Chapter 19 — Im Not Your Currency
POV: Elena
Violence has a specific sound when you're preparing for it.
It's not the sound of screams or breaking bones. It's the sound of a tactical bag's zipper being closed. It's the dry click of a pistol magazine snapping into place. It's the heavy silence between two people who know that in twelve hours, one of them might be dead or behind bars.
I stood in the middle of the penthouse closet, watching Gabriel transform.
His three-thousand-dollar suit had vanished.
In its place, Gabriel wore clothes I'd never seen: black tactical pants, heavy boots, a matte leather jacket that seemed to have absorbed the city's darkness.
He no longer looked like the senior partner at Moretti & Hale.
He looked like a mercenary. He looked like the man Richard Hale feared.
And for the first time, I wasn't afraid of him. I was afraid for him.
“Only take what's necessary,” Gabriel said without looking at me. He was checking the contents of a black backpack on the closet island. Cash. Passports I didn't know he had. Two burner phones. “ID, money, comfortable shoes. Nothing that can be tracked electronically. Leave the new phone here.”
“You're going to kill him,” I said.
It wasn't a question. The statement hung in the cold air of the closet, naked and brutal.
Gabriel stopped. He was holding a matte black Glock 19. The same one from the safe, the one he'd thought about grabbing the day Agent Miller showed up. This time, he didn't hesitate.
He turned to me, the gun in his hand looking like a natural extension of his bandaged arm.
“Richard Hale is no longer a legal problem, Elena. He's a terminal threat. He violated the perimeter. He has evidence that destroys your life and mine. There's no legal solution for this.”
“There's prison,” I argued, though my heart wasn't in defending the law. “If we turn the photos over to Miller... if we tell him he's blackmailing us...”
“Miller will look at those photos and see a crime,” Gabriel cut in, his voice cold as dry ice.
“He'll see a lawyer sleeping with a key witness before a Grand Jury.
He'll void your immunity. He'll reopen Thomas's case. And Richard will watch it all from the front row, laughing, while we rot in separate cells.”
He slid the gun into the holster at his back, under the jacket.
“There's only one way this ends tonight. And it's not in a courtroom.”
I walked over to him. My legs were steady, driven by a cold adrenaline that had replaced the afternoon's panic.
“And what's the plan?” I asked. “You track his IP, kick down the door, and shoot him? Richard isn't stupid, Gabriel. He knows you'd come. It's a trap.”
“I know it's a trap.” He grabbed the back of my neck, pulling me into a quick, hard kiss that tasted like goodbye. “That's why you won't be there.”
I pulled back, shock hitting me.
“What?”
“I have a safe place. An apartment in Iron District that's not in the firm's records. You'll stay there. I'll deal with Richard.”
“You're going alone?”
“It's the only advantage I have. He expects me to be worried about your safety. He expects me to be distracted trying to protect you. If you're locked in a bunker where he can't touch you, I can focus on what needs to be done.”
“You're going to die,” I whispered, the horrible certainty settling in my stomach. “He wants the firm, Gabriel. But he wants to destroy you first. He has security. He has the tactical advantage. If you go to him alone, blind with rage... he wins.”
“I'm not going in blind.” He stepped away, grabbing the backpack. “Let's go. We need to leave before he realizes we're moving.”
He walked toward the door.
I didn't move.
“No.”
Gabriel stopped in the doorway. He turned slowly, impatience tensing his jaw.
“Elena, we don't have time for moral debates. Get in the elevator.”
“It's not moral,” I shot back, crossing my arms over my chest, feeling the fabric of his shirt—which was now mine—rough against my skin.
“It's strategic. You said he expects you to be distracted trying to protect me.
You're right. If you hide me, he'll know you're coming. He'll prepare. He'll ambush you.”
“And what's your suggestion? That I take you into the middle of a firefight?”
“I'm suggesting you stop treating me like baggage and start treating me like the asset I am.”
I walked to the island where Richard's photos were still scattered, forgotten in the rush to pack weapons. I picked up the one of me in the kitchen, with the red crosshair drawn on my forehead.
“He doesn't want the firm, Gabriel. The firm is the consolation prize.” I held up the photo for him to see. “He wants you. He wants to prove he's smarter, stronger, and more ruthless than the great Gabriel Moretti. And the only way he can prove that... is by taking what's yours.”
Gabriel looked at the photo, his eyes narrowing.
“Exactly. That's why you stay away.”
“No.” I tore the photo in half, the sound of ripping paper loud in the closet's silence. “That's why I'm going with you. Because while he's looking at me, while he's savoring the victory of having your 'weakness' in his sights... he won't see you coming.”
“You want to be the bait?” Gabriel's voice dropped to a dangerous whisper. “Again? You saw how it ended last time.”
“Last time, I didn't know who I was dealing with.” I stepped forward, invading his space, forcing him to retreat or face me. “Last time, I was a victim. Now... now I'm the woman who sleeps with the monster. I know where the teeth are.”
Gabriel dropped the backpack on the floor. He grabbed my arms, shaking me lightly.
“You have no idea what you're saying. Richard won't harass you, Elena. He'll hurt you. He'll use you to make me bleed. I can't... I can't watch that happen. I'd rather die.”
“Then die!” I shouted, pushing him. “Die trying to be the lone hero and leave me here to deal with Richard alone when he comes to finish the job!
Because that's what will happen, Gabriel.
If you die tonight, I'm next. You think locking me in an apartment in Iron District will save me if he kills you?”
The brutal logic of my words hit him. I saw the hesitation in his eyes. The lawyer inside him was calculating the odds, and the result wasn't good.
“I'm not your bargaining chip,” I continued, my voice trembling with fury and fear. “I'm not the gold you hide in the safe. I'm a player. I'm at this table. And I have my own chips.”
“What chips?” he asked, exhausted.
“I have his phone number.” I pointed to the burner phone on the table. “He called me. The day he tried to recruit me. I saved his personal number to the cloud, just in case. He thinks you're the only one who knows how to play dirty. Let's show him he's wrong.”
Gabriel was silent for a long minute. He looked me over from head to toe—not with desire, but with cold, technical assessment. He was weighing the risk to my life against the probability of mission success.
It was a horrible calculation. And I loved him for being able to make it.
“If we do this,” he said, his voice hoarse, “if you walk into that room with him... there won't be any protection. I can't stop a bullet with my mind. You'll be exposed.”
“I know.”
“And you'll have to do things... say things... that will mark you.”
“I'm already marked, Gabriel.” I touched my neck. “You made sure of that.”
He closed his eyes briefly, an expression of pain crossing his face, but when he opened them, the determination was there. Dark. Lethal.
“All right.” He picked up the backpack from the floor. “Get dressed. No heels. Nothing that restricts movement. Black.”
“Where are we going?”
“We're going to call him.” Gabriel went to the safe in the wall and took out something I hadn't seen before. A second gun. Smaller. Compact. “And we're going to arrange the delivery. He wants the firm? We'll give him the deed.”
He turned and held out the small gun to me.
I stared at the cold metal. I'd never held a gun in my life. My hands were made to translate contracts and hold pens, not to take lives.
But the world of contracts had burned in the fireplace.
I took the gun. It was heavy. Cold.
“Safety's off.” Gabriel pointed to the side. “Point and squeeze. Don't hesitate. If he gets within three feet of you... you empty the magazine. Understood?”
“Understood.”
“Say it.”
“I empty the magazine.”
Gabriel nodded. He didn't kiss me. There was no room for tenderness now. There was only the mechanics of survival.
“Let's hunt.”
We left the Obsidian Tower through the service garage, hidden in the backseat of a laundry delivery van that Gabriel apparently kept on the payroll for emergencies like this.
The city passed by outside, damp and hostile.
The driver dropped us off in an abandoned industrial area near the old docks. The stench of rotting brine and diesel hung in the air.
We walked to a rusted warehouse where a car was waiting. An old sedan, no plates, engine running.
We got in. Gabriel at the wheel, me in the passenger seat. The gun was in my lap, heavy and strange.
“Call him,” Gabriel ordered, driving out of the complex toward the north side, where abandoned factories formed a labyrinth of concrete and shadows.
I picked up the burner phone. Typed the number I’d memorized.
It rang twice.
“I’m impressed,” Richard answered. He sounded like he was smiling. “You didn’t block my personal number. Sentimentality or stupidity, Elena?”
I put it on speaker. Gabriel kept his eyes on the road, but his jaw was clenched.
“Business,” I replied, my voice coming out steadier than I felt. “Gabriel saw the photos.”
“I imagine he didn’t like the lighting. I warned him the balcony at night needs flash, but he prefers the shadows.”
“He’s willing to negotiate,” I lied, following the script we’d improvised in the laundry van. “He agrees to the terms. The firm in exchange for destroying the evidence.”
Richard laughed on the other end of the line.