18. Gabriel
The room settles into a controlled kind of chaos. Machines hum. Monitors beep. People move in tight, efficient patterns. They've hooked her up to everything: EKG leads, IV, blood pressure cycling every few minutes.
She looks smaller in that bed. But not weak.
"I'm cold," Stacy says, her voice is thin but insistent.
A nurse is already moving. "I'll get you a blanket."
She returns within seconds, wrapping it around her carefully. Stacy tugs at it immediately, adjusting it to her liking. "No, higher. My shoulders."
The nurse complies. I watch it all from a step back. Out of the way. But not uninvolved.
Just when Stacy is all settled in, after several more blankets are brought in, surrounding her just right, she announces, "I need the bathroom."
The room pauses. A doctor glances at the monitors. "Ma'am, we'd prefer to run imaging first?—"
"I need the bathroom," she repeats.
Not louder. Not panicked. Just demanding.
The entire room shifts again. Two nurses step in. "Okay, let's get you unhooked for a moment?—"
Wires are disconnected. The IV gets adjusted. Three techs roll in with portable equipment—X-ray, ultrasound—they stop when they see the situation. Without a word, they wait. Everyone is waiting.
On her.
Audra steps forward. "I've got her."
Stacy clutches her hand immediately. "You help me."
Not the nurses. Not the staff. Her.
The nurses exchange a look but step back.
Audra helps her sit up slowly, carefully, murmuring something soft I don't quite catch.
I watch. And I understand. This isn't just need.
It's control. Subtle. Effortless. She doesn't raise her voice.
Doesn't demand loudly. Doesn't create a scene.
But somehow, she has two doctors, three nurses, and three techs standing by, waiting on her next word.
Impressive.
And dangerous.
My gaze sharpens. Because I recognize it.
Manipulation. Not the sloppy kind. Not desperation.
This is precision. She knows exactly what she's doing.
And she's very, very good at it. My eyes flick to Audra as she's helping her mother.
Steadying her. Already bending around her needs without question.
Yeah. That tracks. A familiar irritation settles low in my chest. Not at the situation.
At the pattern. Because I've seen this before, too. People who take. And people who give.
The ones who take?
They don't stop.
And the ones who give?
They don't stop either.
Not until there's nothing left. My body tightens. Audra just lost her husband. Watched him die. Nearly died herself. And here she is, holding her mother together. Again.
If Stacy breaks her now… my thoughts cut off sharply. I don't deal in hypotheticals. I deal in outcomes. And right now, she's still standing. Still functioning. Still fighting. I can't decide which concerns me more. The woman manipulating everyone around her, or the one holding her hand.
A few hours later, the chaos settles. Or at least it pretends to. The machines still hum. Nurses still move in and out. But the urgency is gone. Replaced by something worse: waiting.
I stand off to the side, arms crossed, watching. Audra sits in a chair next to the bed, her hand wrapped around her mother's. She looks… wrecked. Pale. Exhausted. Like if she lets go for even a second, she'll collapse.
A doctor fussed over the bruise on her face earlier. Turned to me. Opened his mouth, but when he saw my expression, he thought better of it. And closed it without voicing whatever he was going to say.
Now I step out into the hallway and corner another one. "What's the situation?"
He exhales, already looking tired. He runs a hand over the back of his neck. "Everything looks… fine."
My eyes narrow. "Define fine."
"Her kidneys are a little off. Blood pressure is elevated. But nothing that explains what you described." He hesitates. "All tests came back negative."
"So no stroke?"
"Nothing we could confirm," he admits.
That doesn't sit right. At all.
"She had symptoms," I say flatly. "Slurred speech. Motor issues."
"I believe you," he's quick to add. "No proof doesn't mean it didn't happen."
"Then explain."
He shifts his weight. "There's something called a TIA—a transient ischemic attack. Sometimes people call it a mini-stroke." He gestures vaguely. "A clot briefly blocks blood flow to part of the brain, causes stroke-like symptoms… then moves on or dissolves before permanent damage is done."
My medical knowledge is zero, so I have to ask. "That wouldn't show up?"
"Not always," he admits. "Especially if it's already passed by the time we run imaging. It can look completely normal afterward."
So, it happened. And now it's just… gone?
"That's not good enough," I say.
He nods like he expected that. "No, it's not ideal. It also means she's at risk for a larger stroke if?—"
I cut him off. "I want every test done you can think of." He blinks. "And several more after that," I continue. "I want her checked from head to toe."
"Sir—"
"Test her for malaria if you have to," I snap. "I don't give a shit what it costs or how long it takes. I want to know what's wrong with her."
Silence. He studies me for a second. "That's going to be expensive, sir."
I stare him down. "Do I look like I give a shit?"
He nods as understanding finally blooms. "Alright."
No argument. No pushback. He turns and walks off, already pulling out a tablet, issuing orders. Good.
I glance back into the room. At Audra. Still sitting there.
Still holding on. Still not breaking. I bite back a curse.
Because I don't like this. Not the uncertainty.
Not the waiting. And definitely not the look in her eyes.
She's running on fumes. And when that runs out, I don't know what's going to be left.
The doctor's words, however, make me realize something else.
Something I hadn't considered before. Expensive.
I send a text to Kale to pull Stacy's bank accounts.
I've looked at Audra's, of course, but not at Stacy's.
Why would I? But now I'm sure the bills have to be stacking up in her account, and I'm also sure Audra and Pete were the ones paying them.
My phone vibrates. If that is Massimo telling me about some bullshit meeting he's called, he'll have to live with disappointment, because I'm not leaving Audra's side. I don't give a shit if the Mexican cartel has marched into Vegas. Massimo and the others can handle it.
Instead of Massimo's name, I see: Unknown number.
Fury rises in my stomach, and I step farther down the hallway before answering. "Yes."
A low chuckle slides through the line. "Salazar was very grateful for the information I gave him."
My eyes narrow. So. That's how. Interesting. "I didn't realize you were doing charity work now. Who tipped you off?"
Another laugh. Amused. Mocking. "You disappoint me, Gabe." Yeah. I bet I do. "You should know better than to ask questions you already understand the answer to."
I do. But right now, I'd rather hear him say it. "You're the rat. You fed him my name."
"I prefer… facilitator."
Heat crawls up the back of my neck. One day I'll find this fucker and he'll beg me to put a bullet through his brain. "That means someone talked," I push. "Or you wouldn't have had anything to sell."
He pauses dramatically. I let him have the moment. "I'm not going to tell you that."
Figures.
"So how did you find out?" I ask anyway.
He laughs again. Soft. Almost pleased. "You already know the answer to that, too."
Yeah. He's everywhere. In the cracks. In the weak links. In the men who think they won't break.
"Careful, Gabe," he continues. "You're starting to sound frustrated."
"I'm starting to sound bored," I correct coldly. "Get to the point."
Another chuckle, as if we are old friends, bantering, which couldn't be further from the truth.
"So, I hear the woman you hope to make your mother-in-law is giving you trouble."
Something in me snaps tight. Cold. Deadly. "Watch your mouth."
He hums. Enjoying this.
"I'd hate for something unfortunate to happen," he continues lightly. "Hospitals can be such… unpredictable places."
My grip on the phone tightens. "Say what you want to say."
"It would be a shame," he goes on, almost conversational now, "if someone accidentally pushed hydralazine into her IV instead of labetalol."
My vision sharpens. Hydralazine—wrong dose, wrong timing—you tank her pressure hard enough, fast enough—it'll kill her. Or make it look like her body did it for you.
My voice drops to ice. "Are you threatening me?"
A soft exhale. "No, Gabe." A beat passes. "I'm educating you."
My teeth grind together. I don't give a shit about Stacy. Not really. But I do care more than I would like to admit about Audra.
Audra!
He knows where she is. My head turns automatically, searching for her.
She's sitting on the edge of the bed. Her mother's legs won't give her much room to sit.
The woman is so small that if she just moved a few inches to the side, it would make Audra more comfortable and not bother the old bat at all.
He clears his throat, and my mind returns to him. He knows she matters. And that? That's a problem. A big one.
"This could all be so much easier," he continues smoothly, "if you stopped fighting me." There it is. The offer. Again. "Work with me, not against me."
I let the silence stretch. Let him think. Let him enjoy it.
"You're still talking," I say quietly. "Which means I haven't found you yet." He lets out another deep chuckle.
"When I do," I add, my voice dropping to something darker, something that doesn't leave room for interpretation, "you're going to wish you never picked up that phone."
That stops the chuckle momentarily. "You always did have a temper."
I got him. He just gave something important away. He knows me. Which means I know him too. And probably, so do the others. "You say that like we're old friends."
Another pause follows, then the line clicks dead.
I lower the phone slowly. My jaw is so tight, it hurts.
My mind is already moving. Fast. Adjusting.
Recalculating. Because this just changed everything.
He knows about Audra. And if he knows, he's going to use her.
Which will never happen. Not even over my dead body because I know my brothers will protect her should anything happen to me.
I turn back toward the room. Toward her. Yeah. This just became personal.
Next, I dial Massimo. "I have something."
"I'm all ears."
"The fucker just called me. We know him."
Massimo takes a sharp inhale. "Who is he?"
"That I don't know yet, but we all had contact before with each other. I feel it in my bones." We've known all along that whatever beef the Collector has with us is personal.
"That helps." Even though I didn't give him what we all want to know, the motherfucker's identity, we've gotten one step closer.
My phone vibrates with an incoming message. Kale. Sending me Stacy's last bank statement. It's worse than I thought. There's no doubt in my mind that Audra's been carrying the weight of those bills for years.
I send another text to my accountant, knowing that within minutes, the bills will be paid off, and the healthy sum of a million dollars will be sitting in Stacy's account. I add more to Audra's account while I'm at it.