Taming the Bitch (COMPLETED)

Chapter XXXV - THE PROMISE

The flight to London was steeped in silence. Gabrielle and Vincent sat opposite one another, each by a window overlooking the dense sweep of cloud below. They were thousands of feet above the earth, and it felt as though their thoughts too were suspended somewhere in that pale expanse.

Vincent watched her quietly. She had not spoken since the call that had wrenched them out of sleep that morning, instructing them to return to London at once. He had suspected this day would come. Gabrielle, however, had no inkling—no warning at all—of her father's condition. The news had struck her like a physical blow. Now she sat hollow-eyed, stunned, and seemingly adrift.

He longed to comfort her, to draw her into his arms and steady her. But for now, the kindest thing he could offer her was space—to let her breathe, to let her mind catch up with what her heart refused to believe.

A sudden tremor shook the aircraft. Gabrielle startled violently, rising from her seat at once, her expression a fragile mask of fear and frantic urgency. By the time Vincent stood, she was already making for the exit of the private jet.

"Gabby—!" He called after her, nearly jogging to keep up as she rushed down the steps and across the tarmac at the rear of the private hospital.

She was already inside the building by the time he reached her. She tore through the corridor towards the ICU, and he followed closely, terrified she might collapse—he knew all too well how fragile she still was.

"Where is he?!" Gabrielle demanded the moment she saw her father's physician, a man who seemed to have aged decades since she last saw him.

"Where is Dad?!" she repeated, breathless, trembling, her face blotched with panic. Vincent caught her arms, fearing her legs would give out.

"H-how is he?!" she asked, brushing his touch aside.

The doctor exhaled heavily. "Gabrielle... I'm very sorry. The cancer has spread through most of your father's vital organs."

"C–cancer...?" The word tore out of her.

Her stomach lurched. Her skin prickled. Her vision swam.

Her father had cancer? And she didn't know...? How—how could he not have told her?!

"I'm so sorry you're learning it this way," the doctor said gently. "Your father didn't want you to know."

"You're joking... Dad is healthy..." She shook her head, trembling outright now. Sweat slid down her temples like rain. Her palms were icy.

"It's colon cancer, Gabrielle. It was already at the final stage when we discovered it last year."

Her knees buckled but Vincent caught her before she hit the floor.

"No... no..." she sobbed, staring at the door with her father's name upon it.

She loathed hospitals. Their sterile silence. Their smell. Their memories. They had taken so much already. And now—again?

When she could move, she tore herself from Vincent's hold and pushed into the room.

The faint, monotonous beep of the life-support machines filled the air.

And there he lay—the most formidable, imposing man she had ever known—reduced to a shell of himself. His once-broad frame looked gaunt beneath the hospital gown. Long cords stretched across his chest, each one keeping him tethered to life.

"Dada..." she whispered, stumbling towards him. This could not be her father. Her father had been strong, vigorous—gloriously alive. Only a month ago he'd walked her down the aisle, looking every bit the man she had grown up admiring and resenting in equal measure.