Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
The door closed behind them, and Gabriel was alone.
No. Not alone. Never alone. He was with the ghosts. With her face on the wall. With five years of certainty that was starting to crack like ice in spring.
He crossed to the bar. Poured another whiskey. Didn’t drink it.
I still love you, Gabriel. I never stopped.
He closed his eyes, but that just made it worse. Made him see her face when she said it—not defiance, not calculation. Something raw. Something that looked like truth.
But he’d been fooled by that face before. By the daughter who’d turned out to be so very like her father.
Slowly, he moved to sit on the sofa. He tossed back the whiskey, then closed his eyes as the memories pressed against him, pushing forward.
They came whether he wanted them to or not.
Today…well, today maybe he wanted them. Maybe, just maybe, he’d find her in his memories. And maybe what she said would be true. Maybe she hadn’t betrayed him.
He didn’t believe, but he did still hope.
And so he kept his eyes closed as the tide of memories dragged him back into the deep.
Five years ago.
His apartment in Manhattan.
Morning light streaming through the windows.
Izzy curled against him, her hair spread across his chest, one hand tracing lazy patterns on his skin.
“Your birthday’s next month,” she murmured. “What do you want to do?”
“Surprise me.”
She lifted her head, those mismatched eyes—one green, one blue—sparkling with mischief. “A surprise party? You hate parties. For that matter, you hate surprises.”
“I hate parties my father throws. Parties where I have to schmooze investors and pretend I give a damn about quarterly projections.” He tucked a strand of hair behind her ear.
“But a party you throw? With people I like?” He pulled her closer.
“That I could handle. And—this is how sneaky I am—now it won’t be a surprise. ”
She laughed. “Oh, it will be. I just have my work cut out for me.” She was already scheming—he could see it in her eyes.
“I’m going to go completely overboard. You know that, right? There will be balloons. Possibly a theme. And,” she added in a doomsday voice, “there will be games.”
“As long as you’re there.” He pressed a kiss to her forehead. “That’s all I want. Just you.”
“You’re disgustingly romantic.”
“Your fault. You ruined me.”
She laughed—that sweet laugh he’d fallen in love with, bright and real and completely unguarded. “Good. You needed to be ruined. You were too broody before. Someone had to fix you.”
He rolled her beneath him, pinning her wrists above her head. “Fix me, huh?”
“Mmm.” She arched up against him. “Extensive repairs required. Might take years.”
“I’ve got years.” He kissed her then—slow and deep and full of everything he couldn’t say. That he loved her. That he wanted those years. That he’d already talked to a jeweler about a ring.
That she was the only person in his life who made him feel like he could be something other than what his father raised him to be.
With a jolt, he opened his eyes.
Beside him, the whiskey was still untouched. And now his hands were shaking.
A surprise party. Their private joke. Just between them.
Until it wasn’t.
The cabin in Aspen.
Snow falling outside.
He’d gone there to plan—to figure out how he was going to propose. Had the whole thing mapped out. A weekend away, just the two of them. He’d take her to the overlook where they’d watched the sunset on their first trip to Colorado. He’d get down on one knee and—
The door splintered inward.
Three men. Big. Armed. Faces masked and eyes he didn’t recognize.
He fought. Of course, he fought. He was a Grimm—his father had made sure he knew how to handle himself. But it was three against one, and they had guns.
The first bullet took him in the chest before he could get his hands on any of them, and he went down hard.
They were laughing. One of them kicked him onto his back so he could see the cabin’s rough-hewn roof. See them standing over him.
“Hart sends his regards.” The big one crouched down, grinning. “And his daughter? Guess you know now you’ve never been more than a plaything to her. She’s got a special message for you.”
He tried to speak. Tried to tell them they were wrong. Bella would never hurt him.
Then she stepped out of the shadows.
That familiar winter coat. A dark hat pulled to her brows. A woolen scarf wrapped around the lower half of her face so only her eyes were visible. Those beautiful, dual-colored eyes.
“You told her to surprise you,” the man who’d kicked him said, sliding his arm around her waist, then squeezing her breast. “So, surprise, fucker.”
She looked down at him with nothing in those eyes. No grief. No hesitation. Just cold, flat emptiness.
“It was a good ride, but she’s done with you, boy,” Kicker said.
That’s when she raised the gun, and he saw her mother’s gold band on her finger. “Surprise,” she whispered, then fired.
Those eyes were the last thing he saw before the darkness took him. Green and blue, watching him die.
Gabriel slammed the glass down on the bar so hard it cracked.
It was her. He saw her. Those eyes. That ring. That word—surprise—thrown back at him like a knife. Their private moment weaponized. The party she was supposedly planning, turned into the last word he’d ever hear.
Proof that everything they’d had was a lie. That he’d been a fool. A mark. A plaything, just like they said.
She’d been wearing her mother’s ring.
She was the only one who knew about the cabin.
She was the only one who knew about the surprise party.
He’d never told anyone that last part. Not Travis. Not Anissa. Even now, he knew he wouldn’t tell Leo.
He’d take that truth to his grave.
Because if he did tell, Leo would kill her. Or drag her to the cops. Either way, it would be over too fast. Either way, he’d lose control.
And he’d spent years making sure he never lost control again.
He wanted to be the one who destroyed her. Piece by piece. The way she destroyed him. Her gallery. Her reputation. Her family’s empire. He wanted her to watch it all crumble and know that he was the one turning the screws.
He wanted her to suffer.
But now—
I still love you, Gabriel. I never stopped.
He turned at the soft knock at the door, was about to tell whoever it was to get the fuck away, when the door opened, and Travis leaned against the frame.
“I need to start locking that damn thing,” Gabriel said. “They’re gone?”
Travis nodded. “Leo looked like he wanted to punch a wall. The girl looked like she wanted to cry.” A pause. “And you look like hell.”
“I’m fine.”
“You’re a shitty liar.” Travis crossed to the bar, poured himself a drink, and settled into the leather chair. “You want to tell me what that was about?”
“Why? You heard it all.”
“I heard you throw your brother and the woman you’ve been obsessing about for years out of this damn cell you keep yourself locked up in.” He took a sip. “I’m asking why?”
“Because she tried to kill me.”
“Did she?”
Gabriel turned to face him. “You, too? Christ, Travis. You’re the one who fucking saved me. You know these wounds better than I do.”
“The wounds, yeah. But I’ve only just met who you say inflicted them.”
“Fucking, hell, Travis.” He dragged his fingers through his hair. “You know what happened to me. Don’t rewrite history.”
“I think we may have us a Columbus situation here.”
“A what?”
“We thought the world was flat. Now I’m thinking it’s round.”
Gabe rubbed his temples, then sat. He knew perfectly well that he wasn’t going to get Travis to drop it. Whatever it was. “I’m listening.”
I’ve been doing some digging.” Travis’s voice was calm. Level. The same tone he’d used when he found Gabriel half-dead in a snowbank and told him he was going to be fine, even though they’d both known it was probably a lie.
“You know damn well that woman spent months trying to find out what happened to you.” He held up a hand before Gabe could interrupt.
“She hired investigators. Bribed cops. Burned through money like she was printing it to chase leads that went nowhere.” He set down his glass.
“You know it. I know it. When will you get it through your thick skull that those aren’t the actions of a woman who wanted you dead? ”
“She’s playing the grieving princess. Of course, she’s covering her tracks—”
“For five years?” Travis shook his head. “Nobody’s that committed to a lie. And the grief? People I talked to said she was destroyed. Couldn’t eat. Couldn’t sleep. Almost fell apart completely.”
Gabriel didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer. He remembered those months only too well.
The months after Travis pulled him out of that snowbank and drove him to his home in the middle of nowhere.
The months Travis spent stitching him back together—literally.
At first, with the skills he’d learned during his time as a Texas Ranger, and then figuratively, sitting with him through the nightmares, forcing him to eat when he wanted to starve, talking him down when the rage got so bad he couldn’t see straight.
Travis had given up everything to follow Gabe. His store. His quiet life. He’d brought Anissa with him, and they’d helped Gabe build this empire of shadows and violence. Five years of unwavering loyalty, and he’d never once questioned Gabriel’s mission.
Until now.
“Why are you telling me this?” Gabriel’s voice came out rougher than he intended.
“Because I don’t think you’re as sure as you pretend to be.”
“I saw her, Travis.” The words ripped out of him before he could stop them. “I saw her standing over me. I saw her eyes. They’re pretty damn unique. I heard her say—”
He stopped. Swallowed hard.
Travis waited.
“She said surprise.” Gabriel’s voice was barely a whisper. “We’d talked about her throwing me a surprise party. A private conversation. Just the two of us. And she stood over me in the that cabin and said surprise before she pulled the trigger.”
Travis was quiet for a long moment. “You never told me that.”