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“I have a gun to my head,” the Sacred Light says drily. “But yes, do go on about your reverence for our ways.”

Gabriel laughs. “He’ll only use it if he has to. But it won’t come to that. You’re a wise man. The High Master favors me. You know I can ask for forgiveness instead of permission.”

“Do I know that?”

Gabriel’s smug expression falters for a moment, but then it hardens again. He turns to Kane. “Begin.”

Kane rises slowly. Each movement too smooth. Too measured as he walks toward me. His gaze fixed on the floor, he sits beside me on the couch.

He leans close to me, and there’s a strange light in his eyes now. Something…coiled.

“Let’s not make this any more difficult than it has to be,” he murmurs.

He reaches for me, and I flinch. But he doesn’t touch me. His lips are inches from my face, his hot breath brushing against my skin. One hand reaches inside his jacket.

And then there’s a metallic click.

“What the fuck, Kane,” Gabriel shouts.

Oh Jesus, be with me now. I think Kane is going to shoot me.

A gunshot cracks through the room like thunder, making my ears ring.

I’m still here. Not dead. Or is my soul still lingering?

A body slumps to the floor, and I jolt. Was it mine?

No.

Gabriel lies at the center of the room, blood spilling from the hole in his head.

44

Damian

“So Coraline was in on it, too?” I ask, my chest so unbearably tight it’s hard to get the words out.

“I’m pretty sure based on where Ava was taken from,” Hunter says. “Somehow, Gabriel must have got Coraline on his side. Who knows how. I found no records of communication between them. Kane must have worked on her before the kidnapping.”

“We underestimated him.”

“Yes.”

The room is suffocating with papers scattered across the desk. My mind is the same—chaotic, frenzied, teetering on the edge of collapse. I pace the length of the room, back and forth.

“What is it that you’re planning?” I ask. “We don’t even know where she is.”

Hunter’s expression is infuriatingly calm. “We do.”

Hope springs in my heart. “How?”

Hunter straightens. “I’ve had a plant with Gabriel since you were named future prior. There are only two places he could have taken her, and I’m sure he chose the closest.”

“What?” My voice is sharp. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because you’ve…not been yourself lately.”

I narrow my eyes at him. “You’re lucky I need you. So where is this place?”