Chapter 33
Chapter Thirty-Three
Two days pass.
Two days of Gabriel pacing like a caged animal, of terse phone calls with Leo, of silence that feels like a held breath.
He hasn’t touched me since he got my father’s threat. Hasn’t painted. Hasn’t done anything but pace and plan and stare at his phone like he’s waiting for permission to unleash hell.
When I walk in after hours of chasing fires at the Monarch—and finding no evidence of my father or Mina on site at the Casino—I find Gabe shirtless and sweating, beating the shit out of the heavy bag in the corner of his studio, his fists wrapped, his breathing rough, his jaw tight with determination.
He must have been at this for hours, and it looks like he could keep going for hours more. Like an Olympian. Or a machine.
No. Like a weapon honed by five years of fury. Every muscle carved, every movement precise. Shoulders that could carry the weight of the world—and have.
A body I know so well, now coiled with well-honed rage.
I push my worry deep into my gut and try to sound casual when I say, “You promised to take me to The Beast.”
He doesn’t stop punishing the bag. In fact, the blows come faster.
“Not now, Bella.” His breathing is hard. Ragged.
“You said we’d go soon. That was days ago. We’re way past soon.”
I move closer, facing him from the other side of the bag. “You promised to show me all of it. All of you.” I reach out and hold the bag still. “It’s time.”
“Fuck.” The curse sounds ripped out of him, and he steps back. His eyes are so bloodshot they’re practically solid red. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Not really the point.” I move around the bag to his side and draw a breath, softening a little. “Gabe, it’s time.”
Finally, he looks at me and nods, like all along, it was as simple as that. “Fine,” he says, with an edge to his voice. “Let’s go.”
He pulls on a black tee that clings to his chest and torso, then takes my hand. I’ve never wandered all the corridors that lead into the belly of The Beast. My corner of this world is a small, plain studio apartment.
This is something else entirely.
Gabriel leads me through a steel door and down a corridor lit by caged bulbs, the concrete walls are painted black, and gurgling pipes run overhead as our footsteps echo behind us, the only sound we’re making because Gabriel hasn’t said a single word since we left the studio.
I pushed him into this, and now I’m getting the silent treatment. Fine. I can handle pissed. Pissed is better than the alternative.
Maybe I’m a little pissed, too.
The air seems to change as we go deeper—warmer and more humid, and carrying the faint copper tang of old blood and fresh sweat.
We pass doors marked with numbers, but no other labels. A muffled thud reverberates out from somewhere. Then another. And another.
Training rooms. Fighters preparing for what comes next.
The corridor turns, then turns again. A labyrinth. I’d never find my way back alone, and I think that’s the point. This place wasn’t built to be found. It was built to be hidden.
We move down yet another long corridor, but this one opens up at the end. And when it does, I swear I stop breathing.
A massive space stretches before us—part arena, part underground cathedral. Exposed pipes and industrial lighting, but also velvet ropes and gleaming bars.
Money and violence, dressed up pretty. The crowd hits me like a wave—bodies pressing, voices layered into a roar, the bass of music I can feel in my teeth. The energy is electric, primal, hungry. We’re in the heart of The Beast, and it’s like walking into a twisted Oz.
I turn to Gabriel. “Holy shit.”
For the first time in two days, something like a smile tugs at the corner of his mouth. “Welcome to my world.”
“Gabe...I, I mean, wow.”
He almost laughs. “From you, that means a lot.”
Since there’s a ring in front of us, I’m about to ask him when the fight will start, but I’m silenced by the incongruous sound of my name echoing off the walls.
I turn, looking for the source, and find Anissa, waving and calling out, “Bella!”
I wave back and gesture for her to come over. She trots up, then sidles against Gabe and gives him an easy hug. I know there’s nothing but friendship between them, but little green-eyed monsters start a protest march in my belly anyway.
Which means I guess I owe Gabe a slice of apology for being pissy about David.
“Dad didn’t say you were coming.” She grimaces at a look from Gabe, then rolls her eyes. “Sorry, Travis didn’t say. Referring to him as my father isn’t professional.”
“No, it’s not,” Gabe says, but there’s affection in his voice.
I shoot a sidelong glance at Gabe as I speak to Anissa. “I kinda had to twist his arm.”
“I’m surprised he let you. I mean, your first time and it’s tonight?” She glances toward Gabe with a disbelieving shake of her head. I look at him, too. My expression hopefully demanding an explanation.
“Take her to the Owner’s Box,” Gabe says to Anissa. “ I need to go warm up.”
I look between them. “Warm up?”
Anissa’s eyes go wide. “You didn’t know? He’s on the card tonight.”
I’ve never heard the term before, but I’m pretty sure he’s going to be in that ring soon. “What? Seriously?” I cross my arms and aim a mock glare at him. “You’d been planning on bringing me here tonight all along.”
He chuckles, kisses my forehead. “Busted,” he says, then slides through the crowd, pausing only to say a few words, sign a few cards, and shake a few hands.
“This really is Oz,” I mutter as Anissa takes my arm. “Come on. Best seats in the house.”
She leads me through the crowd—already rowdy enough that a private box sounds just peachy—then up a set of stairs to a raised platform overlooking everything.
There’s a leather couch, comfy chairs right at the edge for prime viewing, a video feed, presumably for playback, a small bar, and freedom from the jostle and shove below.
Pretty damn cool, actually. “So,” Anissa says, settling onto the couch beside me. The crystals around her neck catch the light—amethyst, quartz, and a few others I don’t recognize. “You’re really going to watch him fight?”
“As of about forty-seven seconds ago, yes.”
“Good.” She stretches her legs out, utterly at ease in this place. Of course, she is. She’s been part of Gabriel’s world for five years. Longer than me, in some ways. The thought stings more than it should.
“You were there,” I say. “In Colorado. After.”
She nods, then pulls her feet up onto the seat and hugs her knees, as if the memory is one she doesn’t want to get too close to. “Dad found him in the woods. Half-dead, burned, out of his mind with fever.” Her voice is low, and she’s looking at her toes, not me.
“You didn’t call the police?”
She shakes her head. “Dad didn’t want to. Told me he’d heard some chatter.” She shrugs. I don’t know how. Just that he got wind that there was a hit out on someone in the area. He figured it was for the guy who owned this ramshackle old cabin through the woods from our place.”
She shrugs again. “Somehow, Dad learned that the owner was one of the Grimm brothers. I found out later that one of his ‘hunting mornings,’”—she makes quote marks with her fingers—“was really a jaunt to meet him and warn him. Except he was too late.”
My heart is racing. “Does your dad know who tried to kill Gabe?”
She shakes her head. “He tried to meet up with his informant guy later to ask that. But the guy was dead.” She shudders.
“Honestly, I don’t even know how he survived Dad dragging him home,” she adds.
“But he did, and we nursed him back. Took months. He’d wake up screaming your name, and I’d sit with him until he stopped shaking. ”
Jealousy flares through me, hot and irrational. She was there when I wasn’t. She saw him broken, held him together.
Comforted him.
Anissa must see something in my face, because she puts her hand on mine.
“Whatever you’re thinking, don’t. I love Gabriel like a brother.
That’s it. And trust me, even if I’d wanted more—which I didn’t—it never would have happened.
There was always someone else. Someone he couldn’t let go of, no matter how hard he tried. ”
She looks pointedly at me.
I brush away tears. “He thought I shot him. He actually believed I could do that.”
“Yeah, well, if you’d seen him then, you’d know what a mess he was. He could barely breathe, much less think straight.” She grins. “And now he knows better.”
I manage a half-smile.
“For what it’s worth, I never believed it.”
My brows rise. “Why?”
“I don’t know. Hopeless romantic, I guess. The way he talked about you—it was clear he thought you hung the moon. So of course I had to believe you thought the same, too, and it was all a big clusterfuck. Like Shakespeare or something.”
I actually laugh. “Professors all over the world are cringing at the thought of works like Romeo and Juliet being categorized as a clusterfuck.”
“Maybe,” she says with a shrug. “But I’m right.”
And, yeah. Maybe she is.
“I’m glad I was right,” she says quietly. “I’m glad you found each other again. He’s been half a person for years. Walking around with a hole in his chest where you used to be. And now...” She gestures vaguely at me. “Now he’s got a chance to be whole.”
Below us, the crowd is getting louder. The fight before Gabriel’s is brutal—two massive men trading blows that would kill an ordinary person. One of them goes down after what feels like hours, blood streaming from a cut above his eye, and the crowd roars its approval as he’s dragged from the arena.
I’ve never been so grateful for violence in my life. It gives me somewhere to look that isn’t Anissa’s too-kind face. Something to focus on besides the tears burning behind my eyes.
Anissa’s fingers twine with mine.
Then the announcer’s voice booms through the speakers:
“Ladies and gentlemen...the main event. You know him. You fear him. The owner, the champion, the man himself...THE BEAST.”
The crowd loses its mind.