Chapter 13 - The Brother Who Chose a Different Life
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Lucia Rossy returned to the United States on a rainy Thursday afternoon.
There were no reporters at the airport.
No television cameras.
No dramatic announcement.
Just Gabriel, Helen, two medical professionals, and a woman who had spent three years trying to remember who she was.
Paige waited at Gabriel's estate.
She wasn't sure whether Lucia would want to meet her immediately.
So she stayed in the library with a book she wasn't reading.
At four thirty, a car pulled into the courtyard.
Paige heard footsteps.
Then laughter.
A woman's laughter.
Warm.
Uncertain.
But real.
The library door opened.
Gabriel stood there with his sister.
Lucia was thinner than her photographs.
She leaned lightly on a cane.
Her dark hair brushed her shoulders.
But her smile was unmistakable.
“Paige?”
Paige stood.
“Yes.”
Lucia looked at her for a long moment.
Then smiled.
“So you're the woman who told my brother to stop being an idiot.”
Paige burst out laughing.
Gabriel sighed.
“I regret introducing you two.”
Lucia ignored him.
She approached Paige.
“Can I hug you?”
Paige nodded.
Lucia wrapped her arms around her.
And Paige felt something she hadn't expected.
A sense of belonging.
Not because she was being claimed.
Not because someone needed her.
But because another woman who had survived something terrible was offering friendship without asking for anything in return.
“Thank you,” Lucia whispered.
Paige pulled back.
“For what?”
“For helping him find me.”
Paige shook her head.
“Gabriel never stopped looking.”
Lucia's eyes filled with tears.
“I know that now.”
Over the following weeks, Lucia settled into a quieter life.
She continued physical therapy.
Met regularly with a trauma specialist.
And slowly began rebuilding relationships with people she'd been told were dead or unreachable.
Some days were good.
Others were difficult.
There were moments when she became frightened by ordinary sounds.
Times when she struggled to remember details.
And evenings when the thought of losing her freedom again made her cry.
Gabriel learned to ask what she needed rather than trying to control every circumstance.
Sometimes she wanted his company.
Sometimes she wanted to be alone.
Sometimes she simply wanted him to stop hovering.
“Gabe,” she told him one morning, “I survived three years without you. I can make my own breakfast.”
Gabriel looked offended.
“You burn toast.”
Lucia smiled.
“And you still can't mind your own business.”
Paige laughed so hard she nearly spilled her coffee.
For a little while, the estate felt like a home.
But beyond its walls, the legal investigations continued.
Gabriel's cooperation with federal authorities required difficult admissions about his own criminal activities.
He disclosed financial arrangements and provided evidence concerning corrupt associates and illegal operations.
His attorneys negotiated a resolution that included criminal penalties, restitution, forfeiture of assets, and restrictions on his future business activities.
It cost him much of the empire he'd spent years building.
And for the first time, Gabriel didn't fight simply to preserve his power.
Paige saw the change.
Not in grand gestures.
But in ordinary decisions.
He stopped treating people as extensions of his authority.
He listened to his employees.
He began turning over legitimate businesses to independent management.
And when Lucia challenged him, he no longer answered with anger.
One evening, Paige found him packing boxes in his office.
The expensive paintings were gone.
Several cabinets stood empty.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
Gabriel looked up.
“Moving.”
Paige blinked.
“Moving?”
“Lucia hates this house.”
Paige looked around.
The concrete walls.
The security checkpoints.
The endless glass.
She understood.
“Where are you going?”
“A smaller place near the coast.”
“With fewer guards?”
He smiled.
“Considerably fewer.”
Paige laughed softly.
Then asked, “What about your businesses?”
“What's left of the legitimate ones will be managed under the arrangements my attorneys established.”
She studied him.
“That's a big change.”
“Yes.”
“Are you okay with it?”
Gabriel looked around the room.
For years, this estate had represented power.
Control.
Safety.
Now it looked like a monument to a life he no longer wanted.
He nodded.
“I think I am.”
Then he looked at Paige.
“What about you?”
She hesitated.
Over the past months, she'd been working with Evelyn to reclaim her identity.
The documents related to Aster Holdings had been challenged.
Her participation in the investigation was formally documented.
She'd opened an independent bank account.
Recovered her identification.
And begun looking for a place of her own.
For the first time since she was twenty-three, she could imagine a future that didn't require hiding.
“I found an apartment,” she said.
Gabriel went still.
“Where?”
“Brooklyn.”
He nodded slowly.
“That's good.”
She watched his face.
“Are you upset?”
“No.”
“You look upset.”
He smiled faintly.
“I'm going to miss having you around.”
Paige's throat tightened.
She'd known this moment would come.
For months, she'd been living in his guest wing.
Eating dinner with him.
Sharing conversations late into the night.
And slowly developing feelings she hadn't expected.
But she also knew something important.
She couldn't build a healthy relationship with Gabriel while her housing, safety, and survival depended on him.
She needed her own life first.
“I want to try living independently,” she said.
Gabriel nodded.
“You should.”
“And I want to go back to work.”
“What kind of work?”
Paige smiled.
“Something normal.”
He laughed.
“Define normal.”
“Coffee. Books. Maybe nonprofit work helping survivors of domestic violence.”
Gabriel studied her.
“That sounds like you.”
She looked down.
Then whispered, “I'm scared.”
He stepped closer.
“Of living alone?”
“Of being happy.”
His expression softened.
Paige continued.
“I keep waiting for something terrible to happen whenever life starts feeling good.”
Gabriel didn't pretend to have an answer.
He simply said, “Then take it one day at a time.”
She nodded.
A long silence followed.
Then Gabriel asked, “Would it be inappropriate if I took you to dinner?”
Paige looked up.
“Dinner?”
“At a restaurant. Somewhere with terrible service and overpriced pasta.”
She laughed.
“Are you asking me on a date?”
“Yes.”
He hesitated.
“But only if you want to. And not because I helped you.”
Paige studied him.
Then smiled.
“I'd like that.”
Gabriel exhaled.
A relieved, almost boyish expression crossed his face.
Lucia appeared in the doorway.
“Oh, thank God.”
Both turned.
She folded her arms.
“I was beginning to think I'd have to ask her out for you.”
Paige laughed.
Gabriel groaned.
“Lucia.”
“What?”
“Go away.”
She smiled sweetly.
“Not until you tell me whether she said yes.”
Paige lifted her hand.
“I said yes.”
Lucia clapped.
“Finally.”
For the first time in years, Gabriel's house echoed with laughter that wasn't hiding anything.
But the most important moment came several weeks later.
The Hale family cases reached their final stages.
Richard and Victoria faced the consequences of their roles in the financial and concealment schemes.
Colin's trial proceeded with testimony from Paige, Marisol, and several other witnesses.
Paige took the stand.
Her hands trembled.
But she told the truth.
About the assaults.
The threats.
The false documents.
And the day Colin used her hospital stay to obtain signatures.
When she finished, she looked directly at the jury.
“I spent years believing I had no choices.”
Her voice broke.
“I'm here because I finally learned that someone taking your freedom doesn't make it theirs.”
The courtroom was silent.
Then Paige stepped down.
And walked past Colin without looking at him.
She didn't need to see his face.
May you like
She already knew who he was.
The next chapter of her life would not belong to him.
