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Then Jacob’s gone, and I sink back into the plastic chair.
“Those things are hell.” Gabriel clears his throat. “I’ll get a better room as soon as I can so you don’t have to sit there.”
I lean closer and fold both hands around his. “I don’t care about the chair. But…I should have gone with him.”
Gabriel’s eyes trace my face, still unsteady. His pupils are different sizes. He shakes his head. Winces. “Your dad would never let you set foot inside the house.Ishould have gone.”
“You’re high. You wouldn’t have done any good even if he let you in.”
He lets his head rest against the pillows. It’s obvious that staying awake is a struggle. I hate that for him. I hate that he had to jump out of a building to survive. I hate that my father tried toburn him alive.That anger fights with the overwhelming relief that he’s here.
And an overwhelming certainty.
I run my thumb over his knuckles and let him watch me. It’s only a temporary lull. Doctors and nurses will be back soon to find out for sure how badly Gabriel’s hurt. Mason and Charlotte and Remy will arrive. Jameson and Lydia will come back from the cafeteria. No doubt Mason will demand that Gabriel be moved to the VIP wing.
In the meantime, we’re alone. I smooth the hospital blanket over him, keeping my touch as light as I can. It still hurts. I can see that in the tiny muscles of his face. Monitors on the wall near the bed beep in a steady, ceaseless rhythm. A nurse’s shoes squeak on the floor outside. The baby is still crying, wailing like it has a broken heart.
“He had you. On the phone.” Gabriel sounds rough from the smoke and the coughing. His gorgeous singsong party vice is torn to shreds.
“What?”
“Your dad. I heard your voice. You said my name. You asked me for help.” He does his best to hold in a cough. “That’s why I went in.”
That drops a new ingredient into the crowded mix of my thoughts. “He must’ve faked it. He could have used my voice from the security cameras. Or Lydia’s.”
“Wanted to be sure I’d go in.” Gabriel frowns. “And I went. Should’ve called you.”
“The important thing is, you got out.”
“And you’re here.” He squeezes my hand.
My father didn’t need anything so high-tech to get James and Natalie Hill into a trap, and he’s never been very interested in what he callscomputer bullshit.If he’s escalated to these kinds of methods, then…
Then we don’t have weeks to deal with this problem. We might not even have days. I can’t allow my father to use Gabriel’s love for me against him. I can’t let him do this to anybody else.
“What are you thinking about?”
“I’m still not sure I trust Jacob, but he was right about something.”
Gabriel’s other hand comes up slowly from the blankets. That’s the hand with scraped knuckles, like he tried to catch himself on the concrete. He tucks a lock of my hair behind my ear. “What’s that?”
The fear and anger and adrenaline I feel sift themselves together. My heart pours all of my father’s lessons in. Combines them with the years I’ve spent ignoring the truth. I dressed it up in cakes and cookies and sweetness, but that was all a distraction. It was a way to keep my head in the sand.
It was a way to stay warm when what I needed was cold resolve.
“I am my father’s daughter.” Gabriel stills, his eyebrows drawing together. “And it’s time to bring him down.”
4
GABRIEL
I’ve seenthis woman before.
The ferocity in Elise’s eyes is familiar, but I’ve never seen it quite so dark. Quite so…surface-level. I saw it when I came to her bakery the first time. When I made her watch me eat one of her buttercream roses, and then a second one, because I’d lost control.
I told myself it was about power, and it was.
It was also about desire.
