Chapter 30 Gabriel
Gabriel
Iwoke with a sharp breath, pain cutting across my ribs as I sat up. My shoulder throbbed beneath the surface—duller than yesterday, but still there. Healing. Waiting.
I’d slept long enough. More than enough.
I couldn’t lie around, letting time patch me back together. I needed to walk. Move. Anything but lay here.
The sheets were cold as I shoved them aside, muscles stiff from too much stillness. I rolled my shoulder once, testing the movement. The stitches tugged, pain biting just enough to remind me Ivan was still alive.
The hallway met me with a silence that didn’t belong. Not the usual hush of early morning, but something deeper. Listening.
There was always noise in the morning—servants shifting, muffled conversation, the occasional noise in some far room. This silence stretched instead of settled. It clung to the walls. Held its breath.
I descended the stairs slowly, each step measured. As soon as I hit the marble floor of the main hall, heads turned.
The younger guards stiffened. A few nodded, others looked away, their hands shifting unconsciously.
They were assessing me, or already had.
They wouldn’t have seen me, but they would have heard I was out. Hooked up to machines. Stripped of all strength. Now I was walking. Commanding with my gaze as I walked past them.
None of them could hold eye contact and I couldn’t help but smirk after I had passed them.
I passed my father’s study without meaning to stop—but his voice cut through the corridor like he had been waiting for me.
“Gabriel.”
The door was open. Cigar smoke curled through the air, sunlight blooming through it as he bent over the mess of papers he hadn’t bothered to tidy.
I paused, then stepped inside.
He didn’t look up—just tapped his fingers against his chin, eyes locked on the document in front of him.
“Doing well?” he asked, voice flat.
I didn’t answer right away. Instead, I crossed to the liquor cabinet, unscrewed the crystal decanter, and poured. I drank it all before finally meeting his eyes.
“Yeah,” I said. I lifted the glass. “All better.”
I turned for the door.
“The gala’s tomorrow,” he said at my back. “If you act like a man recovering, they’ll treat you like one.”
I paused, looked over my shoulder at him.
“I’m fine.”
I didn’t wait for dismissal or give him the chance to talk more. Just left.
The halls felt heavier now. Like they’d aged in my absence. The corners darker, the air thicker. Like this house was held together with more stitches than I was.
Near the east wing was the den, the circular room, open as always. The chessboard was still in place, pieces frozen mid-game.
Caroline perched on the edge of one of the chairs, legs drawn up, a book open in her hands. She noticed me, but her eyes stayed on the page.
Sophia sat at the chessboard, bent forward slightly, hand hovering above the board. Her fingers rested just shy of the piece, unmoving.
I stepped inside.
Sophia didn’t look up—too focused. But she leaned back slightly as I approached, as if sensing me. I let my hand brush her shoulder, then dropped it to the back of her chair.
“You’re hesitating,” I murmured.
“It’s a big move,” she said, still not looking away from the board.
I studied it. My father was exposed—one move from checkmate. I touched a piece lightly.
“Here.”
“Hey, that’s cheating,” Caroline said.
Sophia finally looked up from the board. “I’m surprised you care.”
Caroline snorted. “I don’t. I just hate watching people bend the rules.”
Her voice carried that baiting edge—meant more to rile Sophia than out of any real sense of right and wrong.
Sophia scoffed as I slipped out. “Really?”
“Mmhmm,” Caroline hummed back.
It’s good to have them back.
Their voices followed me down the hall, their bickering fading into the distance. Toward Logan’s room.
The air felt cold now.
I told myself I was just working soreness from fresh wounds—another lie. A healing walk ends at the library or the garden. A healing walk doesn’t lead a man to a door shut by nearly a year of grief and guilt.
I slowed beside the display table where his first boxing medal still lay. No one had moved it. Dust hadn’t dared settle on the brass. I set two fingers on the ribbon; a tremor ran up my arm and through the stitches in my shoulder. I pushed off and kept moving.
Three doors down, last on the right.
The doorknob gleamed ahead, daring me. I stopped close enough to smell the wood, my forehead on the door.
It felt like he was just beyond the door. For some reason the image I held of him seemed locked at him as a kid. But he was a man when he died.
The gym came back to me, a memory from over a decade ago—the reek of leather and sweat, Logan fumbling with gloves too big for his hands.
“Keep your guard up.” I said.
“They’re heavy.”
“Then get stronger.”
He laughed, bouncing on his toes, throwing a sloppy jab I let connect.
“Like that?”
“Not even close.”
I caught his wrist, straightened it, nudged his chin down with a knuckle. Made him do it again. And again. Until he mirrored it right—chin tucked, shoulders tight. He always had so much trust in his eyes, like he knew he could always rely on me.
“Better,” I told him, and he grinned like I’d just crowned him champion.
“Always remember—tuck your chin, keep your guard up.”
The memory shifted.
His grin was gone, mouth working for air instead of words. His eyes stayed open, still trusting me even as the light bled out of him through a dozen buckshot wounds.
My hand lifted, hovered, then dropped. I turned away. Some doors stay closed.