Chapter 18
Ihad to give my head a shake at how this day was turning out as, by far, one of the worst. I felt like karma was a man kicking my ass and nothing I did was right. Mind you, those days were so rare, usually everything I did worked out in the best possible ways for everyone, but since this thing with Gabe and I, nothing had worked out the way I wanted.
I realized that since working at GH, I controlled nothing and that was what was hitting me at the moment, a hard-earned epiphany I’d rather not have. If my situation had been the least bit funny, I’d be laughing my ass off at the two knuckleheads who kidnapped me right out front of my apartment. They weren’t big Russian mafia dudes with rippling muscles, or sketchy Americans ex-military gone rogue. No, I got kidnapped by two skinny, good-old boys with poor hygiene and half a brain between the two of them.
Those facts didn’t lessen the fear I felt. Being tied up, on a beat up old couch which I swore had vermin buried beneath its cushions, followed by two smelly, pimply, pretty sure drug addicts, who were shaky and had a gun pointed in my face was enough to have me in tears and scared shitless. I’d managed to press the panic button on my bracelet, before my arms were savagely pulled behind me, and I prayed to anyone listening that Gabriel wasn’t so mad at me that he’d ignore that it had been activated.
After tossing me onto the couch, and threatening me, they retreated to what I assumed was the kitchen, because I heard rattling like dishes being pulled from a cupboard. Nothing seemed anything like the international spy books I loved to read. I determined that despite the lack of anything resembling a proper kidnapping, someone had ordered it, which meant I should remain unharmed until that someone showed up or asked for something like information. I wondered several times if my being kidnapped was because of the guy we were protecting, or something else regarding Gabe, or GH in general.
Worrying about this gave me plenty of time to redirect the desperate emotions from taking over. It couldn’t be GH in general, this couldn’t be a coincidence on the heels of someone getting away and this happening. But these guys didn’t fit with the ones who had almost run us off the bridge and they’d seemed determined to kill us, not kidnap us.
It was all too much and I closed my eyes and focused on my breathing, finally accepting the fact that I knew nothing about anything. That momentary freedom ended when I began replaying the jobs I’d organized to date. They were all fresh enough for me to recall and even though I only organized their schedules and the delivery of goods required to get the job done, I’d never considered the danger of what all of that meant. Never had I contemplated what that looked like in the real world. Somehow I’d managed to compartmentalize my work from the reality I lived in.
Now, an entirely new reality had set in, and it wasn’t just being in a strange place with kidnappers, or even the chase from earlier. Ever since I’d met Gabriel, everything had changed for me. I was not the woman who’d left Europe to begin a new career in the United States and work for my best friend’s best friend. It was so surreal!
With time to consider my actions today, I had to concede that Gabriel had been right all along about security and safety, and I’d ignored him with a laugh and flick of my hand like he was being way over the top.
I swore if he managed to save me, I’d apologize and stop calling him paranoid all the time. In fact, I’d go further than that. I would promise to follow every rule he set down from now on, that was, if he still wanted me. My behavior was because of the upset, coupled by my hurt of him running from what we’d shared that night in his apartment. It’s like he knew I was going to tell him I loved him and ran for the hills. Gabriel was right about that as well. I’d filled in to punish him. I’d filled in to prove I was right and he was wrong, but the opposite had happened and now I’d be eating humble pie if I got free.
A chill moved down my spine when I thought back to how angry he was and bewildered by my reaction to what he said. If I could do things over, I would have done what I wanted, thrown myself into his arms, begged for forgiveness and we would have gone home and screwed for two or three days.
“Oh, Gabe, I’m so sorry,” I muttered quietly.
Meatheads One and Two entered the room. They looked dead inside and I wondered for the briefest of moments what their lives had been like to cause them to wind up here, doing this to me. The first guy sat down opposite me and the other hovered close.
“If you want to walk away with all your limbs, you’ll tell us where you dropped off your passenger.” His tone was deadly serious. I sure as hell had pegged them wrong. Just another failure to add to today”s stack of bad decisions and misconceptions.
Panic welled inside of me and I began to gasp for breath… Breathe, Rose, just breathe.
The guy hovering gripped my ponytail, and pulled so hard, I yelped with pain. He leaned over me, and with my head bent back and my limbs tied, I had nowhere to go. His horrible breath filled my nostrils and I thought I would choke.
“Where did you drop off the passenger?”
Tears leaked from my eyes, more from the pain of my scalp being ripped than the asshole doing the damage.
“I don’t know. The bodyguard told me to pull over in an alleyway right after we lost you. They got out and left. I swear that’s all I know. I’m just the driver who was hired through a temp agency. I don’t even know those men.”
Onion Breath released me and the two of them left the room. This was it. They would phone their boss and when they told him I didn’t know anything, they would either torture me or kill me, or torture and then kill me.
Where are you, Gabe? I pretended he could hear me and mumbled everything in my heart and mind, ending with asking for forgiveness for not accepting his rules and as a result, leaving myself vulnerable and open to attack.
I strained to hear the conversation in the other room, but all that came through was the faint buzzing of voices. I heard glass breaking. What the hell? I tried to stand, but with my feet tied, I fell forward and with no hands to break my fall, I hit the floor hard. When I heard an explosion from the other room, I rolled myself back behind the couch, praying it was the good guys, my guy.
I promise to be a good girl. I promise to be the best sub in the world to my man, just please God, don’t let me die.
I squeezed my eyes shut when I heard footsteps come into the room.
“There she is.”
That sounded like Lincoln. I opened one eye and saw Lincoln standing above me wearing a big grin.
“Hey, princess, fancy meeting you in this dung heap. Over here, Gabe!” he hollered loudly.
I managed to smile up at him and then Gabe reached for me and scooped me up in his arms, and immediately, I began to cry. He held me tightly to his chest and carried me outside. Placing me on the hood of the car, he cut away the rope binding my arms and feet.
“I’m so sorry, Gabriel,” I said once he was done and held my tear-filled gaze. “Thank you for rescuing me.” He didn’t say a word, but as he placed me in the safety of his car, and buckled the seat belt across me, I could see the effects of the strain I’d put him under. I cried harder as we pulled away, leaving Lincoln and the rest of the team behind to deal with the aftermath.
Gabriel drove straight to the hospital, even though I told him I was fine. He gave me a look that told me to tread lightly and after that, I didn’t say anything to counter his directions. In a way, I was trying to prove I was capable of listening even though I had my own opinion about what was going on.
He must have called ahead because when we arrived, I was hustled into a private area, two of our men already there standing guard. “Does this mean the threat isn’t over?”
“No, Rose, this is what security looks like. Someone went after my woman, and I’m doing what I need to and ensuring nothing else goes wrong.”
I blushed, embarrassed by his words, and for the first time in my life, didn’t know what to say in return.
After hours of every test imaginable and a host of questions asked more than once, I was ready to go home and soak in a tub. The anger and fear from earlier had morphed for me into a desire to share my heart with the only man who would ever hold it, Gabe. But other than his comment about being his woman and security, he hadn’t spoken a word, remaining quiet during the question and answer period with the cops, except for when the conversation turned to the rescue operation. The way he told it was so cut and dry, that the policeman taking his statement didn’t have any questions afterward.
If I was allowed to keep my job after today’s fiasco, I would take a page out of Gabe’s playbook where saying nothing is more. When we were finally allowed to leave, Gabe carried me to his vehicle.
“I can walk,” I said but snuggled into his chest. He responded by gripping me tighter until we were in the car. Finally alone, I tried again to apologize.
“I’m so sorry for not listening to you, Gabriel. I fucked up and I know it. I was so angry at the way you ran away and left things. It’s no excuse, I realize that but, please know that I’m really sorry for everything.”
Gabe didn’t utter a word to me, neither accepting or denying my apology and I felt off-balance even more than earlier. Why wouldn’t he respond, even if it was to tell me we were done, were through?
He buckled me in and got behind the wheel. The trip to our apartment was spent in silence, giving me plenty of time to soak in misery. I’d totally screwed up with the only man I’d ever want anything serious with. How could someone so smart be so stupid? I leaned my head against the cool window and shut my eyes as silent tears continued to leak and drip onto my chest. It was over, it was clear from his behavior. I was grieving when he parked the car.
I was silent when he lifted me from his vehicle and pressed the button for his penthouse, instead of my apartment. If this was a sign that he would forgive me, I’d accept any punishment he dealt me. For a moment, hope sprung in my heart and the tears abated. When the elevator closed and we were alone in his apartment, he placed me gently on my feet. Still in my flats, I was over a foot shorter than him but the size difference didn’t hinder me from caving to desperation. “Please, Gabe, say something.”
“I love you!” he shouted at me.
I froze. He loved me? His stance, and expression said it all, he needed to feel me as badly as I needed to feel him. I ripped off my shirt and toed off my shoes while he stripped, even faster than me. Flesh crashed against flesh, and I knew fate had driven us into the other’s arms. How else could two stubborn people who needed a huge calamity to finally admit their feelings for each other come together?
His large hands encompassed my ass cheeks and he squeezed them, lifting me up so I could wrap my legs around his waist and lock my ankles. Our lips crashed together, his tongue pillaging my mouth with a desperation I’d never felt before.
Pulling back, I said, “I love you, too.”