shapely leg straight, the other bent under her, her long, thick, blonde hair down and tousled, her blue eyes pained, her gorgeous face ashen, blood pooling around her on the black and white tiles.

The minute they hit him, her eyes filled with tears, she dropped her hand and it fell limply to her lap while she whispered, “Baby.”

Less than five minutes later, Yago “Falcone” Cabrera had his wife strapped into the Expedition, his sons safely secured in the back, his phone ringing to Ray at his ear and he was backing out of the garage on his way to the hospital.