Chapter 141: GABRIEL

She was struggling, and it was doing a number on me. I knew this was going to be hard on her, but I’d underestimated what seeing her go through this would do to me.

I wanted to snatch her up and take her out of there, but I knew she had to go through this now or later. It should’ve been simple, really, and a good thing, I thought, but I didn’t think of the implications for both of them.

I guess I didn’t realize that the reminder of all that they’d been through, all that would’ve been avoided had Starks not been taken from both of them, would make both women react like this. I’d had it hard as a kid after mom, and I moved, but nowhere near what she went through.

Now I realize as I listened to her and her mom talk that they’d both been robbed of what might have been a good life with a man who would’ve loved both of them. Of course, I didn’t let on that I knew where Sam was, but the whole time I was itching to get back so I could plant my hand in his face.