10. The First Move
The First Move
Monika
The greenhouse is dark when I find him.
Not completely dark—there's a sliver of moonlight cutting through the glass ceiling, casting pale shadows across the orchids, illuminating the path between the potting benches and the irrigation system.
It's enough to see by. Enough to navigate.
Enough to find Gabriel sitting on the bench in the corner, his head bowed, his hands clasped between his knees.
He doesn't hear me come in. He's lost in whatever thoughts have been consuming him for the past year—the same thoughts that have been consuming all of us. The same darkness.
"Gabriel."
He looks up. His eyes are red-rimmed, his face pale, his hair disheveled. He looks like he hasn't slept in days. He looks like he's been crying.
"Monika." His voice is hoarse. "What are you doing here?"
"I need your help."
He straightens. Something shifts in his expression—the same shift I've seen a hundred times, the one that means he's ready to save me, ready to be the hero, ready to do whatever it takes.
"With what?"
I sit beside him. The bench is cold beneath me, the stone floor radiating chill through my thin dress. I don't care. I'm past caring about small discomforts.
"Stopping him," I say. "Nathan. He's—" I stop. The words stick in my throat. "He's trading children, Gabriel. And I need to stop him."
His face goes pale. Paler than it already was. The kind of pale that comes from shock, from horror, from the realization that the world is worse than you thought.
"I didn't know," he says.
"I know." I reach for his hand. His fingers are cold, trembling. "I'm telling you now."
I tell him everything.
The warehouse. The cages. The women I saw a year ago and pretended not to see. The children I didn't know about until tonight. The girl—Tasha—with her broken arm and her empty eyes and her voice that sounded like a ghost when she said her name.
I tell him about Nathan. About the way he looked at me when I called him a monster. About the way he didn't deny it. About the way he said "it's business" like that made it okay.
I tell him about Aleksander. About the way he held me after I told him. About the way he said he didn't know. About the way he promised to fix it—and the way I don't know if he can.
I tell him about myself. About the year I've spent in this house, taking their money, wearing their clothes, sleeping in their beds, pretending I was surviving when I was really just dying slowly.
By the time I'm done, I'm crying. I don't know when I started. I don't know how to stop.
Gabriel doesn't say anything for a long moment. He just sits there, holding my hand, his face unreadable.
Then he speaks.
"I'll help you."
I look at him. "Gabriel—"
"I'll help you. Whatever it takes." He turns to face me. His eyes are fierce, determined, the eyes of a man who has finally found something worth fighting for. "Even if it means going against my brother. Even if it means going against everyone."
"Even if it means going against your father?"
"Even if it means going against everyone."
I kiss him.
I don't plan it. I don't think about it. I just do it—because he's here, because he's willing, because he's the only person in this house who's ever looked at me like I was something worth saving.
He kisses me back.
It's different from the other kisses we've shared. Those kisses were soft, hesitant, the kiss of a boy who was afraid of breaking me. This kiss is hungry. Desperate. The kiss of a man who has been holding himself back for too long and has finally decided to stop.
His hands find my waist. My back. My hair. He pulls me closer, and I feel the heat of him through his clothes, the solid weight of his body against mine.
"I love you," he says against my lips. "I know you don't want to hear it. I know you can't say it back. But I love you, Monika. I've loved you since the moment I saw you."
His voice cracks on my name. His hands are trembling where they cup my face—gentle, so gentle, like I'm something precious. Something fragile.
"Gabriel..."
"Don't." He presses his forehead to mine, and I can feel the heat of him, the desperation bleeding from his skin into mine. "Don't tell me to stop. Don't tell me to be careful. I've been careful for a year. I've been patient for a year. And nothing has changed."
His thumbs trace my cheekbones. Soft. Reverent. He kisses me like he's drowning and I'm air—slow, deep, pouring everything he can't say into the press of his lips.
"I need you," he whispers. "I need to feel something other than this—this emptiness. This fear. This desperation."
"I know."
"I need to feel you."
He stands. He pulls me to my feet. He leads me to the glass wall of the greenhouse—the one that faces the garden, the one that's frosted with cold, the one where anyone could see us if they looked.
But no one is looking. The house is asleep. The world is dark.
It's just us.
He pushes me against the glass—not hard, not yet. Just enough to feel the cold bite through my dress. His lips find my neck, trailing soft, open-mouthed kisses down the column of my throat.
"I've dreamed about this," he murmurs. "About you. About us. Every night for a year."
His hands slide up my sides, thumbs brushing the undersides of my breasts. I arch into him, and he groans—that low, wounded sound that makes my stomach clench.
"Tell me to stop," he breathes. "Tell me, and I will."
I don't tell him to stop.
Something shifts.
He pulls back. Just an inch. Just enough to look at me—really look at me. His eyes are dark, pupils blown wide, and there's something else there now. Something hungry. Something that's been caged for too long and just felt the lock give.
"You want this," he says. Not a question.
"Yes."
"Say it."
"I want this. I want you."
His hand moves—fast, sudden—and closes around my throat.
A warning. A promise.
"You're sure?"
"Yes."
His grip tightens.
"Good."
And then he's not gentle anymore.
His mouth crashes into mine—teeth, tongue, no finesse, just need.
His hand stays on my throat, thumb pressing against my pulse point, feeling it race.
He backs me harder into the glass, and the cold sears through my dress, through my skin, through my bones.
I gasp into his mouth, and he swallows the sound.
"Quiet," he growls against my lips. "The house—"
But his hand is already moving—down, down, under my dress, up my thigh. His fingers find the edge of my underwear and yank—fabric tearing, the sound sharp in the quiet.
"Gabriel—"
"Shut up."
His fingers slide through my folds—rough, demanding, no preamble. I'm already wet. I've been wet since he first touched me. He groans when he feels it, forehead dropping to my shoulder.
"Fuck," he breathes. "You're soaked. Is this for me? Is this what I do to you?"
"Yes—"
He slaps my pussy.
The sound echoes in the greenhouse—sharp, wet, obscene. The sting radiates through me, and I cry out, hips jerking.
"I said quiet."
He does it again. Harder. My knees buckle, and he catches me with his hand still on my throat, squeezing just enough to make my head swim.
"Count," he says.
"What—"
Another slap. My vision whites out for a second.
"Count."
"One."
Slap.
"Two."
Slap.
"Three—"
He shoves two fingers inside me without warning. I scream—or I try to. His hand clamps down on my mouth, muffling the sound, and his fingers curl just right, hitting that spot that makes my eyes roll back.
"Shh," he whispers. "You don't want to wake them, do you? You don't want them to see you like this—spread open, dripping, taking my fingers like a good little whore."
I shake my head, tears pricking at my eyes. Not from pain. From this—from the way he's looking at me, the way he's taking me.
He adds a third finger. Stretches me. Fucks me with his hand, rough and fast, thumb circling my clit in tight, punishing circles.
"You're going to come for me," he says. "You're going to come on my fingers, and then I'm going to fuck you against this glass, and everyone in that house is going to hear you scream my name."
"Gabriel—"
"Say it."
"I'm—I'm going to—"
"Say. It."
"Gabriel!"
I shatter.
The orgasm rips through me like lightning—violent, overwhelming, my body convulsing around his fingers. He doesn't stop. He works me through it, curling his fingers, pressing his thumb harder against my clit, drawing it out until I'm sobbing, oversensitive, begging.
"Please—please—"
"Please what?"
"Please fuck me."
He pulls his fingers out. I whimper at the loss, but then he's lifting me, my legs wrapping around his waist, my back slamming against the glass.
"Hold on," he says.
I barely have time to grip his shoulders before he's inside me.
One thrust. All the way. No warning, no preparation—just him, filling me, stretching me, splitting me open. I scream, and his hand covers my mouth again.
"I said quiet."
He doesn't move. Just stays there, buried to the hilt, letting me feel every inch of him. His breath is ragged against my ear, his heart pounding against my chest.
"You feel that?" he whispers. "That's what you do to me. That's what you've always done to me."
He pulls out—slow, deliberate—and slams back in.
I bite down on his palm to keep from screaming. He groans, low and guttural, and does it again. And again. And again.
"You're mine," he says. Each word punctuated by a thrust. "You've always been mine. Not my father's. Not Nathan's. Mine."
"Gabriel—"
"Say it."
He fucks me harder. Deeper. Each thrust drives me against the glass, and I can feel the cold seeping through my dress, through my skin, through my bones. But I don't care. I don't care about anything except the feel of him inside me, the way he's taking me, the way he's claiming me.
"Say you're mine."
"I'm yours."
"Again."
"I'm yours, Gabriel. I'm yours."
He reaches up and grabs my hair—fists it at the roots, yanks my head back, exposes my throat. His teeth find my pulse point and bite.
I come again.