Gabriels deception, p.1
Gabriel's Deception, page 1
part #4 of Whitsborough Progenies Series
Copyright
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Copyright Gabriel’s Deception© 2022 C.A. Rene
All rights reserved. This book, or any portion thereof, may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental, the characters and story lines are created by the author’s imagination and are used fictitiously.
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eBook ISBN: 978-1-990675-42-3
Contents
Stay Connected
Also by C.A. Rene
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Epilogue
About the Author
Stay Connected
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C.A.’s Renegades
Also By C.A. Rene
The Whitsborough Chronicles
Through the Pain
Into Darkness
Finding the Light
To Redemption
The Whitsborough Progenies
Ivy’s Venom
Carmelo’s Malice
Saxon’s Distortion
Gabriel’s Deception
Desecrated Duet
Desecrated Flesh
Desecrated Essence
The Reaped Series
The Reaper Incarnate
Hunting the Reaper
Claiming the Reaper
Hail Mary Duet
Blue 42
Red Zone
Sacrificial Lambs
Sing Me a Song
Song of Tenebrae
A Verse for Caelum
To the Grave
Mimic
Dedication
The scars marring your soul only grow stronger to form your armor.
And to Jocey, you’re the bestest friend a girl could ever ask for! Thank you for sticking by me through everything. I love you dearly.
Prologue
Danny
The studio looms in front of me. The large brick structure is intimidating against Toronto’s backdrop. I’m glad to be back here in Canada and away from the crazy shit that was happening back in New Orleans.
If I’d stayed there, I’d be dead now.
It took me a while to make my way here, and even longer to apply for the production assistant position that’s been available for a few weeks now. I didn’t want to lay my roots down again, nor did I want to attract the attention of my family.
Daniel Kane Edwards is back in Whitsborough.
The town is nothing like it was when I first left it. Now, everywhere I look, either a Greene or a Torres is running something. Ember really came here and took over everything. This town was supposed to be mine, my father was a council member, and I was supposed to run for mayor.
Until my cock got me into trouble.
Eleventh grade was weird. I lost my best friend to a chick; I spiraled when my family began to ignore me, and then I fucked the same girl a few times—without a condom—and nearly ruined my whole life.
Britney—head of the drama committee and stalker of Vin—said I knocked her up, and my father went berserk. He made arrangements to get rid of it only for her to claim the miscarriage a few days later.
Was she really pregnant?
I mean, it’s possible. I wasn’t given the chance to find out before they shipped me off to live with my cousins on my mother’s side in New Orleans. The Leblancs are cutthroat, and I really don’t believe my father knew what he was forcing me into.
Not that I would ever find that out, either. He passed away a few years ago, and I didn’t bother to come home for the funeral. It was an emotional decision, but one based on the fact that he never ever reached out to me while I was in New Orleans. He had washed his hands of me.
Mom is still alive and living in our old house. I’ve driven by a few times but could never bring myself to drop in. She had kept up with me over the years, but that died off after my twenty-first birthday. She begged me to come home and try again with my father, but I was so far in with the Leblancs and Ballons, so I refused.
Money always spoke louder than family relationships. That’s how I was raised, anyway. The money I was making with Ballon Corp overshadowed any family I had left.
But here I am, back home, and running from trouble yet again. Summer Ballon was something fun to play with back in New Orleans, but Brody Landry was no joke. When I saw his facial expressions flip, as he switched from alter to alter, I was shaken.
I’d rather be home in Whitsborough … the evil I know and all that.
It’s the starting over aspect that’s fucking with me. All I’ve known for the past thirty years is how to kill and clean up bodies, or how to run down targets and collect anything owed. So, where do I go from here?
I’m forty-five years old, and sitting in my rented Honda CRV, hoping to look inconspicuous as I stare at the only studio in Whitsborough. Not much comes out of this building, but it houses the local networks and news stations.
Being in front of the camera was never my passion, not like Vincent Greene or Ember Craven. No, I enjoyed being the one behind it, directing the shot, controlling the lighting, and making the scene come alive. All of that left me when I was sent away, but now, as I’m sitting here, it’s all coming back. Those feelings I had as a teenager, the aspirations to create moving stories for the big screen, are alive again.
My hand lands on the door handle of the car, and just as I’m about to open the door, someone eerily familiar is walking in front of me.
I don’t know who he is, but I could probably bet my entire bank account on who his father is, and I wouldn’t lose a dime.
His light brown eyes slide toward me, and his stare penetrates my windshield. He looks sad, lost, and devastated. Just the way I remember his father. Travis Greene had that look many times during our high school years. His son’s clothing is disheveled like he’s been sleeping in them for the past few days, and his dark blond hair is a tousled mess on top of his head.
He’s sporting a few fresh hickies along his neck and exposed collar bone, his shirt ripped from the neck to his shoulder.
A chuckle escapes me as he walks out of sight. Nothing much has changed here in Whitsborough. The Greenes are still roaming the streets like they own them, and I would assume a Craven isn’t too far behind.
Chapter One
2 years later…
Gabriel
“Gabe!” Dahlia calls out as she steps into my condo. “I can’t stay long. I promised Ivy I would watch Charlie and Vincent today. Are you here?”
I step out of my kitchen and eye her standing by the door, a large bag of groceries in her hand from Whole Foods.
“Did you bring me groceries again, little Greene?” My shoulder hits the wall as I cross my arms over my chest.
“Don’t you need them, baby Greene?” she snickers, as she bypasses me to the kitchen.
Both Dahlia and I are the babies of our families, and these nicknames we have for each other have stuck with us since high school. So fucking long ago.
“Do you have work today?” she asks, as she deposits almond milk and eggs into my fridge.
“Yeah, the shop has been pretty busy. A lot of you college kids are looking to piss off the parents with a little ink.”
She snorts and shakes her head. “It takes a lot more than ink to rile up our family.”
She’s not lying.
Most of our family still resides in Whitsborough, about a forty-five minute drive from here in Toronto. It used to be a corrupt little town filled with disgusting founding families who liked to dabble in all things illegal. Human trafficking, rape, murder, extortion, drugs, and money laundering, to name a few.
It’s been cleaned up a lot, but it took our family to do it. And we’re still doing it.
“How are classes?” I ask Dahlia, as she folds up the cloth bag and tucks it in a drawer with others.
“You would know if you decided to attend,” she retorts and brushes by me.
“I don’t know what I want to do yet,” I shrug.
“Gabe, no one is pissed that you let baseball go. Your father let it go too.” She slips her backpack over her shoulder. “What are you so afraid of?”
That’s a good question.
I know my family isn’t disappointed. I dropped baseball, even though I was offered an amazing opportunity to play ball in New York for college. St. John’s in Queens is the best in their division, and when I received that acceptance package, I was s
Until I spent a week of visitation there.
“You always get that look on your face when I mention baseball,” Dahlia states. “Let it go, no one cares, Gabe. Heck, if you want to open twenty more tattoo shops, your parents would still be proud of you.”
“I know.”
“Why don’t you go on a date?” She’s relentless. “I know a few girls who loiter in front of that tattoo shop, hoping to catch a glimpse of you.”
“I’m good,” I shrug.
“Fine,” she huffs as she opens the door. “I’ll call you tomorrow, baby Greene.”
“Love you, little Greene.”
“It’s sadistic how much you enjoy probing people with needles. And they say I’m the crazy one.”
His voice has my lips stretching wide in a grin. “Saxon Greene, you are the crazy one.”
“What is that going to be?” He leans over the table that my customer is lying face down on. “It looks like two stick men humping each other.”
“What?” the girl under my needle shrieks, her head popping up.
“He’s being an idiot,” I growl, giving Saxon a filthy look.
“Yeah, yeah, it’s a tulip.”
“Orchid,” I correct him.
“Whatever.” He rolls his eyes. “Where’s Dahlia?”
“She said she was watching Charlie and Vincent for Ivy. That was this afternoon. Why?”
“She’s not watching them.” Saxon straightens as I stop the buzz of the needle.
“Break.” I tap the girl’s back, then motion for Saxon to follow me to my office.
He rounds on me as soon as I close the door. “I asked you to do one thing—”
“I’m not spying on your sister for you,” I snap. “Besides, she’s a good girl. How do you know she’s not watching them?”
“Because the kids are at my place with Cordelia and Amelia.”
“The kids?” I raise a brow at him.
One of the kids he’s referring to is actually his and Amelia’s biological daughter, and when they found out they were pregnant, it wasn’t something planned or wanted. Instead of aborting it, they decided to let Ivy adopt it because she and Neil were struggling to have their own.
“Yes, Ivy’s son and daughter.” He rubs at his temple. “They’re at my house for the day. Dahlia lied.”
He sounds like he doesn’t care, and maybe it’s less than the average father would, but I know he cares in some capacity. Saxon was diagnosed with sociopathic tendencies when he was younger, which made him perfect to take over his mother’s business.
“Look,” I pull my phone from my pocket, “I’ll text her and see what’s going on.”
Me: Little Greene, what are you up to?
Saxon stands beside me, his eyes staring at the screen like pointed lasers. He’s always been overly protective of Dahlia, and I understand why. She has a purity about her that the rest of us Greenes are missing. She’s good, and he wants to make sure she stays that way.
Little Greene: At Ivy’s, I told you.
“Could she have gone to Ivy’s, anyway? Maybe Ivy forgot to tell her the children would be at your place?”
“No,” Saxon says, his voice deepening with anger. “Ivy is at the spa with my mother.”
Me: You’ve been caught, little Greene. You’re not at Ivy’s, nor are you watching the kids.
Both of us watch those three dots appear and disappear, then finally stay gone.
“What is she doing?”
“Maybe she has a boyfriend.” I give Saxon a pointed look. “Maybe she wanted privacy.”
“That’s unfortunate for her,” he murmurs, as he pulls up a tracking app on his phone. “She knows I don’t like being lied to.”
“You’ve put a tracker on her?”
“On everyone.” He tosses me a wink as my mouth goes dry.
“Saxon—” I call out, but he’s long gone.
I don’t like the thought of him tracking me anywhere.
Danny
“Kane!” The executive producer claps me on the back. “That was a great shot.”
I give him a quick nod as I continue to pack up the camera. He walks away, leaving me to close up the studio for the night. I don’t mind it; I love the late hours.
Kane is my middle name, and I’ve been using my mother’s maiden name Montgomery to stay under the radar. It’s been working for the past few years. No one has recognized me, and my life has been quiet. Exactly how I like it.
I really thought I would’ve been found out by now. Living in Whitsborough means the whole town is your neighbor, and privacy is a joke. I’ve seen a few people from my past over the last few years, but no one has given me a second glance. As good as it feels, I’m worried about the other shoe falling.
Nothing stays quiet in Whitsborough. Before you know it, your father’s uncle’s sister is coming back to claim inheritance or some shit, and threatening to blow your family’s secrets wide open. Every family here has secrets. I may feel safe and under the radar now, but that could change in the blink of an eye.
After locking up the studio, I head to my Honda CRV—now purchased—and get inside. I drop the visor, and a pre-rolled joint lands in my lap. A new library has opened up in Whitsborough, and I’ve been dying to check it out.
I watched its grand opening, seeing all the Greenes there in their privileged glory as an older woman cut the ribbon. She must’ve been a newer resident because I didn’t recognize her. It’s been open for four months now, and I think it’s finally clear of the Greene family.
So that’s where I head as I spark my joint.
I park in front of the quaint red brick building, taking the last few tokes off my joint before flicking my roach out of the window and onto the asphalt lot. No one has gone in or come out of the library in the ten minutes I’ve been here, and I figure I’m safe to go in.
As soon as I open the building’s doors, the air conditioner blasts me in the face, immediately cooling my heated skin. I pass by the main desk, giving a curt nod to the older blonde sitting there with her thick glasses perched on the edge of her nose, the same one who cut the ribbon. She’s probably around my age, and interesting enough to look at. So I give her a slow perusal, but by the time I’ve reached her face again, her nose is back in her book. Uninterested would be an understatement. I want to get laid, but it looks like I’ll have to look beyond this library.
I stroll through the Science Fiction aisle, flipping through Star Trek books when someone else comes into the place.
“Cory!” a woman calls out. “You should’ve closed fifteen minutes ago.”
“Shit,” I curse, and make my way out of the aisle.
“Just waiting for one more customer,” the woman at the desk, Cory, says. Her voice is smooth, holding a hint of an accent that’s not at all Canadian. “How was your day with the kids?”
“I spent the day at the estate with them. Then Ember and Vin came home and said they’d watch them. I drove here right after.”
Fuck.
I poke my head out of the aisle and see another young girl who doesn’t look familiar to me at all. Yet, she knows Ember and Vin. Is this the other shoe dropping? My life now suddenly intertwining with the elite of Whitsborough, even though I have worked so hard at avoiding that?
“Sorry.” As I walk out of the aisle, I nod my head. “I didn’t mean to keep you. I’ll come back another day.”
“He’s new to town, isn’t he?” I hear the young girl say as I leave.
Fuck.
I’m hoping this interaction leaves her mind as soon as I’m out of sight, because I’ve gone this long without being detected, and it can’t blow up around me now. I’m loving how quiet my life has been these last few years, a huge contrast to what it was in New Orleans, and I wouldn’t mind it staying this way for the foreseeable future.
The effects of my smoked joint are still coursing through me, and I didn’t end up with anything to read, so I decide to head down to the wharf. It’s about a five-minute walk from the library, and it’ll give me the time to sober up before going home.
The air is crisp here in the spring. The lingering winter cold takes a while to disappear as the warmer air battles its way in. I’ve missed this chill. In New Orleans, it’s warmer, more humid.
