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“What happened, then?”
“I was going to inject him with a lethal amount of insulin, which…well. I got it from a real pharmacy, but a—a fake doctor.” Her breath huffs against my neck. “I was about to do it. I had the syringe in my hand. He grabbed my arm out of nowhere. I thought he’d caught me.”
“But?”
“But he was having a heart attack.” Her voice breaks. “I could have called the flight attendant. I let him die instead.”
I let my hands splay out on her back, covering as much of her skin as possible. “I’m so sorry you had to do that. I am so sorry that the world failed you for so long.” I shoot a very fucking pointed look at Special Agent Vernon. “I’m sorry that I failed you, too. I knew something was up last night. I shouldn’t have spent it sleeping.”
“Youhadto sleep. You’re hurt, Gabriel.”
“Yes. And I’m not going to let that stop me from being with you. I’m not going to leave you. I’mnevergoing to leave you.”
Elise picks up her head and looks me in the eyes. Tears run down her cheeks. Too many to wipe away with my sleeve, but I’ll be damned if I don’t try.
“Gabriel.” Her voice shakes. “You’re a good person. You can’t be with a murderer.”
“That wasn’t murder.”
“I let him die.”
“You didn’t kill him. His heart killed him. And even if you had—Elise.” She drops her head. I put my hand under her chin and tilt her face back up. “Even if you had killed him, it would have been self-defense.”
Her chin dimples, and I lean in and kiss it. I can’t help myself.
“I let him die. I was willing to kill him. That makes me—”
“You arenothinglike him. What you did last night was out of love. So if he told you that you’re like him, that you’reanythinglike him, then forget about it. Forget everything he told you.”
“I don’t know if I can.” A sob breaks out of her. “It doesn’t matter that he’s gone. I’ll never get him out of my head.”
16
ELISE
As I’m being unceremoniously releasedfrom FBI custody, Mason demands and receives a meeting with the director of the field offices on behalf of his brother and me. He takes two lawyers in with him.
I thought working in a bakery was a culture shock after growing up a rich, evil criminal, but it’s still surreal to sit with Gabriel and Jameson and four lawyers and Scott while Mason dresses down the director, at one point threatening to call the President of the United States then and there and let him know that my father was purposely allowed by the FBI to terrorize people for decades without so much as a fine for tax evasion.
The sound machines in the waiting area don’t cover it at all when Mason shouts: “If my father was alive to see this, he’d kick your ass. But you know what? He was a good man. He’d have done it fuckinggenially.He’d have had you fired with a few phone calls instead of making a fuss. Are you seeing the chain of consequences here?Youlet that scumbag kill my parents, and now you have to deal with me. If your incompetent joke of an agency bothers this womanone time,if my brother loses asecondof sleep, I will personally—”
I don’t hear what the director says next.
Mason comes out of the office with smooth steps, his suit flawless, no sign of an argument on his face. “We’re going home,” he announces. “We’re staying at home. We’re all going to give you a break, Gabriel. This is a fucking shitshow.”
I know I should feel relieved. Everything turned out in my favor. My dad’s death is a news item, but nobody mentions the plane, or that I was on it. No bakeries were harmed in the attempted and actual murder-by-neglect of my father. Take the Cake’s email inbox is inundated with messages.
None of them get answered. I feel like a ghost.
Gabriel…he’s the opposite. He collapses when we get back to Mason’s. Not in the sense of a fall, like at my parents’ house. I think it’s more that the stress of his revenge plans and almost being killed and having to worry about Bettencourt were reinforcing the last of the walls around his heart. With my father gone, and the Hills’ team of lawyers moving against the consortium, the distance he’d built up with his perfect clothes crumbles.
I’m allowed to haunt the guest room, because Gabriel barely sleeps there. He stops refusing his painkillers and spends large portions of the day napping on the couch in the living room, his legs curled around whichever of his siblings can sit with him.
It takes several days for his balance to fully recover from overdoing it with his heroic rescues. Every time he touches me, it’s in an awed, desperate way, like he didn’t expect to get to do it again. He’s incredibly patient with me.
And he’s busy.
It’s not the work he’s been doing at his office or at parties. On the fourth day, when his body has had a chance to heal, I wander into the living room and find him on the couch with Remy. Downton Abbey plays on the TV. Both of them are crying. She has her head on his shoulder, and his arm is around her, and Dame Maggie Smith is on the television acting hilariously bewildered about an aggressive comment made by a lady who might be her cousin.
