Taming the Bitch (COMPLETED)

Chapter XXXVI - ALL I ASK

"Please... speak to me, Gabrielle..."

Vincent had been kneeling at her feet for hours, as though in penance before a broken queen. His voice—raw, trembling—barely stirred the stillness of the room.

She had not spoken since the moment she collapsed beside her father's body, her hands cold and shaking as she tried to summon life back into the man who had just taken his last breath.

A night had passed.

Gabriel Davis's second wake filled the Westminster chapel with mourners and candlelight, but here—in the intimacy of his old chamber—silence reigned with a cruelty that pressed against the walls.

Gabrielle's eyes were swollen, almost bruised by the relentless shedding of tears that simply refused to dry. Now, at last, she was not crying—only sitting there, pale and ghostlike, clutching a framed photograph to her chest as though it were the last lifeline tethering her to the world.

The picture was simple. Innocent.
A laughing child perched on her father's shoulders, curly brunette hair bouncing as she giggled toward the camera. Her mother stood beside them, small and radiant, eyes lifted toward her daughter with unmasked adoration.

It was unmistakably Gabrielle—her dimples, her bright eyes, her tiny hands gripping her father's hair.

Vincent glanced at the rest of the photographs lining the desk—her entire life, lovingly preserved and hidden away in this intimidating man's sanctuary.

He placed a cautious hand on her knee.

Her expression shifted.

Her lips trembled—
and two perfect tears slipped down her cheeks as though cracked loose from a glacier of grief.

"Gabrielle... please..." His voice splintered. "Just one word."

But she remained silent, hollow, unreachable. A woman carved from sorrow.

"Baby... please..."
He cupped her face gently, reverently, and drew her into his arms.

She didn't answer.
She erupted.

Her cries broke from her chest in waves—raw, grief-soaked, utterly devastating. Vincent felt each sob like a blade pressed against his own ribs. Her shoulders shook so violently he feared her fragile body might simply come apart in his arms.

"I'm sorry, baby... I'm so, so sorry..." he whispered into her hair, kissing her temple as though that might steady her soul.

But nothing soothed her.

Her sobs grew jagged, unrestrained—her breath hitching in panicked bursts, her hands clawing at his shirt as though she were drowning in memories.

"Gabrielle—Gabrielle, please—hush, my love—"
But she was far beyond hearing.

All she could hear were the echoes of a childhood she could never reclaim—
her mother's laughter,
her father's booming chuckles,
her own childish giggles riding on her father's shoulders as her mother chased them through the old garden.

Those golden memories now bled into her like poison.

Why?
Why her?
Why must fate bruise her again and again until she no longer remembered what it felt like to stand unbroken?

Without warning—
she pushed him away.

Furious, frantic, unraveling.

Before he could stop her, the frame slipped from her hands and soared across the room, crashing onto the table and shattering glass and memories alike.