Chapter 7 Gabriel
Gabriel
Iswing open the door to our penthouse to two uniformed officers standing on the threshold. The last time I spoke with Officer Paul Riley, he’d told me it wasn’t a crime for a woman to leave her dickhead husband.
Riley dips his head in the closest thing I expect I’ll ever get to an apology. “Your wife called to report a kidnapping.”
“I’m aware.” I stay in the doorway, not blocking them, but not welcoming them inside either. “She had a dissociative episode related to trauma from her kidnapping. She’s under medical care. A doctor is with her now. She’s not a threat to herself or anyone else.”
“We need to verify that information and that she’s here voluntarily.
Your wife reported she was being held against her will.
” Officer Shanae Price, younger than her partner by at least fifteen years, doesn’t look at me with the subtle shame that Riley does.
Instead, her dark eyes hold suspicion. Her hand hovers close to her sidearm, her posture ready for trouble.
That attitude is just one reason why I don’t want them anywhere near my wife.
I paste on an amiable, sincere expression. “There’s no danger here. I’m not armed, and neither is she. You know what she went through. She confused the present with the past.”
“She give you that mark on your face?” she asks.
Dammit. I haven’t even looked in a mirror. “You’re well aware of the confrontation with Markov. I was injured more than a week ago. My father is on his way. He’d like to be present for any questions. He’s our legal counsel.”
A fresh bruise looks nothing like one that’s a week old. From the knowing looks they give me, neither of them believe me about the injury. “We don’t need permission to enter. We can do it the easy way or the hard way.”
Shit. I step backward to allow them access. “Don’t stomp in here and scare her. She won’t hurt anyone.”
“She’s stabilized,” Josh says behind me. He moves into view, stethoscope still looped around his neck. “I administered a short-acting benzo. She’s aware, calm, and resting.”
Aware. Calm. I need to see her like that. I step backward to go to her, but slow as Price’s gaze flickers over Josh with recognition.
“I didn’t know you took house calls,” she says.
“Normally, I don’t.” Josh lifts his chin. “When you speak to Mrs. McRae, keep things quiet and nonthreatening. Your department’s mishandling of this case is all over the headlines. Don’t compound your mistakes by re-traumatizing a woman you already victimized.”
Price swallows hard. Riley glances away, but neither denies the accusation.
Until this moment, I never realized how similar Josh and the woman I married are. On the surface, they’re nothing alike, but they have the same instinct to step into the fire for someone else. Josh burned in mine for years, until I razed our friendship to ash.
Riley and Price move farther inside and immediately clock the aftermath of Sydney’s panic. I picked up what I could in the short amount of time I had between Kurt’s call and their knock on the door, but the place looks like a hurricane hit it.
Price assesses it all with sharp eyes—the broken glass from the shattered vase, the spilled water, books strewn, the sofa knocked off-kilter, the dent in the drywall from the table lamp Sydney knocked into it.
“She thought she was back in that basement, but nobody was hurt. Her bodyguard was on duty. This wasn’t a fight.” Mostly true.
“Let’s go,” Riley says.
We reach the bedroom to find Sydney wrapped in the red throw blanket my sister crocheted for her last Christmas. She’s curled up in the chair near the cold fireplace, a sheen of sweat gleaming on her forehead and her calm gaze glassy. I look toward Josh, but his attention focuses on her, not me.
I clear my throat. “Sydney, these are officers Riley and Price. They’re here to make sure you’re safe.”
Sydney straightens, her slightly unfocused gaze growing sharper.
Price approaches and crouches beside Sydney’s chair. “Hi there. Did you call 911 for help?”
Sydney leans forward eagerly. “Yes.”
“Do you feel like you’re in danger here with your husband?”
Sydney’s gaze flicks to me, then back to the officer. “My husband.”
Price nods. “Yes. Your husband. Do you feel safe with him?”
A resigned expression falls over Sydney’s face, and she leans back in the chair. “I just . . . wanted to go h-home,” she says, her words hoarse and stilted.
“This is the home on your driver’s license. Do you have another one?” Price asks, her tone professional, but not harsh.
Sydney glances around the room, then shoots me a look I can only interpret as “You win for now.” She shakes her head.
“I bought her a house for our wedding. She told me she wanted to get out of New York. I was planning to take her there,” I say.
Price raises her hand. “Don’t speak for her, Mr. McRae.”
I shift and cross my arms.
“Where’s home?” Price asks Sydney.
Sydney shrugs. “This address . . . is on my . . . license.” She leaves the word “apparently” hanging silently for only me to hear.
“Can you tell me your name?” Price asks.
“My name is Sydney Walsh McRae.” Not a hint of hesitation.
“Did your husband hurt you?” Price asks.
Sydney’s gaze rakes over me, and it’s my turn to stop breathing. If she thinks I’m Markov, we’ve both got a mess on our hands. Finally, she shakes her head and chooses to answer with strict honesty. “No. He gave me a cat.”
“Do you want to hurt Gabriel?”
Her eyes, already glassy, practically glaze over. “Never.”
“Do you have thoughts about hurting yourself?” Price asks.
“Hell, no. You can . . . leave now.”
She’s never had patience for anyone who wastes her time.
“Would you like to get checked out at a hospital?” Price asks.
Sydney’s entire body tenses as though she was offered a firing squad, not medical care. “No.”
“You told the 911 dispatcher that you were seventeen years old. Do you still believe that?” Price asks more gently than I’d have thought her capable of.
Sydney eyes her like she sees straight through her. As though the police officer has now become an enemy trying to trick her. “I was . . . confused. I . . . w-want to stay here.”
The lie in her voice hits me like a punch to the sternum. She’s telling them whatever she thinks they need to hear, trying to “be good” because she’s afraid of walls closing her in. Of straps and needles.
“I can arrange to have someone with her 24/7, and she’ll be under medical and psychiatric care with me. Is it really necessary to jump straight to a psych hold?” I ask, my mouth dry.
Sydney narrows her eyes at me. “No hospital.”
“Under the circumstances, a hospitalization may do more harm than good. She needs familiar safety, a low-stress environment, and time to recover,” Josh says.
“Sydney, if you want to go to my sister’s house, instead, or stay with my parents, you can. You could stay with your friend, Janessa. Whatever you need,” I say, nauseous at the thought of being separated from her but unwilling to frighten her.
Sydney turns her head toward the door. Her hesitation lasts seconds that feel like minutes. Rufus jumps into her lap, and she looks down at the cat before rubbing his head. “No.”
Riley looks my way. “We’re calling this resolved, but if she makes another report, we’re coming back with EMS. You know this was enough for a seventy-two-hour hold. If she needs it, she needs it.”
“I understand that.” I walk them through the bedroom door and into the hallway.
Riley turns back and clears his throat. “I saw the files. It wouldn’t have ended up our jurisdiction,” he says defensively. “But we shoulda looked harder and gotten her case in the right hands,” he admits.
Does he expect absolution from me? “My head of security will escort you to the elevator.”
He blows out a short breath. “Right. My point is, we let her down once, but we won’t do it again.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
They leave, and I return to find Josh assisting Sydney into her narrow hospital bed. She moves with the sort of false calm that comes from whatever drug he administered. It isn’t real.
He steps to the switch on the wall and dims the lights. I join Sydney and sit on the edge of her bed, tucking the blankets around her.
Eyes closed, she demands, “Cat.”
Rufus isn’t a feline to be bossed around. He gives his attention and affection on his own terms, but at the sound of her voice, he leaps up and butts his head against her side. She places her hand on his back and lies quietly, her breaths growing deep and slow.
Josh approaches, looking down at her from where he stands. “I thought you’d end up with someone less serious. Someone you partied with.”
“That sounds awful.” I mean it to the depths of my soul. “Sydney isn’t serious all the time. She knows how to play. She’s just a fuck-ton smarter than I am.”
Even now, when she can barely string a coherent sentence together, I can see that she’s thinking.
She figured out from the phrasing of Price’s questions, alone, that they were considering taking her for a psych eval and what she needed to do to prevent it.
The way she repeated back “husband” in that flat tone was her deciding then and there that they wouldn’t help her the way she believed she needed them to.
She thinks I manipulated the police to be “on my side.”
“She was a hell of a soccer player back in the day,” Josh says.
“The newsreels are showing the Stanford clip again.” It’s not a question, and I’m not surprised. When Sydney and I announced our engagement, they plastered it everywhere. It was a feel-good piece, then.
“The final goal that gave Blackwater their first title. Defender thought she had her pinned down the line. Next thing you know, Sydney Walsh spins out, flicks the ball behind her, cuts in, and—BAM—top corner. That keeper didn’t even move.”
“You sound like a fan.” I don’t have room for amusement, but the irony doesn’t escape me.
He’s impressed by my wife. In another life, we’d have probably gone on double dates and shared family get-togethers.
He’d have been a groomsman at my wedding.
“If they showed the whole thing, you’d have seen she didn’t even take a second to gloat.
She turned straight back and pointed at her teammate to give her the credit for getting her the ball in the first place. ”
I hadn’t known Sydney then and was more interested in nightclub hookups than I was in women’s soccer, but I’ve watched the replays since. Every one of them.
“They’re showing clips of Allen Walsh at the Rose Bowl, doing side-by-sides. Him breaking tackles. Her breaking lines,” he says.
“If they brought her father into it, it’s only because they love to rubberneck other people’s pain.”
Josh lapses into silence.
I slide a lock of dark hair off Sydney’s forehead.
Without waking, she captures my hand with her own and holds it against her cheek.
She hates to sleep without me. Hates it.
I only keep this stupid fucking hospital bed here because Josh’s dad recommended it and reminded me that she wasn’t capable of giving consent to sleep in the same bed beside me.
I’m not sure if he thought I’d be too depraved to sleep beside her safely, if it’s just protocol, or if he was concerned she’d be afraid to wake up next to me.
But it’s led to many days and nights just like this, of me, half sitting, half sprawled on the edge of her bed, unwilling to move away when she needed my touch. And when I desperately needed hers.
Josh doesn’t know her. The highlight reels they’re showing to punch home the tragedy of how Markov laid her low aren’t enough to understand her.
“The week before she was taken, she sat in a diner with me and explained molecular polarity using salt packets and straws. I stretched it out forever just so she’d keep talking with that light in her eyes,” I say.
Josh scratches the back of his head, his dark eyes troubled. “She lied when she said she knew her age. She was more afraid of what would happen if she went with them than if she stayed.”
“Yes.” I speak through the lump lodged in my throat. “Tell me she’s coming back from this. I need her to come back.”
He takes a long time to answer. “Before last week, I expected the next time we met to be your funeral.”
I flinch, but he doesn’t try to soften the blow.
“I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I’m not sure about this. It might be better for the two of you to handle things away from each other,” he says.
I shake my head, not surprised by the words, but hurt, when I shouldn’t be. “You’re wrong.”
“It wouldn’t be the first time. You’ve stayed sober eight years,” he says.
“Eight years, four months.”
“She married you. She called your number first for help, and she held on to you in that hospital room.” He indicates the way Sydney holds my hand to her cheek. “You’re the only one she trusts at all, even if it takes sleep for her to realize it. I have to believe it means something.”
“It’s not enough.”
Josh watches me and visibly weighs his words.
“We were ten years old, and I knew you were dying, no matter what your parents said. Mom brought me to visit you, and you scared the hell out of me. You stared into space. You cried. You wouldn’t talk when I asked you a question.
Wouldn’t play. If someone turned on the TV, you told us to shut it off. ”
“They shouldn’t have exposed you to that. It’s too much to ask a kid to deal with once, let alone for months.”
“They didn’t ask me to do it. I insisted, and I was glad I did. But it wasn’t fast. I visited you for twenty-four days straight before you let me so much as read to you.”
“You were a good friend. You deserved better than what I put you through when I was drinking,” I say.
“We all did.”
“I—” I force myself not to say the words. He knows I’m sorry. Before he blocked my number, he wrote me back: Stop apologizing and be a better man.
“You don’t know where this is going with Sydney. It’s early. Whatever happens, you adjust. Don’t look for a way to rewind the clock,” he says. “Look for a path forward.”