Gabriel's Regret: Book 1 (The Medlov Men Series 2) (5 page)

A man that never married, never acknowledged children and never involved himself in legitimate business was someone who could easily be identified as a threat by the authorities.  But well-educated, non-marked business men could go where tattooed villains could not.  They could sit with heads of state, impact legislation, walk into a bank without people thinking it was a stick up and be completely accepted in all circles. They were also harder to convict and harder to follow. Jurors always loved a hard luck story of a man who had come from nothing and made something out of himself.  So, Dmitry had decided that his men all over the world would learn to blend.  True, he still had men who came out of the Russian gulags and needed work, and he took them in educated or not.  But he trained them with special skills and taught them how to not only manipulate their environments but also prosper in them. 

It had proven to be a successful formula.  The men felt empowered and important, therefore they offered their undying loyalty to the family.  The business grew larger and larger each year, and the family became more powerful.

Then there was the biological family.  This dynamic was much more complicated. Dmitry loved his wife, Royal and he loved his children.  Anatoly, no matter how crass to the outside world, treated his wife, Renee, like a queen and adored his daughter.  The men who followed him did the same. Dmitry didn’t stand for violence against the women, and he didn’t stand for disrespect. He said that would be the downfall of the organization, not an ambitious federal agent, not more powerful syndicate, but a woman.  And so, his rule was for the men who led the council, if no one else, was to keep their women happy.  Happy women didn’t turn states evidence or set up ambushes.  Outside of the women, the men were extremely close.  Dmitry served not only as the head of the family but also like a father to him.  Over time, Anatoly had become more of a brother to him than a cousin.  And considering that they were all they had, they valued each other’s opinions and respected their position.  This was something very new to him. 

Gabriel hadn’t come from a happy family. Every memory of his mother, Emma, involved her work, and often he thought she loved the Free Rite and their work to help third-world women more than she ever loved him. He had spent his youth away in a school in upstate Connecticut. Visits were sparse and normally the only family that did visit was his father.  In terms of affection, she had never dated that he knew of and she never married, even though she was daughter of a British countess.  She died when he was 21 of cancer, clutching a picture of her mother and whispering nonsense while gazing up at the ceiling of a Fifth Avenue penthouse bedroom with no one with her but him and the nurse. 

Ivan hadn’t been much better, in terms of building familial relationships.  He was in and out of his life, calling and visiting as much as he could.  When he did give him fatherly advice, it was always something unsettling and hardly ever useful.  Ivan had been married once to a woman, whom he hardly spoke of and even though he got the feeling that his father might have loved her, Ivan never confirmed it. Instead, they spent their years, the few that they had together, at odds over his decision to become an agent.  When they were not fighting about that, they spent their time watching soccer and discussing women.  Ivan always felt like he was a ridiculous romantic.  He would laugh if he saw him now, chasing skirts and knocking up maids. 

How would he ever be able to conform into a loving husband?  It seemed preposterous.  What did he really know about love anyway? No woman had ever truly loved him.  And yet, he was expected to know what to do.  Money didn’t buy that.  He felt like he was wandering in the dark with his hands reached out looking for answers in a sea of deceit. 

He had discovered that one night while with Briggy.  She had confessed that she wanted to marry him, that she wanted a life with him.  And he was almost about to give it to her, until he broached the conversation about her past relationship with Anatoly.  He had seen it in her face – that twisted look of indecision.  She lied to him, pleading that she only loved him, but that night while wrapped in his arms after he had made love to her in their bed, she had whispered Anatoly’s name in her sleep. 

No one could help what they dreamt. He could admit that, but he couldn’t ignore the thoughts lurking in the back of his mind, poisoning every good thing that they had once built together.  He couldn’t ignore how she looked at his cousin when he entered a room or how hurt she had seemed when Anatoly and Renee had the baby.  Whether he wanted to admit it or not, he was standing in for his cousin.  And he was tired of standing in, he was tired of being a fucking beta to the other alphas in the house.  Even Briggy had referenced it in their fight a month ago in her bedroom.  She thought that he was just a joke.

Well, that had done two things for him.  In her anger, she had revealed how she really felt and finally cut the love out of their relationship completely, and she had driven him to work harder and want more out of his family.  He would prove to everyone that he was an alpha and he would prove to her that she was wrong.  But it had been a long time coming.  This hadn’t been the first conversation about manhood that he’d ever had.  His first realization had happened many years ago, far from this place. 

***

Thirteen Years Ago

Upstate Connecticut Boarding School

Just past midnight, a small group of teens gathered in Gabriel’s dorm room plotting to get off the school grounds to celebrate their win in the soccer tournament earlier that day and his roommate’s 16
th
birthday. It supposed to be a joyous occasion, one that called for extraordinary celebration – something that couldn’t be done in the dorms. 

“We have a small window to do this, guys.  I paid the security guard $400 to turn his head long enough for us to get off the grounds.  Then if we get caught after that, it’s on us,” Kelsey said, flipping her red ponytail off her shoulder.  “If we’re going to go at all, we better do it now.”  She eyed Gabriel, who sat across the room on his bed with his fingers laced, still in his pajama bottoms and slippers. 

“Is he going or what?” one of the other students asked in a frustrated, nasally whine. 

Gabriel hated to be the party pooper, but this wasn’t the smartest plan that he’d ever heard.  “I’m simply saying that we stand a very good chance of getting caught tonight.”  His mossy green eyes glared at the young Kelsey Whitten with sudden contempt.  “
Some of us
can’t afford to have any more run-ins with the headmaster.”

Kelsey gaffed at his guarded response. “Since when have you ever been called to the head master’s office except to receive another ass-kissing award?”

The teens giggled under their breath. 

Gabriel rolled his eyes. “I wasn’t talking about me.”  He was, however, talking about his roommate, Kline, who was one demerit short of being kicked out of the boarding school and sent back home to parents who already couldn’t afford tuition and depended heavily on academic scholarships and Klein’s talent for rugby. 

“I don’t need a babysitter,” Kline said defensively, slipping on his black pea coat.  “It’s my birthday.  I want to go out and get a beer.  Rebecca knows a place that will serve us.”  He looked over at the teen like she held the keys to the city.  If nothing else, she definitely held the keys to his heart. 

“She might know a place that will serve
her
,” Gabriel corrected. “I’m sure some bar keep with a taste for young pussy doesn’t mind slipping her a drink every once and a while, but when everyone shows up trying to get in and looking like a trust fund field trip to observe the financially disadvantaged locals, no one is going to give you anything but a swift kick in the ass.”

“What does he know?” Rebecca said, looking at her watch.  “Leave him, already. He’s a loser.  Taking him with him is only going to cause us bad luck.”

Gabriel rolled his eyes. It had nothing to do with luck. “Why because I’m the only guy who hasn’t banged you?”

Rebecca wasn’t the least bit moved by his response. “No, just the only guy I wouldn’t screw.”  She opened the door slightly to make her point. “Who’s going with me and who’s staying here with
dear old dad
?”

“Count me in,” Kline said, disappointed that Gabriel had led the revolt against his birthday plans.

Gabriel stood up. Even at sixteen, he stood a towering six-feet, six inches tall.  “Klein, don’t,” he warned. “You know what the headmaster said.”

Klein looked around at the small contingent focused on him.  “Headmaster Wilson can kiss my ass, man.”  He turned and headed out of the door; the others following suit.

“Your loss,” Rebecca said, intentionally the last one to leave the room.  She smiled and winked at him as she closed the door behind her. 

Alone in the room, Gabriel stood looking at the door and feeling like maybe he had made the wrong decision.  It felt uncomfortable being one who was so risk adverse. 

The connecting bathroom door swung open and his father emerged.  “That was…pathetic.”

Gabriel’s eyes grew big. “What are you doing here?”

“Wasn’t today the big game?” Ivan asked, walking around the small bedroom.

“Yeah, we won,” Gabriel said, sucking his teeth.

“Yeah, I know,” Ivan answered sarcastically.

“Where you here?” Gabriel asked, hoping that his father had been there to see him win the game.  Today, more than any other day, he had played his best game, so much so that he had shocked himself. 

Picking up Gabriel’s dirty jersey, Ivan looked at the letters stitched on the back of it.  MEDLOV.  Quietly, he felt a tinge of pride.  With his eyes still on the jersey, he responded, “I wasn’t there physically, but I was around.” 

“I should be grateful,” Gabriel said, locking the bedroom door.  “Mom didn’t even call.  She’s in Uganda
saving lives
.  She can’t exactly be burdened with raising one.”  He was eternally sore about her life’s work, only because it conflicted with him having a real one. 

Ivan snickered at his son’s self-pity. “You feel sorry for yourself, eh?”  He threw the jersey on the back of the wooden chair, pushed up to the desk, eyeing him with disapproval. 

Gabriel knew his father well enough to know that he didn’t feel any pity for him or his situation. He had spent his entire childhood hearing him preach that the world didn’t care about him or his petty little problems.  Eventually, Gabriel began to believe it. 

“No, I just wished that she gave a damn,” Gabriel pounced down on his twin bed, gangly legs hanging off the side. 

“That’s the price of getting older.  People give less and less of a fuck,” Ivan said, reaching for his side.  He winced.  “But you know, this is part of life.  You will do better if you just accept it.”

“Accept that she doesn’t give a damn?” Gabriel asked, hoping that his father might for once give a comforting word. 

Ivan turned up his lips and looked at his son, a spitting image of himself.  “Accept that maybe she never did.”  He shrugged thinking of how his relationship had played out with his mother. “It’s okay.  This happens.  It’s not the end of the world.”

The way that Ivan tried to argue the situation made Gabriel smirk. “God, I hope I don’t grow up to be as cynical as you.”

Ivan smiled wide, showing his perfect white teeth. “I’m not cynical.  I’m…disinterested in teenage drama.”

“So you were listening the whole time in the bathroom?” Gabriel asked, noticing that his father was obviously in some pain.  He wanted to ask if Ivan was okay, but he knew that even if he was not, he’d never say. 

“Yes.  I was listening.  Are you surprised?  I was five feet away.  It’s pretty hard to ignore.”

Gabriel felt embarrassed.  His father heard him being a wimp. 
Great.
“What would you have done? I mean, the headmaster is expecting us to sneak out and expecting Kline to be one of the main culprits.  He is going to come looking for us in another hour or two.  It was the right thing to do.”

Ivan frowned and put up a finger. “Are you asking me for advice?”
That was new.
 

“I’m asking what you would have done, knowing very well, that I would not have done the same?” Gabriel explained quickly.

“So this is just a comparison question?” Ivan asked.

“Yeah, you could say that.”

Ivan raised his brow.  “I would have gone, enjoyed myself and fucked the redhead in the bathroom right up the ass.” A smile crossed his lips. 

Gabriel cringed at his father’s crassness.  “But what if you knew that you were going to get caught?”

Ivan shrugged, “If I am you, who cares?  Like the girl said, you’ve never been in trouble.  The headmaster would let you off with a slap on the hand, especially since you won the game by eight points.”

Gabriel sat quietly thinking.  So his father had been around for the game. 

Ivan sat on the opposite twin bed and looked over at Gabriel, scanning through one of Klein’s Playboy magazines. 

“What about Klein?” Gabriel asked, truly concerned.

“What about him?  His life.  His choices.  Every man for himself,” Ivan said, resting back on Klein’s bed and grunted.  “When are you going to learn that, boy?”

“Maybe never,” Gabriel answered, disappointed in himself.  He rested his head back on the pillow and looked at the ceiling.  “I’ve been doing some reading.”