Chapter 12
Chapter Twelve
For a moment, I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but stare at the empty wall where my heart used to live.
Then I see what’s hanging on the side wall.
It’s smaller than Caged, maybe two feet by three, but it dominates the room with the force of a scream. The style is unmistakably Gabriel’s—I’d know his brushwork anywhere, the way he layers color, the fierce energy that pulses beneath every stroke.
But this...
This is nothing like anything he’s ever created.
A butterfly. Wings spread wide, caught mid-flight. The colors are gorgeous—deep purples and blues, veins of gold running through like rivers of light.
It would be beautiful, if not for the hands.
Human hands grip the butterfly from either side. And the wings—those stunning, luminous wings—are being torn away from the body. I can almost hear the sound. The delicate membrane ripping. The creature’s silent scream.
Monarch.
The word surfaces through my horror. Monarch butterfly. Monarch Casino.
He’s telling me he’s going to tear me apart.
“Jesus Christ.” David’s voice is hoarse as he steps up behind me. “What the hell is that?”
“A message.” My voice sounds strange. Distant. “From Gabriel.”
“Do you like it?”
I spin around so fast I nearly lose my balance.
Gabriel is in the arched entryway, leaning against the frame. His arms are crossed, and he’s watching me with those ice blue eyes. He’s dressed in black again—black jeans paired with a black Henley, the sleeves pushed up to his elbows, revealing forearms roped with muscle and lined with scars.
David steps in front of me, his body tense. “How long have you been here?”
“Long enough.” Gabriel pushes off the doorframe, easing into the room with that predatory grace I used to find thrilling.
Now it just makes my pulse spike with something between fear and fury.
“Came in early. I still have my codes.” His smile is cold.
“You never changed them, Izzy. Sentimental of you.”
The old nickname hits like a slap. He’s tarnishing it now—turning something tender into a taunt.
“Where is it?” I demand. “Where’s Caged?”
He looks at David. “If you want to have a chat, ask your bodyguard to leave.”
I tilt my head, indicating that David can go.”
“Fuck, no,” he says.
“Language.” Gabe tsks.
“Please,” I say. “David, please. Just to the front. He won’t hurt me. Not here.”
David starts to speak, but Gabriel speaks first. “She’s right. Let’s call this a detente. Now go.”
“Please,” I say, when it’s clear David’s not moving. This time, he agrees, and with one curt nod, he moves past Gabe, his footsteps disappearing down the hall.
“Where?” I snap. “Where is Caged?”
“Safe.”
“That painting wasn’t yours to take.”
“Isn’t it?” He moves closer, and I know I should step back, should maintain distance, but my feet won’t cooperate.
“I created it. I poured my soul into it. I painted you in it—every line, every shadow, every desperate reach toward a light you’d never touch.
” His voice drops. “And then you took everything else from me. So yes, Isabella. I’d say it’s mine. ”
“I didn’t take anything from you!” The words tear out of me. “And I’m done defending myself.”
“And you built a shrine.” He gestures at the walls around us. “Yes, I can see that. Very touching. The grieving girlfriend, keeping the flame alive.” His lip curls. “Tell me, did you cry real tears when you hung these pieces? Or were you just calculating how much they’d be worth?”
“I loved you, you son-of-a-bitch. I still do. So dammit, don’t make me hate you.”
He lifts a brow. “Touchy.”
I fight the urge to knee him in the balls, then say, very calmly, “I gave your work an audience. I found good homes for it—people who actually appreciate what you created. And the money?” I step closer, driven by a rage I can barely contain.
“I already told you about the scholarships and grants, and unless you’re a total idiot, you checked up on that.
So you know that hundreds of young artists are getting chances they never would have had otherwise.
All in LaBete’s name. I did that, you arrogant prick.
I did it because I wanted your legacy to mean something. ”
Something flickers in his expression. There and gone, too fast to read.
“I hate that you believe I could hurt you,” I say. “That you could look at me and see a murderer.”
Something shifts behind his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or doubt. Then it’s gone, locked away behind that frozen mask.
But it was there. I know it. And that little thing called hope flutters in my belly.
“You decided for me. You and the men who left me bleeding at that cabin. Your eyes watching me die.”
“Goddammit. Did that fire kill your brain cells? I didn’t hurt you. I would never hurt you. I didn’t know what happened to you. I spent months trying to find answers, and every door I opened slammed shut in my face.”
My voice breaks, and I struggle to find it again.
“I gave up,” I finally whisper. “Eventually, I just gave up. I brush away hot tears. “Maybe if I’d kept it up another day, another week, I would have found you. But I stopped. I stopped because I let myself believe you were dead. And I was wrong.” The tears flow freely now.
“Months,” he says. “You investigated for months.”
“Yes. Of course. I thought someone had murdered the man I was going to spend my life with, and I was supposed to just accept the official story and move on?”
I shake my head. “I did everything I could think of. I hired private investigators. I bribed police contacts. I dug through my father’s files when he wasn’t looking.”
He’s watching me with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. “Your father’s files.”
“He hated you—we both know that. And I know he used to go through my room. So maybe he knew about the cabin.” I shrug. “But I didn’t find anything. Not surprising. We both know my father’s the kind of prick who knows how to hold his secrets close.”
“You hate him.”
It’s a statement, not a question, but I answer anyway. “That should hardly be news to you. The only reason I’m still in his orbit is to get the Monarch. Get it, cut it loose from the Hart Properties portfolio, and build it into something of my own.”
“The Monarch,” he says, with a tinge of menace in his voice.
“You mean the property I’m going to dismantle piece by piece?
The gaming commission investigations are just the beginning.
By the time I’m done, it’ll be worth pennies on the dollar.
And then I’ll buy what’s left of your father’s empire and burn it to the ground.
Sorry, sweetheart. Your inheritance is my prey. ”
It takes a moment for the full, horrible truth to sink in.
The Monarch is my escape. My future.
And he’s going to destroy it.
I force myself to hold his gaze. “What am I in all this?”
Something flickers in his eyes—there and gone. “Sweetheart, you’re the whole point.”
“Then look at me.” I step closer, refusing to flinch. “Really look at me. And tell me you see a killer.”
He doesn’t answer.
“You can’t,” I whisper. “Because you know. Somewhere underneath all that rage, you know I didn’t do this.”
He’s so close now. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off his body, smell the familiar scent of him underneath something darker, something new.
I lift my chin, defiant even as my heart pounds. “Someday you’re going to realize how wrong you are. And when you do, I hope it destroys you. I hope the guilt eats you alive.”
He moves so fast I don’t see it coming. One second, I’m spitting fury at him, and the next, his hand is fisted in my hair, and his mouth is on mine.
The kiss is brutal. Punishing. Meant to prove that he still has power over me, that my body will betray me even when my mind knows better.
And god help me, it does.
I should push him away. I should bite and scratch and fight. But instead, my hands are fisting in his shirt, pulling him closer, and a noise escapes my throat that sounds too much like a moan.
He breaks the kiss as suddenly as he started it, then steps back, leaving me swaying, breathless, my lips bruised and tingling from the feel of his beard. Without thinking, I reach up, my fingers brushing his face, no longer smooth and familiar, but rough and dangerous.
“You still want me,” he says. It’s not a question. “Even now. Even knowing what I came here to do.”
I can’t deny it. The evidence is all over me. My face. My ragged breathing. The way my body is still leaning toward his like a flower toward the sun.
“I hate you,” I whisper.
“But you want me anyway. And that,” he says, “is going to be your downfall.”
“You’re wrong about me. You’re going to hate yourself when you finally realize the truth.”
“Sweetheart, I already see the truth in your eyes.”
He starts to walk away, then turns back. He nods toward the butterfly, still screaming silently on the wall. “Consider it a reminder. Of what happens to beautiful things that get too close to hands that want to destroy them.”
As soon as he’s left the back room, I slide to the floor, my hands shaking. A moment later, David rushes back in. “Bella? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine.” But I’m not, and we both know it.
“Did he hurt you?”
I touch my lips. “Not the way you mean.”
David looks at me for a long moment, then holds out his hand. “Come on,” he says quietly. “Let’s get you upstairs.”
When I’m back in my suite, I call Harper and tell her everything as my tears flow. She lets me cry and says all the right things, but it’s not enough. Nothing will be enough until Gabriel trusts me again.
If he ever trusts me again.
Mostly, I’m afraid that the longer he pushes me away, the smaller our chance becomes. Because as much as I love him, I’m not going to wait for a man who hates me, no matter how certain I am that he’s hating for all the wrong reasons.
“It’s going to work out,” Harper says when I tell her all that. Except I don’t believe her. Not anymore. I’m not even sure she believes it herself.
Still, I haven’t given up yet. “Can you talk to Leo for me? He sent the text about Gabriel being alive. He might know something about what happened to him.
I hear a light tapping, then her perky, “Done. Anything else?”
Some of the tension drains from my body simply from knowing that she’s got my back.
“Yeah. A list of everyone who knew about the Aspen cabin. Gabriel thinks I was the only one, but I can’t possibly have been.
At the very least, my father must have found out somehow.
How can I dig into my father’s movements around the time of Gabriel’s death?
Where he was, who he met with, unusual activity. That kind of thing.”
She sucks in air. “That’s going to require some creative sneakiness. Your dad’s no idiot. He’s going to keep his dirty laundry well-hidden.”
“I know. But there has to be something. No one covers their tracks perfectly. I just don’t know how to find it.”
“Me neither,” she says. For that kind of digging, you need deep connections and a lot of pull. The Grimm name might do it. I can ask Leo, and —Oh! Hold the phone. Remember when I handled the mess with that actress? The stalker thing?”
“Vaguely.”
“Doesn’t matter. Point is, I ended up working with a PI, and he happens to owe me a favor of the humongous kind. Any doors he can’t open on his own, we’ll get Leo on it.”
I actually laugh, and it feels really good. “So, you’ll call in that favor, and then I’ll be the one owing you.”
“Way of the world, my friend. Want me to set it up?”
“Yes, please. And if I haven’t mentioned it, you are the best.”
“Well, duh.” I can actually hear her grin. But the humor fades as she continues. “What if he does find proof? What if your father really did try to kill Gabe?”
I stop pacing, then gaze out the window at the Atlantic City skyline. “Then I’ll do whatever I can to help him take my father down.”
The words are the absolute truth, but what I don’t tell her is that my father could swear on every Bible in the world that I wasn’t involved, and Gabriel still wouldn’t believe him or me.
He’s no longer the man who used to call me Izzy. Who painted me reaching for light I couldn’t touch. Who promised me forever.
Now, he doesn’t trust me. Not yet. And even if he comes fully around, for years, he truly believed that I tried to kill him, and that lack of trust is like a knife in my gut.
He thinks I hurt him. But he’s hurting me right now.
And I’m not sure we can ever come back from that.