13. The Devil You Know
The Devil You Know
Gabriel talked for hours.
He told me about the Mire family—three generations of traffickers who'd built an empire on the commodification of human beings.
He told me about his father, a man who'd viewed children as inventory and conditioning as a value-added service.
He told me about Nathan, the favored son, the heir apparent, the one who'd embraced the family business while Gabriel had tried to escape into academia, into research, into the clean white rooms of psychological science where he could pretend his work wasn't being funded by blood money.
"I was naive," he said, his voice steady despite my hand still resting against his throat. "I thought I could use the family resources to do something different. Something almost ethical. Voluntary subjects. Informed consent. Conditioning that enhanced rather than destroyed."
"But it didn't work that way."
"No." His pulse jumped beneath my fingers. "The Institute was never really mine. It was Nathan's project from the beginning—a laboratory for refining the family's product. I was just the face. The scientist who made the merchandise more valuable." His eyes met mine. "Until you."
"Me."
"You were supposed to be Batch 47. Another subject, another asset, another piece of inventory to be processed and sold.
" His hand covered mine on his throat, not pulling it away, just holding it there.
"But something happened. Something I hadn't anticipated.
You fought back in ways that were genuinely remarkable.
You adapted. You survived. You became something extraordinary, and I—" He stopped, swallowing hard.
"I fell in love with my own creation. The cardinal sin.
The one thing I'd sworn I would never do. "
I remembered those early days at the Institute—the way Gabriel's clinical distance had slowly eroded, the way his touches had lingered, the way his voice had softened when he called me his perfect girl.
I'd thought it was part of the conditioning.
Another layer of manipulation designed to make me dependent on his approval.
"What happened after you left me?" I asked.
"Nathan's people moved in. They took over the Institute, liquidated the assets, scattered the subjects to buyers across the network.
I went underground, tried to find a way to stop them.
But they had resources I couldn't match.
Connections. Political protection. Every time I got close, they found me first."
"The music box. You sent it."
"I needed you to remember. Needed you to start questioning what Nathan had told you.
" His thumb traced my knuckles. "I knew he'd been dosing you.
Knew he'd been rewriting your memories. I couldn't reach you directly without triggering his security protocols, so I used the one channel he couldn't block: your conditioning. "
"It almost broke me."
"I know." The words came out raw. "I know, and I'm sorry.
But I didn't see another way. If I'd appeared in person, you would have attacked me on sight.
If I'd sent a message through normal channels, Nathan would have intercepted it.
The lullaby was the only language your body would understand, even if your mind had been turned against me. "
The story fit together too neatly—it explained everything I'd found in Nathan's files, everything I'd begun to suspect about the pills and the fog and the gaps in my memory.
But Gabriel was a master manipulator. He'd built my psyche from the ground up; he knew exactly which levers to pull, which words to use, which vulnerabilities to exploit.
"How do I know you're telling the truth?" I asked.
"You don't." He didn't move from where I'd left him standing.
"You can't. Not with certainty. Nathan's had months to rewrite your memories, to implant false narratives, to turn me into the villain of a story he authored.
All I can offer is consistency. The files you found should corroborate everything I've told you.
The timeline. The names. The methodology. "
"The files could be forged."
"Yes." No argument. No defensiveness. "They could.
But you're not the kind of woman who accepts easy answers anymore.
You'll verify. You'll cross-reference. You'll dig until you find the truth, no matter how deep it's buried.
" A ghost of a smile touched his lips. "That's one of the things I admired about you, even before I fell in love. Your refusal to stop fighting."
The word love hit differently this time.
Not a manipulation—or at least, not only a manipulation.
Beneath the clinical language and the careful distance, something raw was bleeding through.
Gabriel Mire, the architect of my destruction, was looking at me with an emotion I recognized because I'd seen it in my own mirror.
"Let me check your pulse," he said quietly.
"What?"
"Your pulse. Your pupils. Your respiration." He took a step closer, his movements slow and telegraphed. "I need to know what he's been giving you. How much damage the chemicals have done. Whether the dosage he's been using is—"
"Is what?"
"Whether it's reversible." His hand hovered near my wrist, waiting for permission. "Some of the compounds Nathan favors have permanent effects if administered long enough. Cognitive impairment. Emotional blunting. Loss of autonomous decision-making capacity."
The clinical language should have been cold. Instead, it was almost comforting—a return to the familiar territory of observation and assessment, the one arena where Gabriel had never lied to me. He'd always told me exactly what he was doing to my body, even when the truth was horrific.
"Fine." I extended my wrist. "But if you try anything—"
"You'll kill me. I know." His fingers closed around my pulse point, gentle but precise.
"Elevated heart rate. Expected, given the circumstances.
Your pupils are slightly dilated, but reactive—that's good.
It means the neurological dampening isn't complete.
" His other hand lifted to my face, tilting my chin toward the dim light. "When did you last take the vitamins?"
"Yesterday morning. I've been skipping doses."
"How many?"
"As many as I can without him noticing." I watched his face as he worked, cataloguing the same micro-expressions I'd learned to read during my conditioning. "He gets suspicious if I'm too sharp."
"Because the drugs are designed to keep you compliant. Slightly foggy. Dependent on his guidance." Gabriel's jaw tightened. "Standard retrieval protocol. Break the asset's connection to the original handler, then establish new dependency through chemical reinforcement and trauma bonding."
"You're describing yourself." The words came out harsher than I intended. "That's exactly what you did to me."
"Yes." He didn't look away. "But I never used drugs.
Never implanted false memories. Never made you believe you were free while tightening the leash.
" His hand was still on my face, his thumb now resting against the corner of my mouth.
"I broke you, but I never lied about what I was doing.
Nathan made you believe you were healing. That's a different kind of violation."
The distinction shouldn't have mattered. Both men had used me, shaped me, turned me into a weapon aimed at their enemies. But standing here in the dim light of the ruined church, Gabriel's pulse still racing beneath my fingers from when I'd gripped his throat, I found myself believing him.
Or maybe I just wanted to believe him. Maybe the conditioning ran so deep that I'd grasp at any hand that offered certainty, even if that hand belonged to the monster who'd created me.
"I need the truth," I said. "All of it. Not just about Nathan—about you. About the Institute. About what you were really trying to do to me."
"I'll tell you everything." His thumb traced my lower lip—that familiar gesture, the one that still made my breath catch despite everything. "But I need something from you first."
"What?"
"A promise. That you'll stay long enough to hear the full story. That you won't run back to Nathan before you understand what you're dealing with."
"And if I can't promise that?"
"Then you'll leave now." He dropped his hand from my face.
"You'll walk out of this church, and I won't stop you.
But you'll be walking back into his cage with only half the information, and eventually—whether it's months or years—he'll finish what he started.
He'll complete the conditioning. He'll erase whatever's left of the woman I fell in love with.
And you won't even know it's happening until it's too late. "
The silence stretched between us, heavy with everything that had happened and everything that was still to come.
I thought about Nathan's hands on my skin.
Nathan's voice in my ear. Nathan's files on my laptop, reducing my life to a retrieval protocol and a dosage schedule.
I thought about the pill hidden in my medicine cabinet, the fog I'd been living in for months, the terrifying clarity that had broken through only when I'd stopped taking the vitamins.
"I'll stay," I said. "For now."
Something in Gabriel's expression shifted—relief, maybe, or its colder cousin. "Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. I haven't decided whether to trust you."
"I'm not asking for trust. I'm asking for time." He gestured toward the door at the far end of the laboratory. "There's a living area through there. It's not luxurious, but it's secure. Nathan's people don't know about this place."
"How long have you been here?"