Page 100 of The Beast

“Anissa keeps sending you food. You eating any of it?”

“Some.”

“Liar.” Travis closed his laptop and leaned back in his chair, propping his feet on the cluttered desk. “You want to come in and tell me what’s wrong, or are you just going to stand there looking like a man who’s about to jump off a bridge?”

Gabriel stepped inside, then closed the door behind him. The office was cramped—barely bigger than a closet, with cinder block walls and a single flickering fluorescent light.

He’d given Travis his choice of offices, most of which had room to stretch both arms to the side while also expanding your chest to breathe. But his friend had chosen this tiny interior room. Had said it was cozy.

Cozy.

“Is that a grin?” Travis asked as Gabriel took a seat in the battered guest chair.

“If it is, it’s an outlier,” Gabriel admitted. “Not much to grin about these days.”

Travis nodded, but didn’t say anything. Just put his hands on his desk, watched Gabriel, and waited.

Travis waited. That was one of the things Gabriel had always valued about his friend—the man understood silence. Understood that some things took time to surface. A long career as a Texas Ranger and almost five years of managing underground fighters had given Travis a patience that most people mistook for indifference.

It wasn’t indifference. It was respect. The understanding that a man would talk when he was ready, and not before.

“I’m going to lose her,” Gabriel finally said.

“Isabella?”

The name sent a spike of want through him. Even now. Even here, in this cramped office that smelled like old coffee and sweat. Just her name was enough to make his body respond.

“She reamed me out for being a jealous prick.”

“Was she right?”

“She’s rarely wrong.”

Travis nodded slowly. “Solution’s easy. Stop being a jealous prick.”

Gabriel forced himself not to laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “I got there on my own. I’m working on implementation.”

“Life’s a bitch. What’s the real reason you’re here?”

Gabriel drew a breath, then let it out slowly. “I almost fucking killed her.”

Travis went very still. “All right. You have my attention.”

“A nightmare,” Gabe said. “I almost killed her while I was having a fucking nightmare. And when we tried to⁠—”

He couldn’t finish. The memory of his hand around her throat—twice now, once asleep and once awake—was too raw. Too shameful. “They may not have killed me, Trav, but they damn sure broke me.”

Travis leaned back. His expression didn’t change, but his eyes held both compassion and understanding.

“You talk to anyone about this yet?” Travis asked, his voice as soft and measured as Gabe had ever heard. “Professionally, I mean.”

“No.”

“Maybe you should.”

“I’m talking to you.”

Travis snorted. “I’m not a shrink, Gabe. I’m a guy who runs a fight club. Your fight club.”