Chapter 33 Gabriel
Gabriel
The plates had been cleared. Chairs scraped back in staggered intervals, a quiet signal that the formal part of the evening had passed. But the real theater was just beginning.
Clusters began to form—men in expensive suits and measured handshakes, women wrapped in quiet appraisal. The air was looser now, but not relaxed. Voices rose in polite rhythm, but under it all was something tighter. Too many eyes. Too many debts in the room.
I hadn’t moved from the table yet. Neither had Damien.
He swirled what was left in his glass with a focused, yet distant expression.
“Can you believe this shit?” he muttered.
“That you killed a man and burned his house down?” I kept my voice low.
He shrugged. “Could’ve been anybody.”
“Could’ve been us.” I grinned.
“Did you ever tell Sophia we took care of that sick fuck? What was his name again?”
“Henry, and no I haven’t told her.”
“Well, at this rate you’d better think of a way to tell her. How the fuck did the feds even find out we were there that night?”
“They only think you were there, apparently. I don’t know.”
Damien scanned the room, then looked back at me.
“What are we going to do?”
“Don’t worry about it.”
I spotted my father before he reached us. He looked stronger everyday, there was a clarity to his eyes that was becoming more and more normal.
He walked like the floor owed him something. His suit was dark, perfectly cut. The expression he wore was nearly regal.
He stopped beside us and gave a faint nod. “Good turnout. Everyone who needed to be here is here,” he said.
His gaze swept the room. Not looking for anyone in particular—just taking stock. Measuring. Calculating.
I stood. “Solid enough. You find those cigars?”
He smirked, patting his coat pocket, then noticed Damien’s frustration.
“What’s the matter with you?” he asked coldly.
Damien leaned back in his chair. “What am I supposed to do? Sit on my hands while those assholes are trying to fuck me?”
The Don’s mouth tightened, just barely. “Don’t give them an excuse to bring you in.”
“You want me to just sit around doing nothing?”
“Maybe work on your double entendres,” the Don said.
Damien’s face was the picture of confusion.
“It means stop being a fuckin’ moron.”
Damien stood abruptly, jaw clenched. We watched him storm off, shoving past those who didn’t make way for him.
I spotted Sophia not too far off from his path.
She stood just off-center, caught in conversation with two people I didn’t recognize—an older man with a politician’s stance and a woman holding a tiny purse too high on her wrist. The man was talking too much.
The woman smiled too little. But Sophia was in it.
Listening. Answering. Holding her posture like she was better than them.
My father followed my gaze, silent at first. Then, “You chose well.”
I spared him a glance, then looked back to her.
“She knows how to play the game,” he said low, almost to himself.
Still, I said nothing.
“She’s a useful girl.”
I turned to him. “She’s not here to be a pawn.”
He gave me a calm, mild look. “What did I just say?”
The downside of my father being back to his old self, was that he was back to his old self.
His hand gripped my bicep with a strength I didn’t know he had. He pressed a small velvet box into my hand.
“She is one of us now.”
I looked down, cautiously opened it. My mother’s ring glinted in the light.
It made a loud snap as I closed it, and by the time I looked back up, he was walking away.
I turned back to look at her. She laughed at something the woman said.
Not big. Not loud. Just enough to pass for ease.
A victory in the silent war between women, or a loss.
I couldn’t tell. But I knew her well enough to see the discomfort growing within her.
The tension held just beneath the skin. She was performing—and doing it well. But the signs were there.
I walked toward her.
I was halfway there when something caught in my periphery.
Not movement. Stillness.
Near the far archway, just beyond the gilded sconces and the masses, a man stood with his back too straight and his hands too still. He wasn’t part of any group. Wasn’t holding a drink.
He was watching me.
Not openly. Not stupidly. Just enough to look like he wasn’t.
I slowed.
He shifted, as if he had only just noticed me, nodding slightly as if commending me, then raised a hand at a passing servant for a drink.
I changed direction, intent on flanking him.
The crowd closed slightly behind me, swallowing his line of sight, but I kept track of him. Cutting through the murmured conversations, I passed two men laughing too loud and a woman straightening her pearls. But when I reached the archway, he was gone.
He could’ve been anyone. Someone loyal to the Sinclairs. Someone who cared about Nikolai. A cop. Or just a guest. I didn’t like it.
I turned slightly, and that’s when I saw one of our newest recruits posted near the stairs.
I gestured. Small. Precise.
He stepped forward immediately, eager for work that might put him one step closer to being made. He was young, but perceptive—his eyes already following the direction I’d been watching.
“There was a man here,” I said quietly. “I didn’t recognize him. He didn’t look right. He went that way. Go find him.”
“I’m on it,” he said, and jogged after him with too much eagerness and not enough subtlety.