What Happened To Jethro Gibbs' Family?

Selina Amber Rodriguez married Damien Whitmore at twenty-two, not because he loved her, but because his grandmother demanded it. Her parents died in a car accident pulling a teenage Damien out of the wreckage — a debt the Whitmore family patriarch considered sacred and his grandmother considered a transaction. Two years later, Selina is the most elegantly kept secret in the Whitmore empire: present at every gala, photographed beside a man who looks through her at someone else, and invisible in every way that matters. She is not stupid. She is not weak. She is simply a woman who made the mistake of loving someone before she understood the cost. Now she is pregnant. And she is leaving.

I knew my husband, Josh Perkins, had faked his death and taken on his younger twin brother's identity—but I never said a word. Instead, I went straight to the commander of the military district and filed an official report of my husband's death, requesting his name be permanently removed from the service rolls. In my last life, my brother-in-law died in an accident. Josh gave up his rank as regimental commander, abandoned his own name, and stepped into his brother's shoes—all to spare his fragile sister-in-law from becoming a widow. Back then, I recognized him immediately. I confronted him and demanded to know why he was pretending to be a dead man. But Josh just looked through me, cold as a winter morning. "Riley, I know you're grieving Josh. But I'm not him. Don't mistake me for my brother." He shielded that delicate sister-in-law of his behind him, then shoved me into the icy river and warned me not to harbor delusions. Later, our five-year-old daughter cried, asking why her daddy didn't want her anymore. For that, she was dragged to the cowshed for "reflection"—left there, starving, for three days and nights. My mother-in-law called me a curse, a jinx who'd killed her son, and threw my daughter and me out with nothing but the clothes on our backs. Josh made sure everyone knew I'd "gone mad"—that I was lusting after my brother-in-law before my husband was even cold in the ground. The whole town turned their backs on us. That last winter, I wandered the streets with my girl, dazed and numb, until the cold finally took us both. But when I opened my eyes again, I was back. Back to the very day Josh buried his old life and stole his brother's.

Ten years after my wealthy family took me back, I died in the rental house my billionaire parents had dumped me in. My son was three. Just to mess with me, the kidnapper gave me three chances to call for help. If even one person was willing to come see me, he'd spare my child. The first call was to my father, the man who'd spent fifteen years searching for me. He was busy directing the staff as they set up my adoptive sister's birthday party. When he picked up, he barked, "Estelle Emerson, seriously? Can you go one week without causing a scene? It's your sister's birthday. I'm busy. Don't kill the vibe." The second call was to my mother, the woman who brought me home and changed my name from Dixie to Estelle. But Vera snatched the phone and laughed so hard she could barely get the words out. "Estelle, seriously? If you're gonna make something up, at least make it believable. You look so broke you probably don't even have fifty bucks. What kidnapper would pick you?" The third time, I called Luca's father, my legal husband. He said he was in a meeting and didn't have time to play games with me. He also said that if I behaved myself, he'd agree to take me home for dinner next week. After the final call ended, I looked at the grinning kidnapper in despair and sent the last two messages of my life. A photo of myself covered in blood. And a short message, every word sincere. [I'm really going to die. In my next life, don't bring me home.]

By the third year of my marriage to Daniel Hawthorne, the war had already taken more than it ever returned, and this time it took his younger brother, Thomas Hawthorne. My sister-in-law, Eleanor, collapsed, and in the weeks that followed she tried to follow her husband into death— once with sleeping pills, once by the river beyond the officers’ quarters— only to be dragged back both times, each time clinging to me afterward as though I were the last thing keeping her grounded. I stayed with her, wiped her tears, and whispered that Thomas would want her to live, until the day she received the test results confirming she was three months pregnant, and the grief of losing her husband was slowly softened by the arrival of new life. I smiled too, believing grief had finally loosened its grip. That night, holding my own pregnancy test in my hand and thinking it was finally time to tell Daniel, I passed the study and heard his friend say quietly, “She’s carrying your child. You convinced the doctors to adjust the timeline so everyone would believe the baby belonged to your brother. Aren’t you afraid Margaret will find out?” Daniel didn’t hesitate. “She won’t,” he said calmly. “She loves me. She wouldn’t leave. I won’t let her know.” I didn’t step inside. I didn’t confront him. Instead, I opened the letter I had received weeks earlier— an official deployment order from the international medical corps, assigning me to a frontline war zone— and tapped Accept.

My son asked me for something I couldn’t give. “Just three chances, Mom,” he whispered. “If he really doesn’t love us after that… we’ll leave forever.” He was talking about his father — Giovanni Romano. The heir to a Mafia empire. My husband in name only. He never called our son his own. He never once said he loved me. Chance one, Giovanni forgot. Chance two, he lied. Chance three… he broke something no apology could fix. So I packed our bags, held my son’s hand, and walked away. No tears. No goodbyes. Just quiet. The night our plane took off, my phone buzzed. “Wait,” his message read. “I’m coming home.” But home isn’t where he is anymore. It’s wherever my son finally sleeps without crying. Because some promises don’t break — they shatter. And some mothers never wait again.

The annual Family dinner was in full swing, the clink of glasses and hum of conversation filling the air. Paige, never one for a kind word, stumbled over, a glass of wine in her hand, her breath reeking of cheap booze. "You know," she said, a sly, knowing grin on her face, "I used to be jealous as hell of you. He's a Capo. He runs a whole borough." "A lot of good that's done you, huh? Still stuck in the slums, where gunshots are your nightly lullaby." I heard the mockery in her voice. The list for the Family's secure compound was out, and once again, my name wasn't on it. I held my own glass, my voice steady. "They're Family rules. Not even Dean can break them. A Capo's wife still has to toe the line." She let out a sudden, sharp laugh. "Five years ago, when the first group moved, your name was at the very top of the list! Dean crossed it off himself. Five years in a row, all to build that pristine reputation of his..." Before she could finish, one of the dock enforcers nearby clamped his hand over her mouth. I glanced around the room. The men and women who had been flirting and laughing just moments before now avoided my gaze. Only Dean remained as he was, sitting ramrod straight, not a flicker of shame on his face. He held a half-smoked cigar between his teeth, his voice low and gravelly. "What she said is true. I approved the placements for the compound." "They're for the widows of our brothers who bled and died for this Family. They need a safe place more than you do." "Let others fight and claw for survival. You are my woman. A Capo's wife. You have to understand what it means to see the bigger picture." I smiled, but tears streamed down my face. So that was it. So, does our son have to be an orphan on paper, the child of a fallen hero, to finally get a private doctor and a safe home?