Chapter 39.

**Narrator’s POV.**

“You had just one job Kevin; save money, save fucking money! How the fuck could you not do that right?”, Alex was in hysterics, he was tired of repeating the same thing over and over again,

“What the fuck is your problem man?”, Kevin snapped at him, “I will save if I want to, you do not have to force me”, he opened the door to their hotel room with his keycard and dragged his luggage in,

“My problem is that you decided to get the pent house suite when I clearly stated that we should save our money for more important things”, he said, “At this point, I know you both are doing this to annoy me and I get it, I’m an asshole so why should you listen to me?”, he paused for a second and pursed his lips, “Because if it isn’t already obvious, we have no jobs, no source of income and no daddy’s money to spend. We might not be broke but we have to act like that”.

Gabriel sighed and followed Kevin into the hotel room, “As hard as it is for me to say this, Alex is right… unfortunately. We need to be wise with our spending, we can’t just go around spending money without having jobs, it’s not practical”, he set his bags in the large living room space and turned to Alex who was still at the door, “Alex should handle finances from now on”, he turned back to Kevin who looked as if he was about to protest, “Kevin, you and I both know that we cannot control ourselves when it comes to this so please do not argue. We’ve had a long day today and we’re going to have a longer one tomorrow, lets get some rest”, Kevin nodded in understanding and finally, Alex came into the hotel room.

“There are three rooms, all the same size, feel free to take any room. Well, except for the room I’m about to go to”, he moved further into the pent house and stopped where the three rooms where lined up, “I’m tired of seeing your stupid faces”, he smiled before pushing the door open to the first room, entered and shut the door behind him,

“Fucking asshole”, Alex whispered as he made his way to the room at the end of the hall.

***

Gabriel was fast asleep when his phone started to ring on the bedside table, he let out a loud groan before picking the phone up, not having any time to check the caller ID, “Hello”, he grumbled into the phone. He heard a smile whimper in reply and he nearly flew off the bed, “Hello?”, was this some kind of a sick prank? The person on the other end sounded as if they were crying, “Hello? Who is this?”,

“Ga-Gabriel”, shit! He knew that voice like crazy and this time, he actually flew off the bed,

“Tessa!”, he said frantically, “Where are you?”, he was shuffling around the room, looking for his shoes, “Are you okay? Why are you crying?”,

“I don’t know where I am”, he heard her sob from the other end, “I’m so scared”, she whispered,

“Can you tell me what you see?”, once he slipped on his shoes, he was out of the door and banging on Alex’s door,

“I see…”, he heard a gruff male voice speak at the other end and next thing he knew, the line was dead,

“Tessa! Tessa! Tessa!”, but it was too late, she was gone, he had let her slip right out of his fingers, “Fuck”, he yelled and threw his phone at the nearest wall as his eyes began to water, blurring his vision up- he was actually crying.

It was then that Alex and Kevin decided to come out of their rooms, “What’s all this commotion about?”, Kevin asked but Gabriel could not say anything, he was numb both inside and out and his legs even gave out, making him fall to the ground, weeping like a child,

“Shit! What the hell happened?”, the two men were at his side in a second, trying to pry him to open up even though he was clearly a mess at the moment. Hearing her voice crushed him, she sounded so scared and so weak- all the pain he had been hiding within him had finally decided to take charge of him, letting everyone know that he wasn’t as strong as he claimed he was.

Kevin and Alex gave up on trying to know what had happened and just waited for him to calm down, they had both moved him to the living room, sitting him on the couch and watched as he stared into space, tears falling down his eyes. Seeing Gabriel like this was foreign to the two men and they could proudly beat their chest and say they had never seen Gabriel cry- even when he was a child, he just never did it.

So, what on earth could make Gabriel cry? A full- grown Gabriel for that matter.

There was silence for almost an hour before Gabriel finally ended it, “I let her slip through my fingers again. She sounded so scared, so weak, so broken and I couldn’t do anything about it. She was crying, fuck”, he had his knees pulled up to his chest and he was rocking himself back and forth, “I thought I had a chance to get her back for a moment, I thought I could know where she was but she just disappeared again, without saying a word”, he stood up abruptly and scrunched up his face, “I fucking hate her for doing this to me but I love her, shit! She is driving me all types of crazy”, he laughed humorlessly,

“You need to calm down Gabriel”, Alex stated,

“I am fucking calm! I have been calm for too long! I can’t take the suspense anymore! I cannot sleep knowing that Tessa is not okay”, he let out a loud shout, before turning to Kevin and Alex, “Of course, I do not expect you two to understand any of this considering the fact that neither of you ever felt this way about her”, he was purposely directing his anger for himself towards them.

“Do not fucking say that Gabriel, you do not know shit on how I feel about Tessa”, Kevin was ready to attack Gabriel but he knew all too well that that was exactly what he wanted and he clearly wasn’t in his right state of mind,

“Can you fucking hear yourself? You love your brother’s girlfriend and you are fucking proud to say it out loud”, he continued with the taunting,

“Shut up Gabe!”, Kevin was slowly losing himself to his anger issues and he really didn’t want to take that low road but Gabriel was really beginning to piss him off.

“What are you going to do Kevin?”, he was really asking for it, “Hit me like you hit all your problems?”, Kevin had finally had enough of the bullshit and he swung his fist at Gabriel, hitting him square in the jaw. He hissed in pain but continued, “Is that all you’ve got? You punch like a fucking girl”, Kevin decided not to hold back this time, the bastard wanted to be beaten up? He was going to get beaten up. Gabriel was panting and wheezing but he was not satisfied by Kevin beating him alone- he wanted to be punished for ruining Tessa’s life, “Alex, aren’t you just dying to hit me?”, Alex was trying to ignore him but he was having none of it, “Remember the beating I gave you after you cheated on Tessa? Remember how much of a dick I was to you? Remember how I set you up with that girl the night you had a fight with Tessa just so you could cheat on her? Remember how I stole your girlfriend”.

“You were the one that asked that chick to come up to me that night?”, Alex’s eyes widened in surprise when Gabriel nodded his head and smiled with his busted lips. “What the hell?!”, now he was definitely going to beat his ass up.