Chapter 7
Gabriel
The distant roar of a motorcycle stalled Gabriel’s response. The speed with which it advanced reflected the rider’s urgency. His rage.
Hamza.
Climbing off the window seat, Gabriel fetched a towel, setting it on the tub’s ledge.
“Take your time and help yourself to anything in the closet. You can take my bed tonight. I’ll be back to check on you.”
Gabriel closed the bedroom door behind him, hand tightening on the knob. He hated leaving Nicholas, but knew his brother wouldn’t be ignored.
He’d just cleared the last step into the foyer when the front door exploded open. Hamza stormed through it like a tornado wrapped in denim and leather.
Marcus entered soon after, expression apologetic.
“I couldn’t stop him.”
“It’s alright,” Gabriel uttered in sympathy, because Hamza on a mission was an unstoppable force. He was all passion and righteousness, constantly clashing against Gabriel’s apathetic ruthlessness. Two people couldn’t have been more different.
He stalked toward Gabriel, slamming his helmet onto the entryway table.
His thick hair hung in a tight braid down his back, and he was in desperate need of a shave.
Of the three of them, Hamza was the one most attached to his former self.
He kept his birth name and refused to change his appearance.
That wasn’t an issue when they moved every decade or so, but Irongard had been home to them for far too long now.
Hamza’s argument was that he’d worked too hard to climb up the chain of command, and glamouring would mean he’d need to start over as someone new.
His compromise was to age himself in tiny increments.
He presented as a youthful-looking man in his forties, built like a freight train, and he never shied away from confrontation.
His size and primitive features drew attention, but his mind couldn’t be changed.
“Damn you, Muharib.”
Gabriel adopted a bored expression, ambling into the living room. He wanted to put as much distance between their conversation and Nicholas as possible.
“What are you up in arms about this time?”
“The dead body of a prominent judge was found inside an apartment across town. A near week-long investigation led authorities there after his wife reported him missing. There were signs of forced entry and bruising along the judge’s neck that indicated possible strangulation.
But imagine my surprise when the medical examiner’s preliminary report listed exsanguination as the likely cause of death. ”
Every word dripped with disdain, but Gabriel kept his cool, refusing to flinch away from the steely eyes as dark as his own.
“Get to your point, Hamza.”
“You want to rid the city of its warring drug lords, dirty politicians, and whatever other trash you’re paid to leave at the curb, you go right ahead. Makes my job a hell of a lot easier. But you leave the innocent alone, Muharib. You promised me.”
Gabriel was taller and broader than most, but Hamza’s bulk eclipsed him, and so he had to crane his neck to meet his brother’s fury.
“Innocent? Tell me, Hamza, why did it take a whole week for your incompetent force to find this apartment? Could it be that his wife didn’t know it existed?”
His brother’s glare could melt the ice off a glacier.
“Having an affair isn’t illegal, and definitely doesn’t justify murder. Is there anything you aren’t capable of, brother?”
Gabriel could’ve ended this. Could’ve disclosed that Zayn had returned, that the ‘good judge’ had illegally paid for a night of empty sex with his mate, recorded it without Nicholas’s knowledge, then ended up a casualty of Gabriel’s wrath.
But he needed Hamza’s hate like he needed his mate’s love. It reminded him to never forgive himself, to never forget the faces of the lives he’d ruined for a chance at having Zayn back.
Gabriel chose passive aggression in the form of aloofness and dry sarcasm when dealing with Hamza, because his brother’s Achilles’ heel was his love of family, and deep down, he wanted nothing more than to forgive Gabriel, to heal their family… what little of it the three of them made.
But with Hamza, forgiveness and remorse went hand-in-hand.
He yearned to know that Gabriel cared, that he was sorry for all he’d done.
Gabriel couldn’t give Hamza that, because if faced with the same opportunity, he would’ve made the same choices he did back then, hindsight be damned.
He also didn’t feel deserving of Hamza’s forgiveness.
Gabriel needed to hurt, wanted to hurt. What better way than to nurture the resentment of his beloved brother?
Marcus watched on from the archway, and Gabriel wasn’t the least bit surprised by the disapproval in his friend’s gaze.
Gabriel addressed his brother again. “As you already know, there is nothing that I’m not capable of.”
Hamza seemed wounded by that, further proving he still had a weak spot for his younger brother. Gabriel resisted the urge to apologize.
“How do you sleep at night?”
“On the softest pillow blood-money can buy. Now, while I do enjoy your unannounced visits in the middle of the night, I’d like you to leave. I have business to tend—”
“This was different,” Hamza cut in. “This kill was personal.”
“I don’t have time for another round of—”
“You drained him dry, Muharib!”
“You will lower your voice in my home,” Gabriel seethed.
He reached out with his senses, but didn’t pick up any movement upstairs. With any luck, Nicholas was fast asleep.
“Even you aren’t stupid enough to bring that kind of attention to us. How do we explain blood loss with no exit wound?”
“I’m sure you’ll manage.” Gabriel headed for the drink cart, downing two fingers of scotch while Hamza shook his head in disbelief.
“And you.” Hamza turned his attention to Marcus. “Must you always follow him so blindly?”
His tone was always milder with Marcus. No one had ever felt good about being mean to Rayyaan, and while Hamza could get away with speaking to Gabriel however he pleased, Gabriel wasn’t as accommodating when it came to how his friend was treated.
“Yes,” Marcus said, sighing, having gone over this argument countless times before. “I must.”
“Don’t you have a useless job to get back to? Cold cases you’ll never solve?” Gabriel needed to get back to Nicholas. He didn’t have time for pointless conversations.
Hamza scoffed. “Fuck you.” He turned to leave, stopping to glance over his shoulder. “You know, we could’ve had a good life had you—”
“What life?” Gabriel snapped, his patience for Hamza’s delusions about Saraad withering. “One cloaked in darkness? One where we couldn’t survive the sun?”
He had no qualms about reminding his brother that their birthplace was no paradise.
“Those beautiful sunsets that you enjoy so much?” Gabriel pointed toward the glass wall and the night sky beyond it.
In just a handful of hours, the first signs of daylight would break across the horizon.
“You’d have never known what it felt like to have the rays of the sun kiss your skin, had I not saved us. ”
“Saved us?” Hamza huffed incredulously. “Tell me, do either of you feel saved right now?”
Gabriel’s laughter was mirthless and bitter. “Let’s not forget we’d all be dead by cleansing ritual by now, brother, had it not been for me.”
“So what, you want me to thank you?”
“It’s the least of what you owe me.”
Gabriel didn’t mean it. If anything, he was the one who owed more than he could ever repay. It hurt him to say those words to his brother, and it hurt to pretend the ache in Hamza’s gaze didn’t make him ache in return.
His mate was in his home, hopefully tucked into his bed. Gabriel should’ve been happy, and in many ways, he was, but in other ways, he’d never felt more miserable. And so the cycle of hurting Hamza, in order to hurt himself, continued.
Before Gabriel could register the movement, Hamza was in front of him again, his shirt bunched between his brother’s fists.
Gabriel twisted Hamza’s wrist in a downward motion, snapping bone. Hamza’s eyes flashed as he snarled in pain.
“Enough!” Marcus shoved them apart in a rare display of annoyance. “He’s returned,” he said without any right to, keeping his eyes on Gabriel. “As promised, he’s returned.”
The room grew still as Hamza processed those words, his eyes losing their glow.
“What did you just say?” Hamza sounded breathless, repeating the question when neither Marcus nor Gabriel replied.
“You heard him.” Gabriel cut a look at his friend. This wasn’t the right time for such an announcement, or for any of what they’d discussed tonight.
“So you see, it wasn’t all for nothing,” Marcus said, but it sounded more like a plea for Hamza to finally understand.
Hamza turned a pitying look on Marcus. “Is that what you really think?”
The three of them seemed to feel the shift in the atmosphere at the same time; the presence of someone else. They turned toward the stairs, where Nicholas stood watching them.