Chapter 38
Chapter Thirty-Eight
The drive to the Monarch took seven minutes. Gabriel didn’t remember most of it—just the blur of streetlights, the white-knuckle grip on the steering wheel, rage howling in his chest.
He left the car running in the valet zone and stormed through the front doors.
The lobby was quiet at this hour. A few early-bird gamblers at the slots, a couple checking out at the front desk, staff going about their morning routines with the glazed efficiency of people who’d been awake too long.
They all stopped when they saw him.
Gabriel knew what he must look like. Sweat-soaked from sparring, still in his workout clothes, his face a mask of barely contained violence. The guests shrank back. The staff froze.
He stalked to the front desk.
“Where is he?” Gabriel’s voice echoed off the marble floors. “Where is Sterling Hart?”
A manager appeared—young, nervous, probably fresh out of a hospitality program. His name tag identified him as Jesse.
Sir,” Jesse said, “Mr. Hart isn’t on the premises today. He called in sick two days ago, and we haven’t—”
“Don’t lie to me.”
“I’m not lying, sir. I swear. He’s not here. Perhaps I could help you?” He didn’t sound happy about the possibility.
Gabriel grabbed the man by the collar, lifted him half off his feet. “Help? Hell yes, you can help. You can tell me where the fuck Sterling is.”
“I don’t know!” Jesse’s voice cracked with fear. “I don’t know, I swear, please, sir. “
“Gabriel.” Harper’s voice, behind him. She’d followed him. Of course, she had. “Gabriel, let him go. He doesn’t know anything.”
Everything hard and furious inside him wanted to squeeze. Wanted to shake this pathetic man until answers fell out of him. Wanted to burn this whole fucking building to the ground and sift through the ashes until he found what he was looking for.
But Jesse didn’t have what he needed. Didn’t know where Sterling was hiding. Didn’t know where Bella was.
Gabriel released him. The man stumbled backward, gasping.
Gabe turned away, Jesse forgotten as he looked out over the Monarch’s lobby. This keystone of the empire that Sterling Hart had built.
He looked—and he felt something crack inside him.
She was gone. Bella was gone, and he didn’t know where, and every minute that passed was a minute she might be hurt, was definitely scared.
He wouldn’t let him think that she might be dead. Think that, and he’d crumble.
“Gabriel.” Harper’s hand rested on his arm. Gentle. Grounding. “Come on. Not here. Not like this.”
He let her guide him toward the doors. His legs felt like they belonged to someone else. The fury was still there, still burning, but underneath it was something worse.
Fear. Pure, paralyzing fear.
He’d lost her once, but he’d been given a second chance he didn’t deserve.
He couldn’t lose her again. He wouldn’t survive it.
“The gallery,” he heard himself say. “I need to go to the gallery.”
La Galerie LaBete was quiet at this hour, of course. But Chris was there, hunched over his laptop at the front desk, fingers flying across the keyboard, a croissant on a plate beside him.
He looked up when the door opened, and Gabe watched as his face cycled through surprise, confusion, concern.
He said nothing, though. Smart man. And Gabriel strode past him without even a nod of acknowledgment.
Through the main gallery, past the newer acquisitions, past the pieces by other artists—talented people whose work meant nothing to him right now.
All the way to the back showroom where Caged was again mounted and on display.
He stopped in front of it.
The painting he’d created when they were still planning this gallery. When he thought they had forever. The image of Isabella behind bars of her own making, her arms reaching through toward light she couldn’t quite touch, her face a study in longing and beautiful despair.
He’d painted it as a promise—that he would be the one to set her free from her father’s control. From the gilded cage of the Hart empire. From whatever shadows held her back from the light.
He’d failed that promise. For five years, he’d let her stay trapped. Worse—he’d tried to lock her in a cage of his own making.
But she’d refused to stay there.
She’d stood on a balcony and asked him to choose her over vengeance. She’d tied him to a bed and forced him to feel something other than rage. She’d looked at the beast inside him and loved it anyway.
Now, she was counting on him to find her.
“I’m coming for you,” he said quietly. The words felt like a vow. Like a prayer. “Do you hear me, Bella? I’m coming for you. And God help anyone who gets in my way.”
The painting didn’t answer. But something in Gabriel’s chest settled. Solidified.
He’d spent five years as a monster. Five years feeding the darkness, nursing the hatred, letting the beast consume everything soft and good inside him.
But Bella had found him anyway. Had seen past the armor to the broken man beneath. Had given him something to live for beyond revenge.
She’d saved him.
Now it was his turn to save her.
His phone buzzed. Leo.
“Tell me you have something.”
“Maybe.” Leo’s voice was tight with urgency. “One of Sterling’s shell companies owns a property in Margate. Old warehouse, supposedly abandoned for years. But we’ve got movement—vehicles coming and going in the last few hours.”
“Send me the address.”
“You should wait for backup. I can have a team there in—”
“Send me the address, Leo.”
A pause. Gabriel could practically hear Leo weighing the options, calculating the risks, trying to figure out if there was any point in arguing.
“It’s in your texts,” Leo finally said. “But Gabriel—be smart. Cornered men do desperate things.”
“So do I.”
“I know. But—hang on.”
He heard Leo’s sharp intake of breath, and the moment nearly destroyed him.
“What?” Gabriel demanded. “What happened?”
“Mina,” Leo said. “I just got a text. Found dead at an abandoned car wash. A single bullet to the brain.”
Bile rose in Gabriel’s throat. “Sterling,” he said through a throat clogged with fear. “If he killed the woman he supposedly loved, he damn sure won’t have mercy for the daughter causing him trouble.”
“We’ll find her,” Leo said, but Gabriel was already hanging up. He turned, letting fury rage through him. Gathering its strength. It’s power.
When he turned, he found Harper standing in the doorway, watching him with worried eyes. Chris hovered behind her, still silent, his face pale.
“I’m going,” Gabriel said. “Don’t try to stop me.”
“I wasn’t going to.” Harper crossed the room, pulled him into a fierce hug. “Bring her home.”
“I will.”
He looked at Caged one more time. At the woman behind the bars. At the reaching hands, the desperate eyes, the face he’d painted when he still believed he could save her.
Never again, he promised silently. Never again will you be caged. Never again will you be afraid. I will burn down the world before I let anyone hurt you.
He walked out of the gallery. Got in his car. And drove the short distance toward Margate.
Toward Bella.
And toward blood.