"Do you normally make-out with the people you're hired to kill? It doesn't strike me as very professional."
"Put the gun down," Gabriel panted, not answering her.
"Why on earth would I do that?"
"Because you're not going to shoot me," Gabriel rep...
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2 years later
Where was his wife?
The word felt almost foreign echoing in Gabriel's head. Wife. But as of 4:30 p.m., it was accurate. Ash was his wife.
The strangeness of it all may have been because he had so little time to adjust his mind to the concept. He had proposed to her on New Year's Eve, and they had decided to hold the wedding only a few months later, under the spring cherry blossoms.
Carmen had been thrilled at the hasty wedding, thinking it was due to a pregnancy. Gabriel made it clear that Ash being pregnant would have no impact on when they got married, but he didn't have the heart to tell his mother that not only was Ash not pregnant, she had no plans of ever having children. She was too afraid of passing on Henry's psychopathic traits to her offspring.
Gabriel had looked forward to becoming a father, but he completely understood Ash's desire to have Henry's family line end with her and Carter. The two siblings had decided shortly after their father died, and there was no way Gabriel was going to talk them out of it. Not that he had any desire to. It was their decision, and he respected it.
It was impressive how powerful Ash and Carter were as a team, though Gabriel didn't know what else he had expected from two certified geniuses. When the lawyers finally figured out that Ash was, in fact, entitled to the entire estate, she had promptly engaged in a series of closed-door meetings with Carter to decide what to do with the money, despite being under no legal obligation to do so.
Ash's initial suggestion had apparently been to liquidate all of her father's assets and donate every penny except the cost of Luis's cancer treatment. Carter agreed they should donate most of the money - especially to causes Henry would have hated - but had convinced Ash to take over the company and transform it from a defense company to a company focused on developing solutions to environmental problems.
So, at 21 years old, at her brother's recommendation, Ash became the CEO of Beyatech. The company had terminated all its military contracts and was focusing on applying its biotech research and development on solutions to air and water pollution. The company had already secured a series of contracts with foreign countries, and Gabriel couldn't be prouder of his incredible wife.
Now he just had to find her.
It shouldn't have been that difficult. Their wedding was fairly small. His family made up over half of the guest list - parents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. The rest of the guests were a mix of friends and coworkers.
"Have you seen Ash?" he asked Rin, finding her near the bar.
"Do you think they realize they're a cliché?" Rin asked, gesturing to Carter and Levi. "The maid of honor and the best man."
Gabriel looked at the two dancing a merengue together and smiled. Ash had offered to call Carter the man or person of honor, but Carter really liked the idea of being called a maid. So they had kept the title. This, likely combined with Carter's shoulder-length, now pastel pink hair and the pink cherry blossom jumpsuit he was wearing had Gabriel's straight, machismo cousin asking if Carter was single. But from the way Carter and Levi were looking at each other, it was clear he was extremely taken.
