51. Audra
Everything is fuzzy around the edges when I wake up.
The room looks like a hospital—crisp white sheets, monitors beeping softly, IV line in my arm—but there are no windows.
Just smooth, reinforced walls and the faint hum of air filtration.
My head feels heavy, like it's filled with cotton and static.
I try to piece together where I am and why everything hurts.
The smallest sound—a tiny, raspy breath—escapes me, and instantly Gabe is at my side. "Audra!"
He's leaning over the bed, eyes wide and desperate.
He looks like absolute shit. Dark circles run under his eyes, his skin is grayish and drawn, and an ugly, stitched gash runs along the side of his head.
The eye on that side is swollen almost completely shut.
Dark stubble shadows his hollowed-out cheeks, and he's still wearing the same blood-stained shirt from the bar.
But it's him. Alive.
"Gabe…" I breathe out, the name cracking on my dry throat like a prayer.
I try to lift my arms for him, but they're too heavy. There's no strength left in me. My body feels like it weighs a thousand pounds, and suddenly, I'm so thirsty my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
Gabe takes my hand immediately, brings it to his lips, and kisses my knuckles with trembling reverence. His voice is rough, shredded with exhaustion and leftover terror. "For a moment, I thought I lost you there."
A tired, shaky smile pulls at my lips. "Right back at you."
Something passes between us in that moment—deep, electric, undeniable—a current that settles straight into my soul. How could I not have seen it? How could I not have admitted it earlier? This man is my life. My destiny.
Pete… I'm sorry, Pete.
He was a placeholder. A safe, gentle chapter that ended long before the bullet took him.
I'll always mourn him; despite his faults, he was kind, he tried, and he gave me stability when I needed it most. But what I feel for Gabe is so powerful, so all-consuming, there is no room left for anything else.
It burns brighter than grief, brighter than guilt, brighter than every careful, quiet year I spent convincing myself that good enough was enough.
Gabe is my fire. And I want to burn with him for the rest of my life.
"What happened?" I whisper, voice hoarse.
"Do you need anything?" he asks at the same time.
He's still kissing my fingers, my knuckles, like he can't stop touching me.
I manage another weak smile. "Thirsty…"
He moves instantly, producing a cup of water with a straw like he had it waiting.
Carefully—so carefully—he slides an arm behind my shoulders and helps me sit up a little.
The movement makes the room spin and my head throb, but the cool liquid sliding down my throat feels like heaven. Almost as good as the man holding me.
I drink slowly, eyes never leaving his battered face.
When I've had enough, he sets the cup aside and pulls me gently back against his chest, cradling me like I'm something precious and breakable.
For a long moment, we just stay like that, his steady heartbeat under my ear, his fingers stroking through my hair, my bandaged hand resting over his heart.
"I love you," I whisper against his shirt, the words slipping out, easy and true. "I'm so in love with you, Gabe. I don't care how fast or how wrong it looks to anyone else. You're it for me."
He makes a low, broken sound and tightens his arms around me, pressing his lips to the top of my head.
His voice is thick when he answers. "I love you more, baby.
More than I know how to say. When I saw you in that chair…
when I thought you were dying…" He swallows hard.
"I've never been so scared in my fucking life.
Not even when we lost Catarina. You're my whole world, Audra. Don't ever scare me like that again."
I tilt my head up just enough to look at his damaged face, the swollen eye, the ugly stitches, the exhaustion carved into every line, and I feel my chest overflow with unstoppable fierceness.
"I won't," I promise softly. "As long as you don't."
He leans down and kisses me, slowly, carefully, full of everything we almost lost. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine, breathing me in like I'm oxygen.
Slowly, the fog in my head starts to lift.
Pieces come back in fragments: the bar, the blood, the gunshot, Gabe collapsing, the terror that ripped through me when I thought he was dead.
But the clearest image, the one that hits me like a punch to the chest, is Brick lying on the floor with that neat hole in his forehead.
Oh shit.
I swallow hard, my throat still raw. "I'm so sorry about Brick. I know you guys were close."
Gabe nods. The exhaustion and grief are carved deep into his face, but he doesn't pull away from me. "Yeah… he was…"
He stays quiet for a beat, then something shifts in his expression, like he's remembering another loose end. "I still have Salazar in the basement."
He looks at me, waiting. Watching. Like he's ready to hand me the revenge I once screamed for.
It's still there, but not as hot as it was before, right after the warehouse.
I still want to see him die for what he did to Pete, but it's not that all-consuming fire that I felt before.
That's reserved now for the so-called Collector.
The man who killed my husband is just a cheap substitute for El Recaudador.
I reach for Gabe's hand, my bandaged fingers clumsy but determined. "I want him dead."
Gabe studies me for a long second, then nods once, understanding flickering in his eyes. "You got it, baby."
A small, quiet reassurance settles in my chest. Salazar won't walk away from this. It won't bring Pete back, but knowing the man responsible will be gone soon… It's enough.
I shift a little against the pillows, wincing at the pull in my stitched forearm. "So, who is this Collector?"
Gabe takes a deep breath. His features harden, and death is glaring at me through his eyes. "That's what we're trying to figure out."
"Okay, give me the rundown," I prod.
"It's a long story," he tries to evade.
I manage to lift my bandaged hand a little, gesturing weakly at the windowless room around us. "I don't think I'm going anywhere for a while."
He huffs a tired laugh, the corner of his mouth twitching in that familiar half-grin. "Fair enough."
He reaches for the cup of water first, helping me sip slowly through the straw. Then he hands me a small juice box, the kind with a little straw already poked in. "You need some sugar."
I drink it gratefully. The sweetness helps clear some more of the haze. When I'm done, Gabe settles in beside me on the narrow bed, carefully scooping me into his arms so my head rests on his chest. His heartbeat is steady under my ear, the most comforting sound in the world right now.
He exhales slowly, his fingers stroking through my hair as he begins.
"The Collector… he's been playing a game with us for a while now.
It started small, cut product, dead addicts, messages meant to make us look weak.
Then it got personal. He sent me a video of Catarina…
screaming. Begging for answers while they tortured her.
He knows things he shouldn't. Has reach he shouldn't. "
Gabe's voice stays low, controlled, but I can feel the tension in his body, the way his arm tightens around me. I'm still confused about what he's telling me about Catarina and the kid. But I wait him out, deciding to let him tell me the story in his own time before I ask any more questions.
"He wants everything we built. And he's willing to burn it all down to get it. He's been watching us—watching me—for a long time. "
He keeps it vague, protective, shielding me from the worst of it even now.
I listen quietly, my fingers tracing slow circles on his chest. The man who did all of this—the one who turned Louie, who orchestrated the ambush, who almost took Gabe from me—is still out there.
Still pulling strings. And we'll get him. I know we will.
But right now, wrapped in Gabe's arms, listening to his heartbeat and feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest, none of it feels as terrifying as it should. Because he's here. Alive.
Holding me like I'm the only thing that matters.
"Thank you for coming for me," I whisper.
Gabe's eyes soften. He leans down and presses a gentle kiss to my forehead, then my lips, careful of the split one.
"Always," he murmurs against my mouth. "Every. Single. Fucking. Time."
I snuggle deeper into his side, letting the steady rhythm of his heart lull me. For the first time since the nightmare began, I feel safe. Not because the danger is gone. But because the man holding me would walk through hell itself to keep me in his arms. And I would do the same for him.
The door opens quietly, and a doctor who introduces himself as Doc Altera steps in, tablet in hand, looking as calm and professional as any physician I've ever met.
And I've met a few. Thanks to Mom. A nurse, Betty, according to her name tag, follows right behind him, checking the monitors with quick efficiency.
"All looks good," the doctor announces without preamble. "Stable vitals, and the worst of the bleeding is under control. You can go home in a few hours if you want, as soon as the last bag of blood finishes running through that IV."
I notice the IV line still dripping steadily into my arm. The cool fluid feels strange, almost comforting in its steadiness.
Then the doctor adds, almost casually, "I would like to do an ultrasound to make sure the baby is okay."
The room goes completely still.
Baby?
Gabe and I stare at him in perfect, bewildered silence.
Doc Altera glances between us, eyebrows raised. "Yes. We did a routine pregnancy test when you came in. You're pregnant. Just a few weeks, far enough along to be detected, but still very new."
Pregnant.
The word hits me like a freight train. My heart feels like it's going to explode out of my chest. After all these years.
After years and years of trying—or so I thought at the time—with Pete, of crying every month when my period came, of wondering what was wrong with me, of Pete's quiet reassurances that it didn't matter.
And then… one night with Gabe.
It must have happened that first time. The night before I ran. The nausea I've been blaming on stress suddenly makes perfect sense. The way certain smells turned my stomach. The exhaustion. The dizziness. All of it.
Even though we've already talked about it, for a fraction of a moment, I worry.
What if Gabe reacts the same way Pete did?
Pete was so determined not to share me. So terrified of the idea of a baby that he went behind my back and got a vasectomy in secret.
He lied to me for years. What if Gabe… what if this news makes him pull away?
What if he doesn't want to share me either?
What if… I dare a glance at him, heart in my throat.
I shouldn't have worried. Shouldn't have doubted. He beams. Literally beams. Where his skin was all gray and exhausted before, it's flushed now with color. The grim, haunted expression has transformed into the purest, most radiant joy I've ever seen on his face.
"A baby?" His lips form the words without sound, eyes wide and shining, the swollen one still half-shut but sparkling anyway. Just like that, the worry evaporates. Gabe is not Pete.
Not on any level.
Not in the way he looks at me like I'm his entire universe. Not in the way he came for me, knowing it might cost him his life. Not in the way he holds me now, protective, reverent, like this news is the greatest gift he's ever been given instead of something to fear or hide.
But then the worry for the baby itself settles in, quiet but heavy.
What if the stress, the beating, the blood loss…
What if it harmed the tiny life growing inside me?
It's only a few weeks old. So fragile. So new.
I press my bandaged hand instinctively over my stomach, as if I can shield it from everything that's already happened.
The doctor clears his throat gently, sensing the shift in the room. "An ultrasound will tell us more, but early signs look strong. We'll be careful and monitor everything closely. But right now, the baby appears to be doing just fine."
Gabe nods, but he doesn't let go of me. His hand covers mine on my stomach, warm and steady, his thumb is stroking slow circles, already promising this child the world.
I look up at him again—battered, stitched, exhausted, and still the most beautiful man I've ever seen—and feel my chest overflow with joy.
"Gabe…" I whisper, having to clear my throat because my voice is thick with tears and wonder.
He leans down and kisses me, slow and deep and full of everything he feels. When he pulls back, his forehead rests against mine, and his eyes are shining.
"Our baby," he breathes. "Fuck, Audra… I never let myself hope for this. You're giving me everything."
I laugh through the tears, shaky and overwhelmed, my free hand comes up to touch his swollen cheek. "I'm scared. For the baby. With everything that's happened…"
"I know," he murmurs, kissing me again, softer this time. "But I've got you. Both of you. Nothing is going to touch either of you. Not ever again."