Chapter 16 — I Could Have Prevented It
POV: Gabriel
The silence inside the armored SUV was a physical entity, heavier and more suffocating than the storm pounding down on Ashford.
I drove with my left hand, fingers gripping the leather steering wheel hard enough to turn my knuckles white. My right hand, bandaged and throbbing, rested uselessly in my lap—a constant reminder of the violence I was willing to commit, and had committed, to maintain control.
Beside me, Elena didn’t move.
She sat rigid, the conservative gray suit I’d forced her to wear hanging like a shroud around her tense body.
She stared out the window at the blur of city lights rushing past, but I knew she wasn’t seeing anything.
Her reflection in the dark glass was a ghost—pale and transparent—her eyes empty in a way that terrified me more than any threat from the Justice Department.
We had won.
Agent Miller had backed down. The federal prosecutor had swallowed the blackmail narrative like bitter but necessary medicine.
Immunity was guaranteed. Thomas’s deal was being drafted as we spoke.
Richard Hale was a pariah—a sexual predator and extortionist in the eyes of the law—fleeing into exile with his reputation in tatters.
I had executed the perfect strategy. Manipulated the variables, concealed the evidence, rewritten the truth, and delivered freedom on a silver platter to the woman sitting beside me.
I should have been feeling the euphoria of triumph. That electric buzz of dopamine that always accompanied a “not guilty” verdict or the dismissal of an impossible case.
Instead, I tasted ash. A metallic, rotten taste—something had died inside.
“Say something,” I ordered, my voice breaking the sterile silence of the car. It sounded harsh. Defensive.
Elena didn’t turn her head. She didn’t even blink.
“What do you want me to say, Gabriel?” Her voice was flat, devoid of that fire I’d learned to covet. “Do you want me to thank you? Thank you. You were brilliant. You saved the day.”
“Don’t use that tone with me.”
“What tone? The tone of a satisfied client?” She finally turned, and her gaze hit me like a scalpel. “Or the tone of a chess piece that just discovered the player knew the outcome before he even moved the first pawn?”
“I didn’t know the outcome,” I retorted, focusing on the wet road, accelerating unnecessarily. “I knew the variables. There’s a difference.”
“Semantics.” She turned back to the window. “You knew my mother was a murderer. You knew I was her daughter. And you hired me, seduced me, and fucked me while keeping her file in your drawer like an insurance policy.”
“I kept it in case I needed to use it against Thomas!” The justification came out automatically—the legal defense I’d rehearsed in my head. “I didn’t know who you were, Elena. Not at first. You were just the sister. The weak point.”
“And when did I stop being the weak point?” she asked quietly. “When I was on my knees in your office? Or when I was in your bed? Or maybe I never stopped.”
I slammed the brakes at the red light, making the tires screech on the wet asphalt. The car jerked to a stop.
I turned toward her, ignoring the sharp pain in my right hand.
“Do you think I would have done what I did last night if you were just a weak point?” I growled. “Do you think I would have beaten my partner, risked my career, destroyed federal evidence for leverage?”
“I don’t know, Gabriel.” She looked at me, and the exhaustion on her face was devastating.
“That’s the problem. I don’t know what’s real.
You lie so well that even your violence seems calculated.
Maybe beating Richard was part of the plan.
Maybe… maybe even what happened in the shower was part of the plan.
A way to make sure the ‘bait’ didn’t run before the hearing. ”
The accusation hit me in the chest like a bullet.
The idea that she thought I was capable of faking the desire, of staging the possessiveness that nearly made me lose my mind… was insulting. And painful.
“You felt my heart,” I whispered, the anger giving way to cold desperation. “You were there. You know it wasn’t pretense.”
“I know what I felt,” she replied, touching her chest. “But you? You’re a black hole, Gabriel. You swallow everything and give nothing back but darkness.”
The light turned green. The driver behind us honked.
I started driving again, swallowing the words that wanted to come out. Useless words like “I’m sorry” or “I wanted to protect you.” They wouldn’t fix this. Trust hadn’t just been broken—it had been pulverized, incinerated, the ashes scattered to the wind.
We pulled into the underground garage of Obsidian Tower. The iron gate closed behind us, locking us once again in our fortress of solitude.
I turned off the engine. The silence returned, but now it was charged with static.
“Let’s go upstairs,” I said, getting out of the car.
Elena got out slowly, grabbing her purse. The same purse that had held the gun she could have used against me—until yesterday. Now she was unarmed. And I was the villain holding all the cards.
We stepped into the elevator. The ride up was an eternity of awkward seconds.
I could smell her—lavender perfume now mingled with the sterile scent of the courthouse and the cold sweat of fear.
I wanted to touch her. I wanted to pull her close and force her to understand, through the osmosis of skin, that I’d had no choice.
But I didn’t move. I stood there watching the digital numbers change, too cowardly to face her rejection.
The penthouse door opened.
We went inside. The apartment was exactly as we’d left it: cold, modern, impersonal. The subpoena was no longer on the table, but Agent Miller’s presence still seemed to contaminate the air.
Elena walked to the middle of the room and stopped. She didn’t take off her coat. She didn’t let down her hair. She looked like an unwelcome visitor waiting for permission to leave.
“What happens now?” she asked the empty room.
I took off my jacket and threw it on the sofa, loosening the tie that had been strangling me for twelve hours.
“Now we wait for the dust to settle,” I replied, heading to the bar.
I needed alcohol. I needed to numb the part of my brain screaming that I’d lost the only thing that mattered.
“Thomas will sign the deal tomorrow. He’ll enter witness protection or accept a reduced sentence at a minimum-security facility.
Richard is out. The firm is mine. Case closed. ”
I poured two fingers of whiskey and drank. The liquid fire didn’t help.
“And me?” Elena turned to face me. “My contract is over, isn’t it? The translation’s done. The crisis is handled. Am I free?”
I looked at her over the rim of the crystal glass.
Free.
The word sounded obscene.
If she were free, she would leave. She’d go back to that apartment with the broken door. She’d find another job, another life, another man who didn’t keep secret files about her mother in his drawer.
The idea of Elena with another man, of Elena smiling at someone who didn’t know her darkness, made my vision go red.
“You have nowhere to go,” I said cruelly. It was a reflex. When cornered, I attacked. “Your apartment is a crime scene. Your brother is a target. You’re a key federal witness. You’re not free, Elena. You’re marked.”
“Marked by whom?” She took a step toward me, anger finally breaking through the apathy. “By the feds or by you?”
“By both.” I set the glass down hard, the sound echoing through the room. “You think you can just walk out that door and go back to being Elena Walsh, the woman who translates technical manuals? You know too much. You’ve seen too much. You’re part of this now.”
“I’m part of this because you dragged me into it!
” she shouted, hands clenched into fists at her sides.
“I could have lived my mediocre life, paying off Thomas’s debts, never knowing my mother was a murderer!
I could have lived without knowing what it’s like to have you inside me and then be treated like garbage! ”
“I treated you like garbage to save you!” I shouted back, the barrier of control shattering.
I closed the distance between us, ignoring the safe space I should have kept.
“If I’d treated you the way I wanted to...
if I’d treated you like my woman in that interrogation room...
Miller would have seen. He would have seen that I was compromised.
And he would have used you to destroy me.
I had to be cold. I had to be the monster. ”
“You didn’t have to be the monster, Gabriel. You are the monster.” She jabbed her finger at my chest. “You kept that secret for six months. That wasn’t to save me from Miller. That was to control me.”
“Yes! It was!” I grabbed her wrist, stopping that accusing finger. “I kept it to control you. Because I’m a lawyer, Elena. I control variables. I mitigate risks. And when I met you... you were the biggest risk I’d ever seen.”
I pulled her closer until our bodies touched.
“I knew you were going to be trouble,” I whispered, looking into her eyes, watching the tears of anger glisten.
“I looked at your history, at your mother’s blood, and I knew.
I knew you had the same madness. The same capacity for destruction.
I should have run. I should have fired Thomas and forgotten your name. ”
“Why didn’t you?” Her voice faltered.
“Because I wanted to see.” I released her wrist and cupped her face in both hands. “I wanted to see if you would break. I wanted to see if the murderer’s daughter was as dangerous as the mother.”
“And did you find out?”
“I found out something worse.” I ran my thumb across her cheek, wiping away a tear. “I found out you don’t break. You absorb. You endure. You take my darkness and give it back double.”
Elena closed her eyes at my touch, an instinctive reaction she tried to fight but couldn’t.
“I hate you,” she whispered.
“I know.”