Chapter Twenty-Four

From the moment Athena stepped into the room, she could feel the shift in tension and knew something is off. She suspected that Julian warned Gabriel as much as he could about why she was there, but she didn't expect the mighty Gabriel Monroe to look shameless in front of her.

He looks like a cowering puppy who did something bad and is waiting to be scolded by their owner. She can't help but giggle a little, covering it with a cough.

She didn't plan to say anything yet about the magazine covers and feel out the situation and his possible feelings towards her, but she is finding it hard to resist at least teasing the poor man, with his appearance now.

"Is everything with my stepsister settled over?" she asks.

Gabriel isn't expecting such an easy-going question, taking a second for it to process before he clears his throat.

"Uhm, yes. I had Preston drop her off in her room and make it look like nothing more than a drunken nightmare after having too much to drink during your outing. I was hoping we could talk about your cover story for when she and her mother eventually confront you."

"My stepmother? Why are you worried about her?" Athena doesn't recall telling him anything about her struggles with her or her family, though she does remember mentioning some of it briefly.

Gabriel has had Julian follow Athena for the last month, he has discovered everything she is going through during that time; but has yet to inform her of this.

"I'm a little more aware of your current family situation then you might have told me, I hope you aren't mad. I wanted to be of use to you no matter what it was," he says.

"So, you researched me? How can you even get that information?"

Gabriel tries to hide his smile. "Didn't you say you were looking for a top-grade hacker? I think I can be of use, or are you here for something else?"

"Well, there is no point in hiding it anymore I suppose. After my mother passed away, she left a will with all of her shares for Rose Group and ownership of all her assets, but I suspect her accident was no accident, and my father and stepmother are behind it."

"Why do you suspect that? If that's the case, that's murder. Why has no investigation been done into this?"

Athena chuckles. "You should know better than anyone what someone with a lot of money and influence can get away with. The coverage of the accident was covered up with a fake story and since it was a car accident, it's hard to prove there was any foul play. Her car was destroyed so an autopsy on it to see if anything had been tampered with was impossible. With no other evidence to go on, it was ruled an accident and the case closed. It wasn't until he started moving his new family, or trying to I should say, into the main house that I realized something was up."

"So, you want help proving your mother's accident was no accident?"

She shakes her head. "Not just that, I want to bring the Heroux and Madden family down entirely. I want to cripple them so bad they won't ever think of trying to come after me and my family again. I want the influence of my father erased from the company and all the corruption he has rooted into my family's business gone. I want them all to pay for what they did to my mother."

She pauses and gives Gabriel a hard look. "Can you help me do that?"

Giving her a slow, gracious smile, he says; "Nothing would please me more."

From that moment on, they entered into a secret agreement to help one another achieve their life goals, using the other.

But Gabriel is quickly realizing there isn't anything he wouldn't do for this girl, so that he can keep the light shining in her eyes alive, and to keep his own heart beating. His passion for his work is what has always kept him going, and he never thought the day would come where he could find something more valuable to live for.

Her.

He doesn't know when the intense feelings towards her started, maybe they were always there, and he could just never admit that he was falling in love with a person he had just met. Many believe in the term love at first sight, but he never thought a person could fall this hard for someone, with just one glance and a few exchanges of words.

But he doesn't care. If everything in life could be explained, where would the joy of life be?

"Anything you ever need from me, I'm just a phone call away." Gabriel stands up and hands her a brand-new cellphone and taking her older model out of her back pocket, he switches the sim cards in them.

"Couldn't help but notice you have a damaged phone after the kidnapping incident, which is mostly my fault. Here's a new one, I've already programmed it and added my own number, everything else should be included on the sim card."

Athena stares in awe at the new phone. "You didn't have to do that, I'm more than capable of paying for a new phone myself," she mumbles, but can't keep the smile off her face.

For the next few hours, Gabriel sits Athena down and has her explain everything that has happened between her and her family, and what she hopes to achieve by hacking into their phones and computers. Athena is certain that she can find something incriminating from the files on her father's personal computer, or from hearing it from her stepmother's or sister's loudmouth.

"We need to plug this device into both your father's computer and his cellphone."

"How in the world are we going to do that? It would be too suspicious of me to show up out of the blue or even within reason, my father knows I'm onto him."

"I might have an idea, but it would be our only option and I'll need your absolute trust. Do I, have it?"

Athena hesitates. Usually when someone asks that, they intend to do something untrustworthy or dangerous.

"What exactly do you have in mind?" she asks.

Gabriel grins. "Your father has been visiting my casino for quite some time and has racked up quite the debt here."

Athena recalls when she first met Gabriel Monroe, and he claimed she was to help pay back her father's debt. Turns out that claim was real. But has he really been taking from her pay to pay back her father's debt? That is something she now realizes; she should have paid attention to.

In the past, she has always had a surplus of money and never had to pay attention if she was cheated on her payouts from gigs, her agent takes care of all that. In her former life, Chloe Brass barely made a living with the gigs she managed to get, she never paid attention because whatever she got was more than enough at the moment, she was always desperate to make it to the next week.

"What do you plan on doing?"

"Nothing incriminating, he has been trying to invite me for a conversation recently, no doubt to wheedle his way out of the money he owes me. I haven't been giving him the time of day because I can see his schemes coming from a mile away. So, why don't I pay him a visit?"

Athena is blown away by just how far Gabriel seems to be willing to go to help her out.

"You said it was nothing incriminating. Is this not a crime?" she asks, trying to hold back her laughter at the dumbfounded look she gets.

"Never mind that, I can only do this if I have your complete trust. I say this because once these devices are plugged into your father's computer and phone, everything will be redirected to my computer, I will have access to information possibly pertaining you and your mother. Do you trust me with this information?"

Once again, she is awestruck at this man. No one has ever gone this far to ensure that she is comfortable and satisfied with another person. He owes her absolutely nothing and if anything, she owes him more. She offered to help with his own problems but that was an offer, she shouldn't and doesn't expect anything owed in return.

Yet he is so afraid of making her uncomfortable he needs this much reassurance before putting his own life on the line. He doesn't care about himself in this situation, he only sees her.

Athena can feel a well of emotion balling up in her chest and knows she needs to escape this conversation quickly before she gets overwhelmed and does something idiotic in front of him.

Like start crying randomly.

"I, uhm, yes... yes, you have my complete trust in this. I-I know you won't do anything to hurt me intentionally," she manages to stutter out, her cheeks red as a tomato.

Gabriel does his best to keep his expression blank while staring at her flaming cheeks, deciding to end the conversation there for today.

"I'll call your father and arrange a dinner meeting at his place, I'll make sure it isn't at the main house though so I can access his personal computer, assuming he has multiple and one at your house. Once that's done, I'll let you know and have you come over and analyze what we can find together."

Her heart skips a beat when he says the word 'together', but instantly shuts down the feelings, already feeling stupid and embarrassed in front of him.

"T-that sounds great, uhm, I'll take my leave then. Bye, Mr. Monroe!" she bows quickly and rushes out the door, leaving Gabriel with a delighted smile on his face.

Remembering one another thing she had to speak to him about, she rushes back and pokes her head through the door.

"We'll review everything at the hotel suite, so we can also discuss the pile of magazines I discovered."