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17
GABRIEL
“Gunner?”I sat up in bed, making sure Vanna hadn’t woken up from my phone ringing.
I slid out of bed, pulling on sweats, not bothering with a shirt. Daisy lifted her head from what she’d claimed as her spot at the end of the bed. I scratched the top as I walked past, and she settled back down.
“We need to talk.”
My sister’s fiancé sounded somber. Combined with the late phone call I was instantly on alert.
Silently closing the door behind me, I made my way down the hall to one of the empty rooms. “Is Freya okay?”
“Your sister is fine. This is about who’s been trying to take us both out. Because the person targeting Locked Security is the same one who tried to take out Constantine.”
Until now, we couldn’t get a solid lead. Seemed like our luck had changed.
“You fucking found them.”
“We finally got lucky. After following dead ends for years, we found answers. Turns out the Russians aren’t as interested in an alliance as we first thought.”
I tripped on my way into the room, my throat suddenly dry. “Aleksándr?”
“His brother, Mikhail, is the one who kidnapped Quinn. And we both know he wouldn’t do anything without approval.”
“No. This has to be a mistake.”
I shook my head, not ready to accept that Vanna’s family had anything to do with this. Because then she’d be involved too. Family was everything in our world.
“I’ll send you what we dug up, but there’s no doubt. We finally have the person behind all of it.”
I froze. We still hadn’t been able to figure out who’d betrayed us. But my mind went back to all the times that Vanna was around when I talked business either on the phone or when one of my brothers dropped around the house.
Vanna had been around when I discussed the change of shipment. She’d also had every opportunity to look into my files. And if her father asked her to get married so she could spy on her husband, I had no doubt that she would. “I need to go.”
Drawing the same conclusion I had, Gunner tried to reason with me since he knew I was about to lose it. “Gabriel, don’t jump to conclusions. We don’t know for sure that Vanna is involved.”
A choked laugh escaped me. “You can’t be that naive.”
“Not naive. Hopeful. Because I know how much you love her. And I know how much she loves you too. Don’t find her guilty by association. She hasn’t given us any reason to doubt her loyalty.”
Struggling to breathe, I bent forward. I was such a fool. “I’ll talk to you later.”
“Gabriel—”
I hung up, then sat down in the middle of the room. My phone dropped to the floor with a loud clatter. I hung my head and put my hands into my hair, pulling on the short strands.
This couldn’t be happening. Vanna wouldn’t have deceived me like this.
But how well do you really know your wife?
It made sense for her to be working with her father. She’d never met me before the wedding. Had no loyalty to me.
And I had to do what was best formyfamily. Which meant letting go of Vanna, guilty or not.
She was now a liability. Because no matter how much Aleksándr hurt her, he was still her father. And fear did a lot to keep someone in line.
Does she even love me?
