Chapter 37 Savannah
Savannah
Ihate leaving at night. Night is when my brain thinks it has permission to replay, when shadows look like hands, when a door closing can turn into a year of my life in one second. But I said yes. I chose leaving, so I force my body to move.
Gabriel doesn’t rush me. He doesn’t bark orders or treat my fear like an inconvenience.
He stands at the edge of the room while I dress in black leggings and a long sweater, socks and shoes, simple things that feel like armor.
The sweater is soft, but my skin still feels too sensitive, like every seam is a warning.
My hands shake as I tie the laces, and the shaking makes me angry.
Not at him. At the part of me that still behaves like the past is happening.
“Do you want help?” he asks.
I swallow. “No,” I whisper.
He nods once. “Okay.” He means it. No argument, no correction, no wounded pride. Just acceptance like my no matters.
I grab my pendant automatically, then remember it’s already on me. I am holding it anyway. Gabriel steps closer, not touching, voice smooth. “Bag is ready. Water. Snacks. Med kit.”
Med kit makes my stomach twist because my brain turns it into injuries, blood, pain. I nod once. “Okay,” I manage.
He reaches for the small duffel by the chair, then pauses. “Phone. Do you want yours?”
My throat tightens because phones mean people, and people mean demands, and demands mean pressure. “No,” I whisper.
Gabriel nods like that is logical. “It stays.” Then, softer, “I’ll keep mine.”
My chest loosens slightly. Mine feels like a leash. His feels like a weapon he controls.
I stand, legs stiff like they don’t trust me to walk into the hallway. Gabriel opens the door first and looks out, scanning, then steps aside and gestures. “After you.”
* * *
My throat tightens as I step into the hall. it’s quiet. No voices, no footsteps, but my body still expects someone to appear out of nowhere. I keep my eyes forward and my breathing even. Gabriel stays beside me as we move, not in front or behind, just beside.
We go down the stairs.
* * *
The compound is lit in controlled pools of light.
The courtyard is empty now, no Cassio, no trunk, but the memory is still there like a stain I cannot scrub off.
We pass a guard and he lowers his gaze respectfully.
Relief and shame hit me at the same time.
Relief because he is not looking at me like prey.
Shame because I am grateful for basic decency.
Gabriel’s hand brushes the small of my back as we reach the vehicle. A black SUV with tinted windows. Juan stands near the driver’s side, face hard, scanning the perimeter like he is already in a fight. Luca is near the gate, phone to his ear, voice low.
Gabriel opens the back door for me. He doesn’t shove me inside. He waits. “Do you want the back,” he asks softly, “or the front.”
Front means visibility. Back means containment. Both are triggers in different ways. “Back,” I whisper.
“Okay.”
I climb in. The leather seat is cold. I tuck my legs under me slightly like I am making myself smaller without meaning to.
I hate that, so I force my feet down. Gabriel climbs in beside me, close but not crowding.
Juan gets in the driver’s seat. The engine starts.
The gate opens. The compound lights slide away behind us, and my stomach flips hard.
Leaving safety always feels like walking into a trap, even when the trap is in my head.
Juan drives smooth and quiet. No radio. No unnecessary sound. The city streets are mostly empty, streetlights sliding across the windows like slow, passing bars. I don’t like bars. I swallow and grip my pendant again.
“Feet,” Gabriel murmurs.
I press my shoes into the floor and feel the vibration of the road. My breath shakes. “Where are we going,” I whisper.
“Outside the city,” he says. “Private property. Quiet.”
“How far?”
“Forty minutes.”
Forty minutes can be forever. Forty minutes can be enough time for a car to follow, enough time for someone to pull us over, enough time for an ambush. My throat tightens, and Gabriel must feel it because he speaks again.
“Two vehicles behind us,” he says. “One ahead. No one touches you.”
Two behind. One ahead. A bubble. A shield. I nod once like my body understands numbers better than words and stare out the window as the streets blur into lights, dark, lights again.
My mind tries to replay Romano’s name, Cassio’s eyes, Rico’s trembling mouth, the way Cassio said consequences. I swallow and feel Gabriel’s hand rest on my thigh. I let it sit there, warm and heavy, a reminder I am not floating away.
We turn onto a longer road with fewer lights and more open dark. My stomach twists tighter because this is where things happen, where my brain expects the world to punish me for daring to feel relaxed.
“Do you think they’ll follow,” I whisper.
“If they try,” Gabriel says evenly, “we will know.”
The answer should comfort me. It doesn’t, because knowing doesn’t stop bullets. Gabriel doesn’t tell me to relax or shame me for fear. He gives me something solid instead.
“You chose leaving,” he says softly. “That was smart.”
“Smart doesn’t keep me alive,” I whisper.
“It does,” he says, voice lower. “Because smart keeps you from standing in the room they built to break you.”
My mouth tastes like metal. The church is exactly that, a room built for a performance, for men to watch my mouth and decide if my voice counts.
“I hate being watched,” I whisper.
“I know,” he murmurs, thumb pressing once into my thigh.
We drive. Minutes stretch. The convoy hums behind us, a faint echo of tires. My breathing gets shallow.
“Breathe,” Gabriel says.
I try. In. Out. In again.
Then Juan’s posture shifts. I feel it before I hear it, his shoulders tightening, the car’s speed adjusting barely, but my body notices. My stomach drops.
Gabriel looks toward the front. “Juan.”
Juan’s voice is controlled. “Car on our six. Not ours. Been there four turns.”
My blood turns cold. My hand crushes the pendant. My breath stops.
Gabriel’s hand tightens on my thigh. “You’re here,” he says in my ear.
I swallow hard. “Yes.”
Juan speaks again, clipped. “Black sedan. No plates.”
No plates means intent. My skin goes tight and my mind tries to leave my body.
“Stay,” Gabriel murmurs.
I force my eyes open wider, force my feet down, force air into my lungs. Juan keeps his tone steady. “Luca’s confirming.”
A beat, and then Luca’s voice crackles through the car speaker, low. “Not Alliance. Not ours. Unknown.”
Unknown is a knife.
Gabriel doesn’t raise his voice or panic. He switches into strategy like flipping a blade open. “Juan. Take the service road at the next light. Break pattern.”
“Copy,” Juan answers.
Gabriel touches my chin lightly and turns my face toward him. “Listen,” he says softly. “This is not you being punished. This is war. War doesn’t get to steal your breath.”
My throat burns. “What if it’s Mikhail,” I whisper.
Gabriel’s eyes harden. “If it’s Mikhail, then he dies for trying.” His voice drops lower. “But you don’t spiral. You stay in your body. You do what you did earlier.”
“Feet,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says.
Juan turns at the light, sharp but controlled. The SUV glides onto a narrower road. Trees start to line the sides and darkness surrounds us. The sedan stays behind us, still there, still following. My heart slams.
The convoy behind us shifts too. One of our vehicles falls back slightly, creating distance, then eases to the side. A guard car preparing to intercept. Gabriel watches through the rear window, eyes lethal, and speaks into his earpiece once, quiet and controlled.
The guard car behind us moves. It drifts into the sedan’s lane and forces it to adjust, just a small pressure, not an accident, a message. The sedan doesn’t back off. It speeds up.
My breath catches.
“You’re here,” Gabriel says again.
“Yes,” I whisper, voice shaking.
The sedan swings to the side like it’s trying to pass, and our second guard car behind moves up too, boxing it in. The sedan hesitates, then drops back suddenly, like whoever is driving realizes they are outnumbered.
My lungs burn. I did not realize I stopped breathing.
“In,” Gabriel murmurs.
I inhale. Out. I exhale.
The sedan fades into the dark behind the convoy. Gone. Juan doesn’t slow. He keeps driving like the road is normal, like this happens every day, like he is not carrying the key to the treaty in the back seat.
Luca’s voice comes through again. “Plate check impossible. Vehicle disappeared off our rear at mile marker fifteen. No pursuit.”
“Good,” Gabriel says.
Juan’s voice is tight. “That wasn’t random.”
“No,” Gabriel replies. “It was a feeler.”
Testing the perimeter. Testing how easy it’s to reach me.
Gabriel turns his head slightly toward me, voice softer. “You did good.”
I almost glare. Almost. “I didn’t do anything,” I whisper.
“You stayed,” he says. “That’s everything.”
My throat tightens because staying is the hardest part.
We drive the rest of the way without another tail. The city falls behind. The road becomes gravel. Trees open into a wide gate with a private drive, and a farmhouse sits in the distance with low, warm lights. It looks safe in a way that feels suspicious because it looks like peace.
Juan punches in a code. The gate opens. We roll through. The drive curves, the house grows closer, and two men step out from the shadows, our security, faces familiar to Gabriel and unknown to me. They lower their gaze, respectful, no staring, no measuring.
I exhale shakily. Juan stops the SUV. Gabriel turns to me.
* * *
“We’re here,” he says softly.
“Okay,” I whisper.
He opens the door and holds out his hand. I take it. His palm is warm. I step out into cold night air that smells like dirt and trees instead of exhaust and blood.
The quiet is too quiet. It makes my skin prickle because quiet is where my brain tries to invent danger. Gabriel squeezes my hand once and walks me inside.
* * *
The house is simple. Wood floors. Soft lamps. A kitchen that smells faintly like coffee. A couch with a blanket folded neatly like someone prepared for comfort on purpose.
I stand in the doorway, frozen. My body doesn’t know what to do with safe.
“Pick a room,” Gabriel says. “Any room. it’s yours.”
Mine hits a trigger, but his tone doesn’t. I swallow. “I want a room with a lock,” I whisper.
Gabriel nods immediately. “Yes. Of course.”
He leads me down a hallway and opens a bedroom door. A bed, a dresser, a window looking out at trees, a bathroom attached, and a lock on the inside. Gabriel points to it.
“There,” he says. “You control it.”
My throat tightens. I step inside and touch the lock. Cold metal. Gabriel stays in the doorway, not entering fully, respecting my space.
“Do you want food or shower first,” he asks.
My body is trembling now that the danger passed, delayed reaction. “Shower,” I whisper.
“I’ll have water and tea ready after,” he says.
He starts to turn away, then pauses and looks back at me. “Savannah.”
I lift my eyes.
“You chose leaving,” he says. “That was you protecting you.” I nod once.
“And the car behind us didn’t take your breath,” he continues. “You stayed.”
My eyes sting. “I was scared,” I whisper.
“Yes,” he says. “And you stayed anyway.”
He steps back and leaves me privacy. I close the door. I lock it. The click hits my body like a strange kind of peace.
Then I lean against the door and slide to the floor. My hands shake. My mouth tastes like metal. My chest burns from holding fear inside. The moment I am alone, my brain tries to replay the tail again, the dark road, no plates, unknown.
I press my forehead to my knees and whisper my sentence like prayer.
“I chose this.”
I breathe.
In.
Out.
Then there is a soft knock.
“Tea is ready,” Gabriel’s voice says through the door.
I swallow hard. “Okay,” I answer, voice shaking.
He doesn’t try to enter. He stays on the other side of the door like a guard for my nervous system.
And then I hear it, Luca’s voice from down the hall, fast and urgent.
“Jefe. Call. Now.”
My stomach drops, because we are here, we are safe, we are locked, and something still found us anyway.
* * *
Dear Diary,
Leaving in the dead of night felt like running, and maybe it was. But it was my choice, a choice that protected me. Shame hits hard and weakness circles my head like it’s trying to stick, but I keep breathing through it anyway.
I may have run, but my choices kept me alive. I am scared the war doesn’t care where we hide, and I am scared it will punish me for choosing. But I chose. I said yes. I left.
I touched my pendant and I kept my feet on the floor.
I chose this.