Taming the Bitch (COMPLETED)

Chapter XI - THE SHOTS

The tequila slips down her throat with a practiced ease—an unbothered, burning warmth she has long stopped noticing.

Gabrielle sits alone at the bar, a solitary figure cloaked in dim amber light, drowning herself in liquor and loathing alike.

Loathing the life she did not choose.
Loathing the shackles she cannot escape.
Loathing every fracture—past and present—that keeps cutting into her.

A cigarette rests between two elegant fingers, the smoke curling lazily in front of her as she traces the rim of her freshly poured glass. Her mind, traitorous as ever, drifts back into the one memory she has never truly escaped—

The day her father told her that her mother was gone.

Ten years ago...

"Get some rest, Gab... You're tired. Upset," her father murmured, turning toward the door of her hospital room.

"Did Mum abandon me as well, then?" she asked, her voice raw, breaking. "Just as you did?"

"Gabby—"

"Did she decide not to buy me back either? Is money more important to her too?"

"Don't." His voice cracked like a whip. "Don't say a word against your mother. You've no idea how she suffered because of you."

"Because of me...?" Her whisper trembled in the air. As though it were her fault simply for being their daughter.

"She loved you," he said, voice fraying. "You know that."

"Then why isn't she here? I just want to see her. I just want my mum..." Her lips pressed together around the words she didn't say—not you—though even she knew it wasn't wholly true.

Her father inhaled sharply, pain dragging through his features. "She's gone."

The world seemed to tilt.

"What...?" Gabrielle stared at him. "What did you say?"

"Rest, Gabby. Please."

"No." She pushed herself up, unsteady on her feet, the IV tugging sharply at her skin. "Where is Mum?! I want to see her!" Her panic rose, frantic and breathless. "Mum!"

Her father caught her before she could collapse, holding her tightly as she thrashed against him.

"Let me go! I need to see her!"

"I'm sorry... I'm so sorry," he whispered, voice breaking against her hair.

"Where is she? Dad—please—take me to her..." She pushed against his chest until she could see his face, streaked with tears she had never seen him shed.

"She's gone, Gab. Your mother... had a heart attack."

Her limbs turned to ice. Her breath stuttered to nothing.

This couldn't be real. It had to be another lie. Another punishment.

But when she looked into her father's mind—the one place she could always read him—it was all there:

Grief.
Pain.
Guilt.
And an anger she couldn't decipher.

"I'm so sorry, my love," he murmured, pulling her against him. "I couldn't save any of you."

Her scream tore through the room, raw and agonised, as the truth took her by the throat.

Her mother was dead.
Gone.
Irretrievable.

She had left her—just as he once had—but this time there would be no return. No arms to run into. No voice to soothe her.

Only silence.
Permanent and cold.

Back in the present, a voice she once could not forget—one she now loathes with meticulous precision—cuts through the haze.

"I'll have this pub shut down if my fiancée staggers out of it blind drunk," Vincent drawls, sliding into the stool beside her.

Gabrielle turns her head slowly, tapping ash into the tray with careless elegance.

She is stunning even in devastation—dressed in a black satin number that reveals far too much, at least for Vincent's peace of mind. The back is entirely bare, skin like ivory under dim light. A snake-like Swarovski halter glitters at her throat, mirrored by the serpentine earring coiling along her ear. Her lips—cursed things he cannot forget—are painted a deep, ruinous red.

A masterpiece of destruction.

She scoffs. Loudly.

"Well, look who's graced us tonight. My fiancé," she announces, raising her glass as if in toast. "Vincent Walton, ladies and gentlemen. What a treat."

She downs the tequila in one smooth, reckless shot, her gaze fixed on him with surgical disdain. A thin stream of smoke curls from her cigarette as she exhales deliberately into his face.

Vincent doesn't flinch.
Which annoys her.
Immensely.

The crash of her glass slamming onto the counter draws every pair of eyes in the pub. She sways, and Vincent's hand shoots out, steadying her by the arm.

His jaw tenses as he studies the hatred simmering in her eyes.

She smiles sweetly, a poisonous little thing, and wraps her arms around his neck—slow, seductive, theatrical. To onlookers, they look like a couple about to devour each other.

To Vincent, she is a storm.

"You're a wretched user," she breathes in his ear, her tone venom wrapped in silk. She kisses the shell of his ear, her lips brushing down his neck with a calculated softness. "This is what you want, isn't it? My ruin. Your reputation saved. All you had to do was shackle yourself to the heiress worth ten times more than you and that decrepit grandfather of yours."

Her words land like shards of glass.

And yet—she's not wrong.

His grandfather needs her fortune. Needs this match. Needs her bloodline.

And you, Vincent?
His conscience whispers its quiet accusation.
What do you need her for, if not her wealth?

His jaw clenches.

He won't say it aloud—he refuses to—but he has been drawn to her since the first moment he saw her. Addicted to her lips from the moment he first tasted them. Fascinated by her chaos, her brilliance, her wounds.

"I'm taking you home," he says finally, cupping her face—too tenderly for a man pretending not to care.

He looks just like her father did that day.
Angry.
Guilty.
And unbearably human.

She hates it.

"Ich hasse dich..." she murmurs, her voice growing faint.

His jaw tightens again. Her eyes—normally alight with fire—are dimmed, exhausted, overflowing with everything she won't say.

"Had to learn it in German," she adds with a ghost of a smirk. "Thought it would hit harder."

"You don't hate me," he murmurs back, pulling her closer, resting his forehead against her shoulder. His breath warms her neck as he holds her—too tightly, too desperately.

And then—
Her body softens.
Her weight collapses into his arms.

She's unconscious.

Vincent catches her effortlessly, staring at her face—beautiful, furious, broken.

"Don't hate me too much," he whispers back in German, brushing his lips softly against her cheek.

"My Bella."

Then he lifts her into his arms—bridal style—and carries her out of the pub.