Chapter 20 - Gabriel
Hutton's report arrives at seven in the morning, interrupting what should have been a rare peaceful moment.
Poppy is still asleep beside me, her body warm and soft, her breathing slow and even. I've been watching her for the past hour, tracing the lines of her face in the gray morning light, cataloging the marks I left on her skin last night. She's beautiful like this—unguarded, vulnerable, mine.
Then my phone buzzes, and the world intrudes.
I slip out of bed without waking her, pulling on a robe and padding into the hallway to take the call.
"Sir." Hutton's voice is clipped, professional, but I can hear the tension beneath. "There's something you need to know."
"Go ahead."
"Someone's been asking questions. About the florist."
The words hit me like ice water. I stop walking, my hand tightening on the phone.
"What kind of questions?"
"Background inquiries. Her history, her family, her connection to you. Discreet, but persistent. Our contact at the records office flagged it this morning—someone pulled her mother's name change documents. The original ones, from twenty-five years ago."
Linda Rivers, née Marsh. The woman who's been running from something her entire adult life.
"Who?" The word comes out flat, dangerous.
"We're still working on that. The inquiries were made through a series of intermediaries—shell companies, private investigators, the usual layers of obfuscation. Whoever it is, they know how to cover their tracks."
"But you have a lead."
A pause. "We have a suspicion."
"Tell me."
"The pattern of the inquiries—the specific questions being asked, the documents being pulled—it matches someone we've encountered before. Someone with Brotherhood connections."
My blood runs cold. "Who?"
"Zachary Mercer."
The name lands like a blow to the chest.
Zach. Of course, it's Zach.
I haven't thought about Zachary Mercer in years.
Haven't needed to. He was exiled from the Brotherhood three years ago, cast out after his son Daniel was sacrificed to protect the organization.
Daniel had killed a woman—carelessly, stupidly, in a way that drew attention—and when the investigation started closing in, the Brotherhood told me to make a choice.
I did. Daniel went to prison for twenty years.
Zach was stripped of his position, his connections, his access to everything the Brotherhood provides.
He went quietly at the time. Too quietly, in retrospect. A man like Zach—ambitious, ruthless, connected—doesn't simply accept banishment. He bides his time. He plans. He waits for an opportunity to strike back.
And now he's asking questions about my woman.
"How certain are you?" I ask.
"Eighty percent. The methodology matches his known associates. And there's something else."
"What?"
"Three days ago, someone accessed Poppy Rivers' client records from before she started working for you. Contact information, addresses, personal notes. The kind of information you'd need if you wanted to approach her. Build trust."
My grip on the phone is so tight I'm surprised it doesn't crack.
"He's going to contact her."
"That's our assessment, yes."
"When?"
"Unknown. Could be days, could be weeks. He's patient, sir. He'll wait for the right moment."
I force myself to breathe. To think. To push past the rage clouding my judgment and analyze the situation clearly.
Zach wants revenge. That much is obvious.
He blames the Brotherhood, and specifically me, for Daniel's imprisonment, for his own exile, for the destruction of everything he built.
And now he's found Poppy—a woman connected to me, a woman who witnessed something she shouldn't have, a woman who could be turned into a weapon against everything I've worked to build.
What does he know? How much has he figured out?
"The questions about her mother," I say slowly. "The name change documents. Why those specifically?"
"We're not sure, sir. It could be a general background—understanding her vulnerabilities, finding pressure points. Or it could be something more specific."
Something more specific. The words echo in my mind, connecting to fragments I haven't examined closely enough.
Josiah's research from weeks ago. Linda Marsh, who changed her name and started running when Poppy was two. The gaps in her history, the paranoia, the sense that she was hiding from something.
Or someone.
"I want everything you can find on Linda Rivers," I say. "Her history before the name change. Where she was living, who she was connected to, why she ran. Go back as far as you need to."
"Sir, we've already—"
"Go deeper. There's something there, something we missed. Find it."
"Understood. And the Mercer situation?"
"Keep monitoring. I want to know the moment he makes contact—with her, with anyone connected to her. And Hutton?"
"Sir?"
"If he gets within a hundred feet of her, I want to know about it. Immediately."
"Yes, sir."
I end the call and stand in the hallway, staring at nothing.
Zach. After three years of silence, he's finally making his move. And he's chosen to make it through Poppy.
Why her? Of all the ways he could strike at the Brotherhood—at me—why focus on a florist I've taken to my bed?
Unless he knows something I don't.
The thought nags at me as I return to the bedroom. Poppy is still asleep, curled on her side, her dark hair spread across my pillow. She looks peaceful. Innocent. Completely unaware of the danger circling toward her.
I should tell her. Warn her that someone is asking questions, that an enemy of mine might try to contact her. Give her the information she needs to protect herself.
But telling her means explaining Zach. Explaining the Brotherhood. Pulling back the curtain on the world I've kept hidden from her.
She knows I'm a murderer. She's accepted that—or at least, she's stopped fighting against the knowledge. But murder is one thing. The Brotherhood is something else entirely.
I'm not ready for that conversation. Not yet.
I slip back into bed beside her, and she stirs, her eyes fluttering open.
"What time is it?" Her voice is rough with sleep.
"Early. Go back to sleep."
She studies my face, and I see the moment she notices something is wrong. She's perceptive—too perceptive, sometimes.
"What happened?"
"Nothing. Business."
"Gabriel." She props herself up on one elbow. "You're lying."
I should deflect. Should distract her with my hands, my mouth, the reliable alchemy of her body against mine. But something in her expression stops me—a directness that demands honesty.
"Someone's been asking questions about you," I say carefully. "Digging into your background."
Her face goes pale. "Who?"
"I'm not sure yet. I have people looking into it."
"Is it..." She swallows. "Is it connected to what I saw? At the gala?"
The question is so far from the truth that I almost laugh. She thinks this is about the murder. About her being a witness, a loose end.
She has no idea.
"I don't know," I say, which is technically true. "But I'm handling it. You're safe here."
"Safe." She repeats the word like she's tasting it. "You keep saying that. But I don't think I've been safe since the moment I walked into your ballroom."
"You're safer with me than without me."
"Is that supposed to be comforting?"
"It's supposed to be true."
She holds my gaze for a long moment. I can see the questions churning behind her eyes—questions she wants to ask, doors she wants to open. But she doesn't push. Not yet.
"Okay," she says finally. "I trust you."
The words hit me harder than they should. Trust. She trusts me. This woman, who's seen me standing over a corpse, who knows what I'm capable of, who has every reason to run—she trusts me.
I don't deserve it. I know I don't deserve it.
But I'll take it anyway.
I spend the rest of the morning in my study, poring over the files Hutton sends. Zach's history with the Brotherhood. Daniel's crime and conviction. The exile that stripped Zach of everything he'd built over thirty years.
The picture that emerges is of a man with nothing left to lose. Dangerous. Patient. And now, apparently, focused on Poppy.
But why?
I keep coming back to the questions about her mother. The name change documents. The specific interest in Linda's history before she became Linda Rivers.
What does Zach know that I don't?
I pull up Josiah's original research—the file he compiled weeks ago, when I first became interested in Poppy. Linda Marsh, born in a small town two hundred miles from here. Changed her name when Poppy was two. Moved frequently. Kept a low profile.
And before that—almost nothing. A few utility bills. A lease on an apartment. Poppy's birth certificate with the father listed as unknown.
Josiah called it gaps. Holes in the timeline.
But what if they're not gaps? What if someone deliberately erased Linda's history?
The Brotherhood has done it before. Scrubbing records, eliminating paper trails, making inconvenient pasts disappear. It's one of the services we provide to our members—and to ourselves, when necessary.
What if Linda Marsh wasn't running from something? What if she was running because of something? Something connected to us?
The thought is unsettling. I push it aside, but it lingers at the edges of my mind, refusing to disappear.
Around noon, Josiah appears at my study door.
"I heard about Mercer," he says without preamble.
"From Hutton?"
"From my own sources. He's been making noise for months—quiet inquiries, subtle approaches. Testing the waters." Josiah steps into the room, closing the door behind him. "Now he's focused on your florist. That's not a coincidence."
"I know."
"Do you know why? Do you know what he wants with her specifically?"
"Not yet."
"Gabriel." Josiah's voice is sharp. "This is exactly what I warned you about. You've made yourself vulnerable. You've given him a target."
"He would have found a target regardless."