She’d wanted to kiss him.
He’d wanted to kiss her more.
An impulse he’d struggled to keep in check out of respect for everything she’d gone through that night, not knowing the worst was yet to come.
Sebastian beckoned for one of the maids walking down the hallway toward them. “Can you stay with Gabrielle? Come get me if she wakes up. I’ll be right across the hall.”
The maid nodded as Sebastian crossed the hallway. The afternoon sun rays pierced the room with a blinding glow. The pale green brocade walls and Caribbean colonial sofas, arranged in a strategic half-circle, were bathed in the light. Serena sat on the middle of the five sofas, directly across from a grand piano. Detective Brad Shannon took up the couch to her right, cluttered with notepads, files, and papers.
Serena spoke first. “Why were you and my sister on the beach at four in the morning? What were you doing?” Her tone indicted him, even though he was the one who’d stopped what Serena thought he’d been up to with Gabrielle from happening. If Gabrielle had her way, he would have a more salacious answer.
Instead, he was faced with a more daunting prospect.
Telling the truth was worse.
“We were walking back from the dock after going to the Aerie Islands earlier in the evening,” Sebastian said.
The detective’s eyes narrowed as he looked up from his notepad. A tense silence filled the air. “Why did the two of you go to the Aerie Islands?” Shannon asked, an edge in his tone.
From the look he exchanged with Serena, Sebastian guessed they both knew about Damian Hester’s death last night. They didn’t know he and Gabrielle were there when it happened.
“To watch Damian Hester die,” Sebastian said, cutting to the chase. He didn’t have time to play cat-and-mouse games with the detective. He wanted to get the questions answered so he could go back and be with Gabrielle.
“Oh, my God!” Serena gasped. “You took my sister there? Why would you do that? She didn’t need to see that monster again.”
“She thought she did,” Sebastian said. “She wanted a chance to tell him to his face that she was no longer scared of him, but she didn’t get to do that. He flatlined while we were in the room with his brother, Marvin.”
Shannon dragged a hand down his face. “How did Gabrielle react to his death?”
Sebastian hated the intensity of concern in the man’s words. “How the fuck do you think? She was in shock. Stunned. Numb. It was a lot to process, so we took the long way back to the beach cottage.”
“And that’s when the two of you saw the threat written in blood inside,” Shannon confirmed.
“Right,” Sebastian said, deciding that sharing the intimate exchange between him and Gabrielle would stay a secret. “Any idea who could’ve done it?”
Shannon said, “All signs point to Quattro carrying out a threat on Damian’s request. We don’t know if Damian made deals with them to do more or if this will be the only incident.”
Sebastian’s mind wandered to the note Marvin had thrust into Gabrielle’s hands. The jagged written message from Damian had been the same one written in blood on the cottage wall. Damian could’ve had plans to rattle Gabrielle with that message and gotten Quattro to do his dirty work while in prison. The bastard had no way of knowing he’d get into a fight with the prison guards and suffer a stroke and a heart attack.
If Quattro was involved, it wouldn’t be too hard for him to wrangle the guys to use their resources to find out for sure. In fact, they’d get an answer quicker than the informants who worked for the cops.
“As I mentioned to you earlier,” Shannon said, turning toward Serena. “I’m the head of a gang task force. That puts me in a unique position to offer protection to Gabrielle that will keep her safe from Quattro. You mentioned plans to beef up security around here, but there’s more that I can do for you—”
“I don’t need any help protecting Gabrielle,” Sebastian interrupted, rolling his eyes. “I won’t let anyone get close enough to hurt her.”
Serena agreed. “Sebastian won’t leave my sister’s side. I trust him to keep her safe, like he kept my mother safe for years.”
“No offense, but Bernadette King was never in this kind of danger.”
“And this kind of danger is child’s play compared to what I faced as a PISCO,” Sebastian said. “We have it under control, detective.”
“But if it makes you feel better, I have the staff moving all of Gabrielle’s things up to the main house. The additional security measures will be finished tomorrow. This place will be like a fortress with round-the-clock monitoring,” Serena said, then turned to Sebastian. “You don’t have a problem with moving into the family quarters, do you? I want you close to Gabrielle.”
“I don’t,” Sebastian said. “But she might.”
“I’m not staying in the main house.” Gabrielle’s voice caused them all to turn toward the door.
Sebastian rushed toward her, wrapping her in his arms. She leaned into his embrace as he stroked her hair.
