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My hand shakes on the gun. I bring my other hand up to get a steadier grip. Heisthe predictable one. My father always got low blood sugar at night. He ate mixed nuts while he read to me. That’s what’s in the black tin. He planned to stay up here, keeping my mother high and at his mercy, well into the night.
“Elise.” My dad sounds skeptical. My mother hasn’t registered that I’m pointing a gun at her husband. “There’s no need for dramatics.”
My heart thinks there is. It races at such a high speed that I’m light-headed. Ireallydon’t want to be sick in here, and then have to shoot him afterward. Feels like I might be.
He’s right, actually. There’s no need to hesitate.
“I love you, Dad.” Also true, if not extremely warped. “Goodbye.”
“Elise,don’t.”
Gabriel’s voice shocks me so much that the gun jumps in my hand. I point it at the floor. No—that’s too close to my feet. I aim toward the corner of the room and turn, colliding gently with Gabriel.
“Mr. Hill. What a pleasant surprise.” My dad’s tone is flat. Impatient. Almost as if he expected me to shoot him, and he doesn’t appreciate the interruption.
Gabriel ignores him. He’s changed out of the sweatpants he came home from the hospital in. Jeans. A long-sleeved T-shirt. I packed both of them for him when Charlotte and I left his brownstone. A light sheen of sweat clings to his forehead. He’s still unfairly handsome, but he doesn’t look like he should be on his feet. His face is pale in some places, flushed in others, and I can see how hard he’s working to keep his balance.
“How did you get here?”
“How indeed?” asks my dad.
Gabriel lifts the hand with scraped knuckles and brushes them over my cheekbone. “Sweetness, I knew you were lying to me when you left. We took a gamble and came here. Mason is downstairs, parking the car.”
“Then—then go back out, and go home. Plausible deniability is a good thing.” I was about to do this thing. I was about to kill my dad. Now that Gabriel’s here, I’m irritated. No, I’m relieved. No—
He takes my face in both his hands. “Don’t do this.”
“Why would you defend him? He deserves to die.”
“Yes, Gabriel. Explain to my daughter why my life still has value.” My father doesn’t bother to hide his smile.
Gabriel looks at my face, his eyes lingering for a moment on every feature. “It’s not about what he deserves. It’s about what you deserve.”
“I deserve to have to kill him. And I deserve to go to jail for it, if that’s what happens.”
Gabriel slides his hands down to my shoulders. My wrists. He doesn’t seem very concerned about the gun. My body, on the other hand, is getting more concerned by the second. Shaking will not help my aim.
“You were a child. It wasn’t your fault. He used you.”
“All the more reason to kill him.”
“I refuse to let you go to jail.” Gabriel’s pupils are two different sizes, but his eyes are still the most brilliant green. “If you shoot him, I’ll say it was me. And they’ll believe it, because I’m in the business of making people trust me. However.”
I feel like my teeth could start chattering, but it’s not cold in here. “However?”
“However, I don’t want to go to jail, either. I have no doubt I could influence the guards in a matter of days, if not hours, but that’s not where I’d prefer to spend my time.”
“Gabriel. Why?” This is all he wanted. This is why he wanted me to help him in the first place.
“This prick doesn’t get to make either of us murderers. He doesn’t have that power. He’s sitting in that armchair and—” Gabriel takes a quick look at the bed. “—drugging his own wife? She’s not even a good bargaining chip. There’s no way she didn’t know what he was teaching you. She could have stepped in.”
My mom frowns, but can’t lift her head from the pillow.
“If we turn him in, he’s just going to get out again. He has friends all over the city. Police, city government, everything.”
An exhausted smile turns up the corner of Gabriel’s mouth. “Of course we know that your father is connected. But nobody has more connections than me. And Mason and his detectives and half of his legal team have been building a case against him. Money laundering,” Gabriel sings. His voice sounds so much closer to normal that I almost collapse into tears. “You know who hates money laundering? The IRS. It’s a federal case. He’s not getting out of this.”
“Oh, no.” It’s my father at his most deadpan. “You caught me. Whatever will I do?”
