Page 41 of Terror at the Gates

“Environmental?” I asked.

“We don’t live in the best part of Eden,” said Gabriel. “And Abram was older. His shop wasevenolder. It’s possible he just died from some kind of pollution.”

It was hard to accept his explanation because of the timing. In truth, it was far easier to rationalize that he’d died from some sort of toxin rather than the blade itself, but that didn’t explain why Ephraim had also turned up dead.

“What’s wrong, baby girl?” Gabriel asked.

I shifted my gaze to meet his. “I don’t know. I guess I just want to know for certain that I’m not somehow responsible for Abram’s death.”

“All I can tell you is that everyone knows the risk of living in this part of the world. Sometimes that means someone’s gotta die.”

“You’re talking about self-defense,” I said. That didn’t apply here, though I supposed it could have. If Abram had survived, I was certain he wouldn’t have given the blade back to me. I wasn’t sure what would have happened then.

“I’m talking about survival,” he said. “Maybe the good Lord took him to spare you.”

I narrowed my gaze. “You don’t believe in the good Lord,” I said.

He grinned. “No, but it sounds good, doesn’t it?”

I rolled my eyes and knelt on the floor beside him, focusing on the job at hand. Together, we pulled out all the pieces for the crib. It was basically a pile of wood and an instruction manual with no words, only pictures.

“How are we supposed to know what goes where?” I asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine,” said Gabriel. He was holding the manual a few inches from his face and squinting.

“This is going to take us forever,” I said.

“You have somewhere to be?” he asked, raising a brow.

I shoved his shoulder a little. “Don’t be a jerk.”

“It’s a genuine question,” he said, smiling. “One day, you’ll tell me you have a date or something.”

“I don’t date, Gabriel,” I said.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to. It was that eventually I’d have to tell any potential boyfriend who I really was, and that would be the end of their interest in me. No one wanted to get involved with a family, especially mine. I didn’t blame them either, so I never let things go further than a drink or a dance or a quick fuck, but that was it—one night, no names, and I never saw any of them again.

“You know who else doesn’t date?” asked Gabriel.

“If you say Zahariev, I’m going to hit you over the head with this fucking crib leg,” I threatened.

“Tsk, tsk,” he said. “Hasn’t anyone ever told you violence solves nothing?”

“Isn’t your job description violence?” I asked.

“That’s me, baby girl, not you,” he said. He was quiet for a moment and then looked up at me. Sometimes thesincerity in his expression made my heart hurt, and I wondered how someone so caring could lead the kind of life he did, but I knew the answer.

He was born into it.

“I just want you to be happy, Lily. That’s all.”

“I am happy,” I said. “Happier than I’ve ever been.”

His answer was a soft smile. “Good. All right, let’s put this crib together so my son will have a place to sleep. Hell, maybe by the time we finish, it’ll be so late, you’ll have to use it.”

I smiled, shaking my head at his ridiculous joke.

We spent a good hour assembling the crib. As we worked, the smell of fresh herbs and garlic wafted into the room.