Chapter 34 Gabriel
Gabriel
Cassio leaves like he won, and that is the kind of win that poisons everything.
He did not come here for the cartel man in the trunk.
He came for Savannah’s voice. He came to drag it out of her in front of witnesses so he can claim it later, twist it later, so Romano can twist it later.
And Savannah, brave, shaking, still standing, gave them something they cannot ignore now. A public choice. A public target.
I watch Cassio’s convoy roll out of my gates in perfect spacing, five cars of Italian arrogance, and the second the last taillight disappears my compound exhales. My men shift back into place. Weapons stay hidden. Eyes stay sharp, because war doesn’t leave when the cars do. It just changes clothes.
* * *
Behind me, one of my men is still shaking on his knees. He is sobbing quietly now, nose running, hands tied, dignity stripped. He deserves fear.
Savannah stands beside me with her pendant clenched in her fist so tight her knuckles are white.
Her shoulders are stiff, her breath shallow.
She is still here, but I can see the tremor in her skin, the aftershock.
I shift my body a little to block her from the trunk’s line of sight, not because she needs hiding, but because she doesn’t need his eyes on her. Not now.
I speak low, only for her. “You did it.”
Her throat works. Her voice is thin. “I said it.”
“Yes,” I confirm.
She swallows hard. “He looked at me like I was…”
I cut it off smoothly. “He looked at you like you were an excuse,” I tell her. “He doesn’t get that anymore.”
Her breath shakes. She doesn’t answer. She keeps staring at the ground like the mat in the training room is still under her feet, like she is trying to remember where her body ends and the world begins. I lean toward her ear.
“Feet,” I murmur.
She plants them harder.
I turn back to my men. “Juan. Take him. Quietly.”
Juan’s gaze hardens and he nods once like it’s a promise, not a task. Luca steps closer, eyes narrowed.
“Jefe,” Luca says low. “Cassio made it public.”
“I know.”
Luca’s jaw flexes. “He’s forcing the families to pick a rumor.”
“He already did,” I say. “Now we change the rumor.”
Savannah’s breathing stutters beside me like she heard the word rumor and her body decided it hates it. I keep my voice level.
“Inside,” I tell her. “Water.”
She doesn’t move. She looks like her body is waiting for permission to collapse. I soften my tone by one degree, not my face.
“Savannah.”
Her eyes flick to mine. Glass. Holding.
“You’re here,” I remind her.
“…Yes,” she whispers.
I nod once, then make it smaller. Easier. “Hand.”
I don’t reach for her. I offer mine. Her fingers hesitate because hands mean too many things. Then she takes it. Her hand is cold and shaking. I lead her toward the house. Behind us, Juan and two men move like shadows.
Cassio doesn’t get a second act.
We pass guards who pretend they aren’t watching. They are. They saw her speak. They saw her refuse Cassio. That changes what people believe, and belief is a weapon.
Upstairs, the hallway is quiet. The air smells like fresh linen and gun oil and the faint citrus soap she used earlier, small normal things trying to survive in this life. I open the bedroom door and I do lock it, not because I’m scared, but because she needs the click sometimes to breathe.
The lock turns. The sound is small.
Savannah’s shoulders drop a fraction like the room just got a little safer. She stands near the foot of the bed, still holding the pendant like it’s the last solid thing on earth. Her chest rises too fast. Her eyes flick around the room like she is counting corners.
I don’t crowd her. I stay a few feet away.
“Water,” I say again.
She shakes her head automatically. Habit. “No. I’ll… I’m fine.”
Her voice says fine. Her body says running.
I keep my tone firm, not cruel. “Savannah.”
She flinches at the firmness, then steadies like she hates that she flinched. I don’t let her punish herself for it.
“Drink,” I say. “One swallow.”
She stares at me like I am asking for something impossible. Then she nods once, tiny, and goes to the side table. Hands shaking, she lifts the glass. The water trembles. She takes a sip.
One swallow.
Her throat works hard like even swallowing is a choice.
“Good,” I say.
Her eyes narrow. “I hate that word,” she mutters, voice rough.
“Lie,” I answer.
Her mouth twitches like she wants to smile and refuses. Then she looks down at her pendant again and the quiet deepens, the kind of quiet where her thoughts start turning on her.
I step closer, slow, and stop where she can still breathe. “Look at me.”
She forces her eyes up. Bright. Not crying. Holding.
“You did not cause this,” I tell her.
Her throat works. “I didn’t say anything for so long,” she whispers, like it’s confession and punishment in one.
I shake my head once. “You said no,” I correct. “You said you chose. That’s not nothing.”
Her breath shakes. “And now they’ll punish me.”
There it’s , the truth living under her skin. In her past, speaking meant consequence. Breathing wrong meant consequence. Existing meant consequence.
I don’t deny it. I don’t lie. I change the ending.
“Let them try,” I say.
She stares like she doesn’t understand what that means.
“They punish you,” I tell her, “and they die.”
Her breath catches. Fear flashes first, then guilt, because she doesn’t want bodies on her conscience. I see it.
“I don’t want blood for me,” she whispers.
I nod once. “Then don’t. But understand this.”
I step closer. My hand lifts slowly and touches her waist. Then my other hand comes up to cup the side of her neck, gentle.
Her whole body shivers. Her eyes flutter. Fear and need crash together in her face. I keep my thumb still. No stroking. No teasing. No taking. Just holding.
“They already spilled blood for you,” I say. “They already made you pay.”
Her eyes fill slightly. “Don’t .”
“I’m not saying it to hurt you,” I tell her. “I’m saying it so you stop thinking you owe them silence.”
Her breathing quickens. She swallows. “I don’t know how to stop.”
That honesty hits harder than any gunshot because it means she is trying.
“Then we start small,” I say. “Right now.”
Her eyes search mine. “Now.”
I nod once. “Now. You choose one thing.”
She blinks fast like her brain is trying to run. My hand stays at her neck, warm, steady.
“Food,” I say. “Shower. Bed. Or the training room again.”
Her throat works. She looks like she wants to bolt, then like she wants to collapse into me. Her eyes flick to the door, to the walls, to the whole world outside this room. Then she looks back at me.
“I want…” she starts, voice thin.
I wait.
“I want you,” she whispers.
The words hit like fire, not because I didn’t want to hear them, but because I know what they cost her to say.
My chest tightens. “In what way,” I ask softly. “Tell me.”
Her eyes flicker. Shame. Fear. Then anger at herself because she hates not knowing how to ask.
“I don’t know,” she whispers. “Just… you. Close.”
Close. Not sex. Safety. Warmth. A body that doesn’t hurt her. A man who listens like it matters.
I nod once. “Okay. Close.”
I take her hand and lead her to the bed, not pushing her down, not guiding her like she’s fragile, just bringing her somewhere soft. She sits on the edge like she is not sure she is allowed to.
“Do you want me to hold you?” I ask.
“…Yes,” she whispers.
I wrap my arms around her slowly, carefully. She tenses, then melts a fraction. Her fingers clutch my shirt like she is afraid I will disappear. She breathes in, shaky, and I feel the way her chest tries to remember how to be calm. Her forehead presses into my shoulder.
A small sound leaves her, half relief, half grief.
“I hate that this is hard,” she whispers.
“It’s not hard because you’re weak,” I say. “it’s hard because you survived.”
Her eyes squeeze shut. She shakes once, then leans into me, not fully, but enough. Enough for my blood to heat. Enough for my hands to want more.
I don’t take more.
“Do you want me to stay like this,” I ask, “or do you want space?”
Her fingers tighten. “Stay.”
I nod. “I’m here.”
And I mean it in a way Cassio will never understand.
Cassio thinks a woman belongs to the family.
Cassio thinks a woman is something to manage, to display, to steer, to use when it benefits him.
Savannah isn’t that to me. She’s a person.
A woman with a pulse and a past. She’s trying to learn how to breathe again without flinching for it, without waiting for punishment after the exhale.
* * *
A knock hits the door, hard.
Juan’s voice. “Jefe.”
Savannah goes rigid in my arms, too still, like her body just went cold from the inside. I keep one arm around her and answer without moving.
“Talk.”
Juan hesitates, then says it. “Rico talked before we locked him up. He said someone told him you wouldn’t protect her.”
My jaw locks. Savannah’s breath stops for a beat and her fingers clutch harder.
“Who?” I ask.
“He won’t say a name,” Juan replies, voice tight. “But he keeps repeating it like he was coached.”
Coached. That word turns my blood cold and sharp at the same time, because coaching means planning. Coaching means someone is inside the room even when they are not physically here.
Luca’s voice joins faintly behind Juan. “We think it started before today. Rumor chain.”
Of course it did. Romano doesn’t build fires with one match. He pours gas for weeks.
I look down at Savannah. Her eyes are wide, face pale, lips parting like she wants to speak and doesn’t know what word won’t get her hurt. So I do the next best thing. I lower my mouth to her temple and speak against her skin.
“You hear me.”
Her breath shakes. “…Yes.”
I tighten my hold, then look back to the door.
“Keep him locked up,” I tell Juan. “No contact. Not even with our men. And find the leak.”
Juan’s silence says he already started.
Savannah’s voice is small. “Someone said you wouldn’t protect me.”
“That’s the point,” I say. “They want you to doubt.”
Her throat works. “And if I doubt, I go quiet again.”
I nod once. “Yes. So we don’t let you doubt.”
“How?” she asks.
“Right now,” I say, “you tell me what you need.”
Her eyes flicker with fear, then something else, a spark, because asking is power. She swallows.
“Stay,” she whispers.
“Done,” I say.
“And,” she adds, voice barely there, “don’t go to war without telling me.”
That hits because she is not asking to be caged. She is asking to be included. To not be left in the dark where her brain eats itself alive.
I nod once. “I won’t.”
Her breath breaks. She presses her forehead into my shoulder again, and I feel one thin layer of her panic ease. Not gone. Just quieter.
Outside this door, war is already rearranging itself. Romano. Cassio. Mikhail. Traitors. They will all come because she spoke, because she chose, because the world can’t stand a woman who stops being breakable.
Cassio thinks he won today.
He didn’t.
He just started the next move, and when Cassio moves he doesn’t negotiate. He takes.
But this time he is trying to take a woman who has started saying no out loud, and I’m going to make sure the cost teaches every man watching exactly what “protected” means now.