Chapter 20
20
GAbrIEL
I ’d already been hunting for her with mounting alarm before she called, and I’d been had my phone in my hand pulling up her whereabouts when she called.
I knew it was a trap the moment I got her call from the hotel room phone. Everything about this situation felt wrong: the way she’d disappeared from the ballroom, the tremor in her voice when she called, the too-careful way she’d said she needed me.
Celia did need me, but she would never confess that fact.
I’d bet anything that her family was using her. The only question was whether she was in on it or not.
For that, I’d have to retrieve my bride and ask her face to face.
That need simmered impatiently under my skin as I headed down the street toward the hotel, having given orders to Marcus to get the team moving. They’d moved with lightning speed so far, faster than her family would have expected. They’d secured a spot on the roof of a building across from the hotel.
Marcus checked his cell phone, then told me. “Chen and Williams have sight lines from the building across the street. Johnston securing the service corridor on twenty-three. Alvarez has the emergency stairwell.”
I adjusted my cufflinks, checking that my shoulder holster was concealed but accessible under my tuxedo jacket. “Any movement?”
“Five heat signatures in suite 2312. One’s kept separate from the others, likely Mrs. Caruso, backed up given her whereabouts on the tracking.”
The fact that she might be working with them—that this might all be an elaborate setup—shouldn’t hurt.
I hadn’t earned her loyalty.
So why did I feel oddly driven by emotion, desperate to get to her and frustrated by the possibility I’d lost her?
“Stay here and cover the hallway,” I told Marcus.
The plush carpet muffled my footsteps as I approached suite 2312.
Before I could reach the door, it opened. Celia stood there in her evening gown and a plastered-on smile. Her eyes were wide with fear.
“Gabriel.” Her voice was tight with something I couldn’t quite read. “I’m sorry.”
I was still halfway down the hall, and I lengthened my stride, driven by sudden need.
“Run! It’s a trap!” The words exploded from her, raw and desperate. She dove forward as movement erupted behind her.
I was already diving to the side when the first shots rang out, shattering the artwork on the hallway walls and sending drywall flying. The sharp report of sniper fire shattered the room as Chen and Williams engaged through the windows.
But Celia was caught in the middle, trapped in the open as bullets carved up the hallway around her. She’d dropped to the ground, but I could see her trembling from here. Something protective and primal roared to life in my chest.
A flash of movement. Royal emerged from the suite, pistol raised. Time seemed to slow as I tracked his movement, but before I could get a clean shot, Celia rose. She threw herself between us, hurling something at her brother’s face. It made him flinch.
I didn’t waste the opportunity. I dropped Royal before he could recover.
But as he fell, his finger tightened on the trigger. The gun firing felt like an explosion, like the loudest sound I’d ever heard.
Celia screamed.
“Celia!” The sound that tore from my throat wasn’t one I recognized. She was clutching her shoulder, blood staining the silk of her gown, but she was upright and moving. I lunged forward and grabbed her, lifting her off the ground to carry her out.
“Gabriel,” she murmured. Big amber eyes met mine. “You came to get me.”
Marcus moved past me. I’d usually be the first in, but for now, I clutched her in my arms. She needed immediate care.
“Of course I did.”
“I thought you might not trust me. I figured you’d see it as a trap, and you might abandon me.” Raw fear broke through her voice at the thought, even though she was safe now.
I sure as hell wasn’t going to respond to that . I’d been tempted.
I should have been focused on finishing off the fight and getting the hell out of here. We only had moments before security showed up.
“We’ve got to move,” I called to Marcus.
“Right behind you.”
I carried her to the service elevator. Looking back, I saw Marcus run toward us, joining us in the elevator. The seconds ticked by agonizingly as we made our way back to our escape route.
“Let me see,” I demanded, trying to examine her wound, which was still bleeding freely. I yanked off my tie to use as a makeshift bandage.
“I’m fine,” she insisted, though her voice shook.
“What the hell were you thinking?” The words came out harsher than I intended, raw with an emotion I didn’t want to examine too closely. “Jumping in front of a gun? Are you insane?”
She met my eyes then, and there was something fierce and unwavering in her gaze. “I wasn’t going to let him shoot you, Gabriel. I didn’t jump in front of the gun. I distracted him to protect you.”
I scoffed. She looked taken aback, but I didn’t know what to do with the swell of emotion I felt as I held her. “I don’t need you to protect me.”
“You don’t deserve me,” she said, and the words should have been bitter, but somehow, they weren’t. “But I love your brothers with all my heart, and they love you, and I’d do anything for them.”
I stared at her, trying to process what she was saying, what it meant. Before I could respond, a slight smile tugged at her lips despite the pain. “And anyway, you’re my husband and it would be embarrassing as hell if that douchebag killed you.”
A laugh caught in my throat, surprising us both. I wanted to shake her for being so reckless, wanted to demand answers about everything she’d kept from me, wanted to understand how she could make me feel this much when I’d spent years carefully feeling nothing at all.
Instead, I pulled her closer, pressed my lips to her temple.