Chapter 17 Savannah
Savannah
My ribs ache every time I breathe. It’s deep. A heavy soreness that sits under my skin like a bruise on my bones. A reminder that I was almost taken again.
Gabriel holds me tight. His arms hold me tight like iron. I can feel his heartbeat through his shirt, fast and hard. That’s the part that scares me the most, because men like him don’t lose control unless something matters.
I don’t want to matter. If I matter, I get hunted. I get used.
Juan’s voice is still in the hall. “Burned. Blood inside.” The words hang in the air. Gabriel’s arms tighten just slightly around me. His mouth stays close to my hair, voice low. “Stay here,” he tells me.
My throat tightens. The room smells like gun smoke and metal and something sour, fear that hasn’t left yet. My tongue is dry. Bitter. “don’t leave me,” I whisper before I can stop myself, and the words come out wrong. Too needy. Too honest. Too dangerous. I hate them the second they leave my mouth.
Gabriel goes still for one beat. Then he pulls back just enough to look at my face. His eyes are dark and focused, not soft, but something is there. Something sharp and protective and possessive. Something that looks like a man deciding he will burn the world before he lets it touch what’s his.
“I’m not leaving you,” he says, like it’s a fact.
He reaches up slowly and cups my cheek. His palm is warm. His thumb is rough. His touch is careful, like he’s handling something fragile he refuses to admit is fragile. He waits. He always waits now. “Tell me yes,” he murmurs.
My lips tremble. I hate that I need the ritual. I hate that it steadies me, that my body listens to it like it’s a code. But it does. “…Yes,” I whisper.
His thumb strokes once over my cheekbone, a small touch. “I have to move,” he tells me. “But you’ll be with me while I do.”
My breath catches. “With you… where.” His jaw flexes. “My office. Inner room. Locks. Cameras. Guards you recognize.” Recognize. That word matters, because fear is less loud when the faces are familiar, when the footsteps match what your brain expects. My throat works. “Okay.”
* * *
Gabriel nods once, like he already decided I’d say yes. He turns his head toward the door. “Juan.” Juan appears instantly, stepping inside with the kind of posture that says he’s ready to kill anything that breathes wrong. “Inner route,” Gabriel orders. “No main halls.” Juan nods. “Yes, Jefe.”
Gabriel looks down at me. “Stand,” he says. I stand, but my knees wobble. My ribs pull and pain blooms hot, then fades into that deep ache again. Gabriel’s hand catches my waist immediately, firm and steady.
Juan opens the door and scans the hallway.
Two guards appear, guns visible, eyes hard, mouths tight like they’re holding back violence.
Gabriel keeps his hand on my back as we move, close enough that I feel the heat, close enough that every man we pass sees the message. Mine. Protected. Untouchable.
We take a tighter corridor, one I didn’t even know existed.
Hidden doors. Cameras in the corners. The walls are closer here.
The air smells colder, like this hallway doesn’t get used unless someone is bleeding.
Gabriel built his house like a fortress, and someone still got inside. My stomach twists.
We reach his office. Juan checks the room, then nods. Gabriel moves me inside and locks the door behind us. I flinch at the click. My shoulders jump like the sound slapped me.
Gabriel sees it. He doesn’t comment. He just says, low, “Look at me.” I do. He steps closer, voice quiet. “That click means safety,” he tells me. “Not a cage.” My throat tightens. I want to believe him. Belief feels like standing on ice.
Gabriel gestures toward a chair near his desk. “Sit,” he says. I sit. My hands tremble in my lap. My fingers keep finding the ring on my finger. The gold is heavy, not from weight, from meaning.
Gabriel doesn’t sit. He paces once, then twice. Controlled, but the tension is in his shoulders, in his jaw, in his hands, like his body wants to break something and his mind is forcing it to wait.
He stops at the desk and picks up his phone. He dials. He speaks in Spanish, low and sharp. I catch pieces. Routes. Checkpoints. Names. Then he switches languages and my stomach drops.
Italian.
He’s calling Cassio. I know it before he says his name, because his tone changes. Still controlled, but harder. “Cassio,” he says.
Silence on the other end. Then Cassio’s voice, faint through the speaker. “What.” Gabriel doesn’t waste time. “Someone tried to take your sister out of my house.” Even hearing it spoken makes my skin crawl, like the rope brushes my shoulder again.
Cassio’s silence lasts one beat longer than it should. Then: “Alive.” Gabriel’s eyes cut to me for half a second, a check. “Yes,” he says.
Cassio exhales once. “Who.” Gabriel’s voice is cold. “Carson.” A pause. Then Cassio says, “I don’t know that name.” “You don’t need to,” Gabriel replies. “He used the heat you put on her as cover.”
Cassio’s tone sharpens. “The heat I put on her?” Gabriel’s jaw flexes. “Your insult lit the match.” Cassio’s voice goes colder. “Don’t blame me for your security failing.”
My hands clench in my lap. My ribs ache. My breathing turns shallow. This is men talking like I’m not even in the room, like I’m not a person, just an explosion they’re discussing.
Gabriel’s voice cuts through. “She’s not a bargaining chip anymore,” he says. “Not for you. Not for them. Not for anyone.” Cassio goes quiet. Then his voice is lower. “You’re getting attached.”
Gabriel doesn’t deny it. He says something worse. He says the truth. “Yes,” he replies. “And that makes me dangerous.” My breath catches.
Cassio’s voice is tight. “Dangerous is not always smart.” Gabriel’s eyes flick to me again, then back to the phone. “I’m done being smart,” he says.
The room goes still. Even the air.
Cassio speaks again, slow. “If you lose her, the treaty dies.” Gabriel’s voice is steel. “If I lose her, everything dies.” Cassio pauses, then quieter, almost not Cassio at all. “Bring her home,” he says.
Home. The word hits me like a slap. I don’t have a home. Not in Italy. Not in Mexico. Not in Kansas City. Not anywhere.
Gabriel ends the call without answering. He sets the phone down. He turns to me. His face is hard, but his eyes are on fire.
He steps closer, stopping right in front of my chair, and crouches again, bringing himself to my level like it’s a strategy, like he refuses to let his height swallow me. “So,” he says, voice low, “we’re changing the rules.”
My throat tightens. “What rules,” I whisper. His gaze holds mine. “No more silence.” My stomach twists. “Silence is how I survive.”
His eyes narrow. “No,” he corrects. “Silence is how they keep you controllable.” The words hit my chest sharp. True. I hate that they’re true.
Gabriel continues. “You tell me everything.” My breath catches.
“I can’t,” I whisper. His voice drops even lower.
“Yes, you can,” he says. “And you will.” The firmness should scare me.
It does. But it also steadies something, because someone deciding you are worth protecting is the closest thing to safety this world offers.
He leans in slightly. “And I’m giving you something,” he adds. My throat tightens. “What.”
He reaches into his pocket and pulls out a small device. He places it in my palm, and my fingers close around it automatically like my body knows to hold on. “It triggers the inner alarm,” he says. “Only my guards. Not the whole compound. It pings Juan and Luca.”
My hands shake. I stare at it like it’s unreal. “You’re giving me… a way to call you,” I whisper. A way to make them come. A way to make noise and not get punished for it.
Gabriel’s mouth tightens. “I’m giving you a way to fight back,” he says. The sentence makes my throat burn, because my whole life, fighting back meant pain later.
Gabriel watches my face like he sees the panic, and his voice softens by a fraction. “Noise saves you in my house,” he says. My lips part. No words. My brain can’t fit around that yet.
He watches me, then he says, “And there’s more.” My stomach drops. “What.” His voice turns cold again. “We bait Carson.”
My blood freezes. “No,” I whisper. Gabriel’s eyes lock on mine. “Yes,” he says.
My chest heaves. “I was almost taken,” I choke out. “I can’t be bait.” His jaw flexes. He leans in, voice low enough it feels like a secret and a threat at the same time. “You won’t be bait,” he says. “You’ll be the hook.”
I stare at him, confused, terrified, and he keeps going. “They want you because you’re the easiest way to get to me.” My throat tightens. He taps my ring lightly with his finger. “So we use that.”
My breath stutters. “How.” “We stage movement,” he says. “A false transfer. A rumor that you’re being moved to an Alliance location.” My stomach twists. “That will start a war,” I whisper. “They’re trying to start one anyway,” he replies.
I look down at the device in my hand. A small metal square with a button.
Gabriel watches my face, then he says, quieter, “I won’t force you.” My head snaps up. My voice breaks. “You just said yes.” His mouth tightens. “I said yes to the plan,” he says. “Not to using you without your permission.”
Permission. That word makes me dizzy, like standing up too fast.
He shifts closer. “Tell me what you need,” he says.
My throat closes. I don’t know how to answer that. No one ever cared what I needed. Need was weakness.
Gabriel waits. He doesn’t rush. He just holds my gaze like he’ll sit here until I say something.
I swallow. My voice is small. “I need… to know you won’t let them touch me,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s eyes go black. His voice drops to a vow. “They will die before they touch you,” he says.
My breath catches. I believe him. That’s the terrifying part. Believing him means I’m stepping into something with him. Something that can’t be undone.
His hand lifts.
He touches my cheek again, then slides his hand into my hair at the nape of my neck. He leans in and kisses me. A kiss that says I am here, you are safe in this moment, and anyone who tries to take you dies.
My body freezes at first. Then I feel his restraint. He doesn’t push. He doesn’t take more. He just holds my mouth for a few seconds, then pulls back slowly.
My breath is shaking. My lips tingle. My chest aches in a way that isn’t only fear.
His forehead presses to mine for one beat. “Good,” he whispers. “You’re still here.” A tear slips. I hate it. He wipes it away.
Then he stands. The warmth leaves my face instantly and I feel cold again.
He turns to the desk, opens a drawer, and pulls out a folder. Maps. Routes. Names. He spreads them out. “We start tonight,” he says.
He points to a line on the map. “False convoy,” he says. “Decoy car. Two shadow cars. Counter snipers.” He looks at me. “You will not be in the decoy,” he adds, and my breath releases slightly. “You will be in the safe car,” he continues. “And only Juan, Luca, and I will know which one.”
My fingers tighten around the device.
“If anyone deviates, we abort,” he says. “If you feel unsafe, you hit that button.”
I swallow hard. My voice is barely there. “And if they still try.” His gaze turns lethal. “Then I let them,” he says.
My blood freezes.
He sees my fear and corrects it immediately. “I let them take the bait,” he says. “Then I kill them.”
My breath shakes. I nod slowly, because this is his language. This is how he loves. Not with flowers. With walls and guns and blood.
Gabriel moves closer again and crouches one more time. His voice drops. “One more thing,” he says. I swallow. “What.” His eyes hold mine. “You don’t call yourself defective again,” he says.
My throat tightens. “I didn’t.” “You felt it,” he cuts in. “I saw it.” My breath catches. “They didn’t ruin you,” he says. “They hurt you. There’s a difference.”
My eyes burn. His thumb strokes once at my jaw, and then he says the sentence that makes my heart tilt. “I’m going to help you heal,” he says. “And I’m going to do it while we burn them.”
My breath shudders. A broken laugh almost escapes me. It’s not funny, but it’s so insane it almost is. Healing and burning. Love and violence. That’s his version of devotion.
I don’t know what to do with it. I just whisper, “Okay.”
Gabriel nods once. He stands and turns toward the door. “Juan.” Juan appears. “Prep the convoy,” Gabriel orders. “And bring me the full list of who was on shift near her room.” Juan nods. “Yes, Jefe.”
Gabriel looks back at me, his eyes narrowing slightly like he’s memorizing my face. Then his voice drops. “You stay right here,” he says.
I flinch.
He sees it and fixes it instantly. “Not as a prisoner,” he says. “As my priority.” My throat tightens. I nod once.
And when he turns to leave, my hand tightens around the device because I can feel it, the room shifting, the air tightening, the sense that this plan is about to drag me right back to the edge of a cliff.
Only this time, Gabriel is holding my hand.
And I don’t know if that makes it safer, or makes it impossible to escape when I fall.
* * *
Dear Diary,
I can make noise and not get punished for it.
No more silence.
He won’t touch me without my permission.
I don’t know if I believe him. But I want to.
And that want scares me more than the rope did.
The rope tried to steal my body.
Hope tries to steal my guard.