Chapter 28 - Gabriel
I've rehearsed this conversation a thousand times.
In the shower this morning, the water running cold while I stood frozen under the spray. In the car on the way to the office, words forming and dissolving before they could take shape. In the elevator, in the hallway, in every quiet moment between the demands of running an empire.
Your father was a man named Dwayne Thomas. He was a monster. I killed him when I was sixteen years old.
I didn't know about you. I didn't know you existed.
I was going to tell you. I've been trying to tell you. But every time I looked at you, the words died in my throat.
None of the versions sound right. None of them capture the impossible truth—that the first man I ever killed was the father of the woman I've become obsessed with. That fate, or chance, or some cosmic joke has bound us together through blood and death in ways neither of us could have imagined.
How do you explain something like that? How do you make someone understand that the violence you did was necessary, justified, that the world is better for the life you took?
You don't. You just tell the truth and hope it doesn't destroy everything.
Today. I'll tell her today. No more delays, no more excuses, no more hiding behind the cowardice I've always despised in others.
I'm preparing to leave the office when Hutton calls.
"Sir. We have a problem."
The words send ice through my veins. "What kind of problem?"
"Zachary Mercer was spotted near the flower district again yesterday. Same time frame as Ms. Rivers' supply run."
I grip the phone tighter. "And?"
"And our surveillance lost her for approximately two hours. She entered Dawson Floral Supply at 1:15 PM. We had a man watching the front entrance. She didn't exit until 3:30 PM."
"So she was inside the warehouse for two hours. That's not unusual."
"Except she wasn't inside the warehouse, sir.
" Hutton's voice is carefully neutral—the tone he uses when delivering news he knows I won't want to hear.
"We pulled security footage from the building.
She entered through the front, walked straight through to the loading dock, and exited through the back.
She was gone within five minutes of arriving. "
The room seems to tilt. I brace myself against the desk, fighting for equilibrium.
"Where did she go?"
"We're still working on that. She took a taxi—we're trying to trace the route. But sir, given Mercer's presence in the area..."
He doesn't need to finish the sentence. I can complete it myself.
She went to meet Zach. She's been sneaking around behind my back, lying to my face, meeting with the man who wants to destroy me.
She knows. She must know. Why else would she agree to meet him? Why else would she come back and lie in my bed, let me touch her, pretend everything was normal when she knew—
Whatever happens, remember that I never meant to hurt you.
My own words from two nights ago. I said them because I was planning to tell her the truth. She must have heard them as confirmation of what Zach had revealed.
She knows I killed her father. And she's still here.
Why? What is she planning?
"Sir?" Hutton's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. "Do you want us to increase surveillance? Restrict her movements?"
"No." The word comes out harsh, jagged. "No, don't do anything. I'll handle this myself."
"Are you certain? If she's been compromised—"
"I said I'll handle it."
I end the call and stand in the silence of my office, rage and fear warring for dominance.
She lied to me. She looked me in the eye and lied, the same way I've been lying to her. We've both been keeping secrets, both been hiding truths that could destroy us.
The only difference is that my secret was meant to protect her.
Hers might be meant to destroy me.
***
The drive home takes forever.
I break every speed limit, weave through traffic like a man possessed, my hands white-knuckled on the steering wheel.
The rational part of my brain—the part that's kept me alive and thriving in a world of predators—tells me to calm down, to think this through, to approach the situation strategically.
But rationality has never been my strong suit where Poppy is concerned.
The estate appears through the trees, its familiar silhouette somehow changed now. Tainted by what I know, by what I'm about to face. I park the car and sit for a moment, gathering myself, trying to find the control that's always come so easily.
It doesn't come. All I feel is the churning in my gut, the pounding of my heart, the desperate need to see her face when she tells me what she knows.
I find her in the garden, sitting on a stone bench among the roses. Her back is to me, her dark hair spilling over her shoulders, her posture rigid with tension. She's been sitting there for a while, I think. Waiting. Preparing.
She knows I'm coming. She knows the confrontation can't be avoided any longer.
"We need to talk," I say.
She turns slowly, and I see it immediately: the knowledge. It's written all over her face—in the dark circles under her eyes, the pallor of her skin, the way she looks at me like I'm a stranger. Like I'm a monster, she's only now seeing clearly.
She knows. She's known since yesterday.
"Yes," she says quietly. "We do."
I cross the garden and stop a few feet from the bench, close enough to see the fine tremor in her hands, the rapid pulse beating in her throat. She's afraid of me. She's never been afraid of me like this—not even that first night, when she saw me standing over a corpse.
"You met with Zachary Mercer yesterday." It's not a question.
Something flickers in her eyes—surprise that I know, or maybe just resignation that the pretense is over. "Yes."
"Behind my back. While my driver waited for you. You lied to me and snuck out to meet the man who's been trying to destroy me for three years."
"I didn't know who he was. Not at first." Her voice is steady, but I can hear the strain beneath it. "I just knew he had answers. Answers you weren't giving me."
"Answers about what?"
"About my father." She rises from the bench, facing me fully now. "About Dwayne Thomas. About what happened to him twenty-five years ago."
The name lands between us like a bomb. For a moment, neither of us moves. Neither of us breathes.
"Zach told you."
"He told me everything. He showed me documents, police reports, pages from my father's journal." Her voice cracks. "He showed me who Dwayne Thomas really was. And he told me who killed him."
"Poppy—"
"Was it true?" She steps closer, her eyes blazing. "Did you kill my father? Did you strangle him in a bathroom at St. Augustine's when you were sixteen years old?"
I should have been prepared for this. I've been rehearsing this conversation for days. But the reality of it—the raw pain in her voice, the betrayal in her eyes—strips away every prepared response.
"Yes," I say. "It's true."
She makes a sound—half sob, half laugh—and turns away, her hand pressed to her mouth.
"Poppy, listen to me—"
"No." She spins back, her composure cracking.
"No, you listen. You've had days to tell me this.
Days to find the words, to explain, to give me any version of the truth.
Instead, you've been lying to me. Fucking me.
Telling me I belong to you, that we have something real, while you knew—you knew—that you killed my father before I was even born. "
"I didn't know who you were." The words come out desperate, ragged. "When we met, when I started watching you, I had no idea you were connected to Dwayne. I didn't find out until a few days ago, when I went to see Bryan Vanderwal—"
"And then what? You found out, and instead of telling me, you tied me to your bed and fucked me until I couldn't think straight?"
The accusation hits home. She's right. That's exactly what I did.
"I was trying to figure out how to tell you. I was trying to find the right words—"
"There are no right words!" Her voice breaks, tears streaming down her face. "There's no way to make this okay, Gabriel. You killed my father. You took him from me before I ever had a chance to know him."
"He was a monster." The words come out harder than I intended. "Dwayne Thomas was a monster who tormented children. He hurt me—for two years, he hurt me in ways I still can't talk about. He would have hurt your mother, would have hurt you, if she hadn't run."
"I know what he was." She swipes angrily at her tears. "Zach showed me his journal. I read the things he wrote about his students—about you. I know he was a monster."
"Then you understand why I did what I did."
"I understand why a sixteen-year-old boy who was being abused might kill his abuser.
I can even understand why you never told anyone, why you let the Brotherhood cover it up.
" She shakes her head. "What I can't understand is why you didn't tell me.
Why you found out the truth and chose to keep it secret.
Why you've been lying to my face for days. "
"Because I was afraid." The admission tears out of me, raw and unwilling. "I was afraid of exactly this—of losing you. Of watching you look at me the way you're looking at me right now."
"Like you're a stranger?"
"Like I'm a monster."
She laughs—a broken, bitter sound. "You are a monster, Gabriel.
You've never pretended otherwise. But I thought—" Her voice catches.
"I thought you were my monster. I thought whatever we had was real, even if it was dark and fucked up and wrong.
I thought you trusted me enough to tell me the truth. "
"I do trust you."
"No, you don't. You trust yourself to control situations. You trust your ability to manipulate and manage and keep secrets until they serve your purposes." She steps back, putting distance between us. "But that's not trust. That's just another form of possession."
I reach for her. She flinches away.
"Don't," she says. "Don't touch me right now. I can't—" She wraps her arms around herself, suddenly small and fragile. "I need time. I need to think. I need to be away from you."
"Poppy, please—"
"I'm not leaving. Not yet. But I need space." She looks at me, and the sorrow in her eyes is worse than the anger. "I need to figure out if there's anything left to save."
She walks past me, back toward the house. I don't try to stop her. I don't have the right.
I stand alone in the garden, surrounded by roses that smell like her, and watch her disappear through the door.
***
The study is dark when I finally retreat there.
I don't bother with lights. I pour whiskey by feel—three fingers, then four—and sink into the chair by the window, staring out at nothing.
She's upstairs, in the room she never uses, with the door locked against me. I heard the bolt slide home from the hallway. Such a small sound, but it might as well have been a gunshot.
I've lost her. I can feel it—the connection we built, however fucked up and twisted, slipping through my fingers like water. She's still in my house, still under my roof, but she's already gone.
And the worst part is, I did this to myself.
I could have told her days ago, when I first learned the truth. I could have sat her down and explained everything—about Dwayne, about what he did to me, about the kill that made me who I am. I could have given her the chance to process it, to ask questions, to decide for herself what it meant.
Instead, I took her to bed and fucked her senseless, trying to bind her to me through her body because I was too much of a coward to trust her with words.
Josiah would tell me I'm being irrational.
That she's just one woman, that there are others, that the Brotherhood and the business should be my priorities.
He's been warning me about this obsession for weeks—telling me it would compromise everything, that she would become a weapon to be used against me.
He was right. Zach found her, cultivated her, turned her into exactly that weapon.
But I can't make myself care about any of it. The Brotherhood, the business, the empire I've built—none of it matters without her.
When did that happen? When did she become more important than everything else?
I pull the sketch from my pocket—her serpent and dahlia, worn soft from constant handling. The paper is creased now, the edges frayed, but the image is still clear. Still beautiful.
She drew this before she knew me. Before she had any reason to see the connection between us.
The serpent and the flower, intertwined. Predator and prey, but also something else. Something that might have been beautiful, if I hadn't destroyed it.
I trace the lines with my finger, remembering the first time I saw it. The night I broke into her apartment, while she slept in the next room. I stood in her workroom and found this image in her sketchbook, and something shifted inside me.
She saw me before she knew me. She drew us before we'd ever met.
And now she's locked in a room upstairs, trying to decide if she can ever look at me again.
I stare at the sketch until my vision blurs, whiskey warming my throat, grief and rage and regret churning in my chest.
She asked for space. She asked for time to think.
I'll give her that. I'll give her whatever she needs, for as long as she needs it.
But I won't let her go. I can't.
She's mine—the first person who's ever truly seen me, the first person I've ever truly wanted. She's carrying knowledge that could destroy me, secrets that could tear down everything I've built.
And I don't care. I don't care about any of it.
I just want her back.
Tomorrow, I'll find a way to fix this. Tomorrow, I'll make her understand that what happened with Dwayne doesn't change what we have. That the violence in my past doesn't have to define our future.
But tonight, I sit in the dark and drink and mourn the thing I've broken.
The thing I may never be able to repair.
Outside the window, the moon rises over the garden, casting silver light across the roses where she sat just hours ago. The bench is empty now. The flowers are silent.
And somewhere in the house above me, the woman who holds my fate in her hands is deciding whether to stay or run.
I pour another whiskey and wait for dawn.