Chapter 2 - Gabriel
Sleep doesn't come.
I don't expect it to. The hours after a kill are always like this—my mind too sharp, my senses too alert, my body humming with energy that has nowhere to go.
Usually, I spend these hours in my study, reading or working, or simply sitting in the dark, letting the silence settle over me like a burial shroud.
Tonight, the silence won't come.
I'm in my bedroom at the estate, the curtains open to the gray light of approaching dawn.
The gala ended hours ago. The guests have departed, their masks tucked away until next year, their secrets safe behind polite smiles and generous donations.
The staff are cleaning the ballroom, erasing all evidence of the evening's excesses.
In a room at the end of the east wing, other staff are cleaning too.
Woolworth's body is already gone—transported to a facility the Brotherhood maintains for such purposes.
By tomorrow, there will be no trace of him.
No blood on the antique rug, no scuff marks on the hardwood floor, no lingering smell of copper and fear.
Jack Woolworth will simply cease to exist. His family will receive a letter explaining that he's left the country to pursue business opportunities abroad. His accounts will be quietly closed, his assets absorbed, his life erased with the efficiency of long practice.
It's clean. Professional. Exactly as it should be.
And I feel nothing about any of it.
Woolworth deserved what he got. He'd been skimming from Brotherhood accounts for two years, funneling money into a private investment that went sour.
When he couldn't cover his losses, he started talking to people he shouldn't—not law enforcement, nothing so crude, but competitors.
Business rivals who would pay well for information about our operations.
Josiah discovered it three months ago. We watched, waited, gathered evidence.
Tonight was simply the conclusion of a process that began long before Woolworth walked into the study expecting a negotiation.
He begged at the end. They always do. He offered money he didn't have, information he'd already sold, loyalty he'd already betrayed.
I listened to all of it, patient and calm, and then I did what needed to be done.
The kill was satisfying. His fear was satisfying.
The way the life drained out of his eyes, that final moment when he understood there would be no reprieve—that was satisfying too.
But it's not what I'm thinking about.
I'm thinking about her.
I reach into my pocket and pull out the sketch.
I've looked at it a hundred times since I took it from her apartment, but I unfold it again now, holding it up to catch the pale morning light.
A serpent coiled around a dahlia. The serpent's mouth open, not to strike, but to whisper.
The dahlia's petals dark and perfect, cradled in those scaled coils.
She drew this a week ago. Before she knew my name. Before she witnessed anything.
She felt me watching her from the gallery, and this is what her mind produced.
I trace the lines with my fingertip, following the curve of the serpent's body.
Her hand made these marks. Her mind conceived this image.
Some part of her understood, even then, what was circling her.
And she didn't draw the serpent as a threat.
She drew it as a lover. A guardian. Something that holds the flower close and speaks to it in a language no one else can hear.
What are you, Poppy Rivers?
I fold the sketch and slip it back into my pocket.
I've been carrying it with me since that night in her apartment, this piece of paper that proves something I can't quite articulate.
That she sensed me. That some part of her was already reaching toward some part of me, before we ever exchanged a single word.
I don't believe in fate. I've never believed in fate.
But I don't know what else to call this.
I replay the moment in the study for the hundredth time.
I was standing over Woolworth's body, breathing slowly, letting my heart rate return to normal.
The kill had been clean—strangulation, my preferred method.
Intimate. Personal. I could feel his pulse fade beneath my hands, could watch the light leave his eyes.
There's no distance with strangulation. No hiding from what you're doing.
The silence was settling over me, that beautiful emptiness I chase every time. For a few precious moments, my mind was quiet.
Then I felt it. That prickle at the back of my neck. The sense of being watched.
I looked up, and she was there.
Framed in the doorway, hand raised as if to knock, her face pale in the candlelight.
The florist. The woman I'd been watching all week.
The woman whose apartment I'd stood in while she slept, whose shampoo I'd smelled, whose sketches I'd studied.
She was supposed to be gone. She was supposed to have left hours ago, before the gala began.
But there she was, looking at me with those wide eyes, seeing exactly what I am.
I expected the usual response. The scream. The hysteria. The blind animal panic that takes over when prey confronts a predator.
She didn't scream.
She stared.
And in her eyes, I saw something that made my breath catch in my chest. Not just fear. There was fear, yes—I could see her pulse hammering in her throat, could see the tremor in her hands. But underneath the fear, there was something else.
Recognition.
Like she was seeing something she already knew. Like some part of her had been expecting this, waiting for it, preparing for the moment when the darkness she'd always sensed would finally step into the light.
She understood. On some level beneath language, beneath thought, she understood.
And then she ran, and I let her go, and I've been thinking about nothing else since.
I could have caught her. Three strides, maybe four, and I would have had her.
My hand around her arm, pulling her back into the room.
The door closing behind us. Her fate sealed as surely as Woolworth's.
It would have been the practical choice.
The safe choice. Josiah would have approved—he's always telling me to be more careful, to leave no loose ends, to prioritize security over impulse.
But I didn't want to be practical.
I wanted to see what she would do.
I watched her flee through the security feeds, her panic making her clumsy, her breath coming in visible gasps as she stumbled through the corridors.
She passed staff members who didn't stop her, guests who didn't see her.
She was invisible in her terror, just another body moving through the chaos of the gala.
She made it to her van. Dropped her keys twice before she could get the door open.
Sat there for a long moment, hands shaking, before she started the engine.
I watched her drive away, and I felt something I haven't felt in a very long time.
Anticipation.
Would she call the police? Would she be brave, or foolish, or both? Would she try to bring me down with her shaking testimony and her complete lack of evidence?
I monitored her phone records through the night. She picked up the phone a dozen times. Typed the numbers. Never pressed call.
She sat in her dark apartment, alone with what she'd witnessed, and she kept my secret.
Clever girl.
She understands how the world works. She knows that a florist's word means nothing against a billionaire's reputation.
She knows that coming forward would destroy her, not me.
She's weighed the options and found them wanting.
Or perhaps it's something else. Perhaps she's keeping quiet for reasons that have nothing to do with practicality.
Perhaps some part of her doesn't want me caught.
The dahlia sits in a glass of water on my nightstand.
Not the one I left for her—that one is on her doorstep now, or in her hands, or in a vase on her kitchen table.
This is a different bloom, one I kept for myself.
One she touched while she was arranging them, her fingers careful and tender, treating each petal like it mattered.
I picked it up after she fled. Pressed it to my face. Breathed in the scent of her, faint beneath the flower's own perfume.
I'm losing my mind, I think. This is what madness feels like.
But I don't feel mad. I feel focused. Clear. For the first time in months, the static in my head has organized itself into a single, coherent signal.
Her. Her. Her.
Leaving the dahlia on her doorstep was a risk.
Josiah would be furious if he knew—it's exactly the kind of impulsive gesture he's always warning me against. Don't play with your food, Gabriel.
Don't leave traces. Don't let sentiment compromise security.
But it wasn't sentiment. It was communication.
I drove to her apartment in the dark hours of the morning, when the streets were empty, and the city was holding its breath between night and day.
I parked a block away and walked, my footsteps silent on the pavement.
Her building is modest. Old brick, iron fire escapes, a front door with a lock that wouldn't stop a determined child.
She lives on the third floor. I know which window is hers—I've stood outside it before, looking up at the light, imagining her moving through her small rooms.
The light was off, but I knew she wasn't sleeping. She was sitting in the dark, I was certain of it. Waiting. Listening. Jumping at every sound. Thinking about me.
I selected the dahlia from the ones I'd taken from the ballroom.
One of hers, from her arrangements—I wanted her to recognize it.
To understand that I'd been watching her work, that I'd noticed her, that my attention predated her witnessing anything.
I placed it on her doorstep with care. Centered it precisely.
Made sure it would be the first thing she saw when she opened her door.
Then I stood there for a long moment, looking up at her dark window.
I see you, I thought. I know where you live. I was here while you were afraid.
It wasn't a threat. Or not only a threat.
It was an introduction.
A knock at my door pulls me from my thoughts.
"Come in."
Josiah enters, already dressed for the day, his expression carefully neutral. He's the middle brother, the pragmatic one, the one who sees problems before they form. Right now, he's looking at me like I'm a problem.
"You didn't sleep," he says.
"I rarely do after."
"After a kill, yes. But usually you're calmer." He moves to the window, looks out at the grounds. "You seem restless."
"I'm fine."
"You were distracted last night. During the gala. I noticed you watching someone."
I keep my expression blank. "I watch a lot of people. It's a party. That's what one does."
"The florist."
The word hangs between us. Josiah turns to face me, and I see the concern in his eyes—concern and something sharper. Suspicion.
"She was doing good work," I say. "The arrangements were impressive."
"She was supposed to leave before the guests arrived."
"There was a delay. A broken vase, I believe."
"And then she got lost. Wandered into the east wing. Past the study." Josiah's voice is flat. "Past the study door, which was apparently not fully latched."
I say nothing.
"Did she see anything?"
The question is careful, precise. Josiah already knows the answer—he wouldn't be asking if he didn't. He's giving me a chance to tell him the truth, to loop him into whatever I'm planning.
I could tell him. I probably should tell him. Josiah is my brother, my partner, my closest advisor. We've kept each other's secrets since we were children.
But I don't want to share her. Not yet. Not with anyone.
"She saw a closed door," I say. "She was frightened and lost and looking for the exit. I doubt she noticed anything."
Josiah studies me for a long moment. He doesn't believe me—I can see it in the slight tension around his eyes, the way his jaw tightens almost imperceptibly. But he doesn't push. That's not Josiah's way. He files information, waits, watches. When he's ready to act, he acts decisively.
"The cleanup is complete," he says finally. "Woolworth's gone. No traces."
"Good."
"I'll handle the family. The letter explaining his departure."
"Thank you."
Another pause. Josiah moves toward the door, then stops.
"Be careful, Gabriel. Whatever this is... be careful."
He leaves before I can respond. Not that I would have responded. There's nothing to say.
I turn back to the window, watching the morning light spread across the grounds. Somewhere across the city, she's waking up. Or not waking up—she probably never slept, same as me. She's finding the dahlia I left. Picking it up with trembling hands. Wondering what it means.
It means I'm coming for you, I think. Not today. Not yet. But soon.
It means you belong to me now. You just don't know it yet.
I allow myself a small smile. The first genuine smile I've felt in longer than I can remember.
The hunt has begun.