Chapter 34
Chapter Thirty-Four
The next few days settle into something almost like normal.
Gabriel paints. I run the Monarch. We meet in the middle—breakfast together, dinner together, and deliciously slow, sweet nights that make me more and more confident that this fragile thing we’re rebuilding might actually survive.
“You’re thinking too loud,” Gabriel murmurs against my shoulder as we cuddle in bed, the morning light sneaking into the closet he calls a bedroom through the cracked door.
“Sorry. Occupational hazard.”
He pulls me closer, presses a kiss to the curve of my neck. “And what occupation is that exactly?”
I laugh. “Hanging out lazily with you. I happen to have a PhD. Highest honors.
“I’m impressed. And what does your doctoral brain say you should do?”
“It’s debating whether I should get up and be a responsible adult or stay here and let you do that thing with your tongue again.”
His laugh is low and warm. “I vote for the tongue thing.”
“You would.”
I’m about to roll over and take him up on that offer when his phone buzzes on the tiny nightstand. He ignores it, his hand sliding down my hip, but then it buzzes again. And again.
“Someone really wants to talk to you,” I say.
Gabriel sighs and reaches for the phone. I watch his face as he reads whatever’s on the screen—watch the softness drain away, replaced by something cold and hard and terrifyingly familiar.
“What is it?”
He doesn’t answer right away. Just stares at the phone, jaw tight, a muscle ticking in his cheek.
“Gabriel. What?”
“Leo.” His voice is flat. Controlled in a way that makes my stomach clench. “Your father made a move last night. Tried to have one of Leo’s informants killed.”
“An informant who was working for my father, you mean?”
He draws a breath, then nods. “The guy survived, but barely. Sterling Hart doesn’t take betrayal well.” His eyes are locked on mine as he says the words, and I have to force the bile back down my throat. Because haven’t I betrayed him more than anyone?
I push that lovely thought down as I sit up, pulling the sheet around me.
“The real kick in the gut is that this informant was helping us build the case against your dad.” Gabriel’s eyes meet mine, and there’s nothing soft in them now.
Nothing of the man who was kissing my neck just moments ago.
“He’s cleaning house. Eliminating anyone who can connect him to what happened in Aspen. ”
The words hit me hard.
I’ve known for ages that my father is an all-out prick capable of terrible things. But knowing it abstractly and watching the fall-out in real time are two very different things.
“We need to go to the FBI,” I say. “Now. Before he can do anything else.”
“The hell with that. That fucker needs to die.”
The words hang in the air between us, cold and final.
He’s not joking. He’s not venting. He’s stating a fact.
He’s making a plan.
“Gabriel...” My voice is laced with a very sharp edge.
“Don’t.” He’s out of bed now, moving out of the tiny bedroom and into the hallway where he can pace. I slide into my robe, then stand in the doorway and watch him, naked and furious, every muscle coiled tight.
“Don’t what? Don’t involve the authorities? That’s nuts.”
His eyes flash to mine. “Don’t tell me to let the system handle it.”
“Why not? That’s the point. It’s why we have a system in the first place.”
“Bullshit. Did the system keep Leo’s informant from almost dying?”
He stops pacing and faces me. “Sterling already tried to kill me. Now he’s eliminating witnesses. How long before he decides you’re too dangerous to leave alive?”
“So your solution is to what? Emulate him and kill, too?”
“My solution is to end a fucking threat against me and the woman I love.”
He stalks toward me, and I have to fight the urge to shrink back. “He sent that message, Bella. The AI voice. You think that was an idle threat?”
I step toward him, my hands clenched at my sides. “I think going after him is exactly what he wants you to do. “He’s baiting you. Pushing you. Hoping you’ll do something stupid so he can—”
“So he can what? Have me arrested? Kill me?” Gabriel laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “He’s already tried to kill me once. And he’ll try again. The only question is whether I get to him first.”
“Listen to yourself.” My voice is shaking now. “You sound exactly like him. Eliminating threats. Ending problems. That’s his language. That’s how he thinks.”
Something flickers in his eyes. Pain, maybe. Or recognition.
“If you do this, you really will become a monster. Just like he is. Please, Gabe. Please do the right thing.”
“Goddammit, Bella,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “They tortured me. They left me for dead. Your father was walking around like a modern-day prince while I had Death holding me by the scruff of the neck. How the fuck can letting that prick of a man live be the right thing?”
“But it is,” I say, gently taking his hands.
“You already know that.” I move my hands to his cheeks and force him to look at me.
“If you kill him now, he becomes a martyr. A victim. But if we do this the right way—with police and courts and news reports and evidence—he’ll lose everything.
His reputation. His freedom. His legacy.
Everything he’s spent his whole life building.
” And for a man like my father, that’s a fate worse than death.
Gabriel is quiet. I can see him struggling, the beast and the man at war behind his eyes. His hands have come up to cover mine where they rest on his face, and for a moment, I think I’ve reached him.
“He’ll find a way out,” he finally says. “Men like him always do. Money. Lawyers. Connections. He’ll slither free, and then he’ll come for us. For you—not just because you sided with me, but because you’re how he can hurt me.”
“Maybe he will,” I concede. “But at least you won’t have blood on your hands.” I soften my voice, stroke my thumb across his cheekbone. “I just got you back. I can’t lose you again. Not to death. Not to prison. And definitely not back to the darkness.”
For a moment—just a moment—I see the real him. The man who painted me sleeping, who whispered “day by day” against my hair, who’s trying so hard to claw his way back to the man he used to be.
Then his expression shutters. Goes cold. His hands drop back to his sides.
“You’re asking me to let him live.”
“I’m asking you to let justice happen.”
“There is no justice for what he did to me.”
The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
“I can’t do this,” I say quietly. “I can’t stand here and listen to you plan a murder. If you do this—if you kill him—the beast wins. And I won’t watch you disappear into it.”
“Bella.”
“No.” I’m gathering my clothes now, pulling on whatever I can find. Shirt inside out, doesn’t matter. Slacks wrinkled from where they landed on the floor last night. I can feel his eyes on me, but I can’t look at him. If I look at him, I’ll stay. And staying means watching him destroy himself.
“Don’t go back to the Monarch,” he says, his voice barely a whisper. “Your father will have people there. You’re not safe.”
I draw in a breath. About that, at least, we agree. “I’ll stay with David at the Mercer Casino.”
“No. Don’t draw him into this. I’ll tell Leo you need to crash at Grimm Tower. Harper’s staying there, too, I think.”
I nod. “Great. Perfect.” I sling my purse over my shoulder, then head for the door, wondering if the man I love is still in there, or if the beast has finally won.
I’m at the door when his voice stops me.
“I’m doing this for you.” The words are raw. Ragged. “To keep you safe from him.”
I turn. Look at him standing there in the wreckage of our morning, beautiful and broken and so lost it makes my heart crack open. Still naked. Still furious. Still the man I love, even when I want to shake him until his teeth rattle.
“So far, yeah, maybe. But don’t you dare say that vengeance and murder are for me. That’s not a gift, and it’s not love. And I wouldn’t want it if it was.”
I look him up and down. “If it’s really all for me, then prove it. Choose me over vengeance. Choose us over blood. Because I won’t build a life wondering when the darkness is going to swallow you whole.”
I wait, giving him one last chance to say the words I need to hear.
He doesn’t—and I walk out the door, navigating this underground maze until I climb a set of stairs and slip out through one of the basement exits, happy to avoid going through the hotel.
I stand there for a moment, blinking in the brightness, letting my eyes adjust. Atlantic City spreads out before me—the boardwalk in the distance, the ocean beyond, seagulls wheeling overhead.
Normal life. Regular people going about their regular days, completely oblivious to the underground empire beneath their feet.
I take a breath. Then another.
And then I start walking toward Grimm Tower, leaving the beast and its master behind.