Page 112 of Gabriel

Jet tilted his head, eyes glinting with something unreadable. “My wife’s resting inside, so if you don’t mind?—”

My blood turned to ice.

“Yourwhat?” I choked out.

Jet turned toward me fully now, grin widening. “My wife.”

Gabriel’s next punch was a blur. He surged forward, tackling Jet across the threshold and slamming him to the floor with a grunt. I gasped as both men hit the tile, rolling into the entryway like a pair of wolves.

Fists flew in a wild, brutal, bone-shaking way.

“Stop it!” I hissed. “Stop, both of you!”

They didn’t listen.

Jet landed a hit to Gabriel’s jaw. Gabriel responded with a punch to Jet’s nose that sprayed blood across the white marble.

They were going to kill each other.

I dove in, grabbing both of their shirts and yanking as hard as I could. I might as well have tried to stop a landslide with my bare hands.

“Enough!” I shouted. “Gabriel, we need him to explain!”

“He’ll explain from the grave,” he snarled.

Jet spat blood onto the floor, then laughed, low and savage. “Not if I put you there first.”

They lunged again, but this time, I shoved myself between them, using every ounce of force I had to separate them.

“Listen to me!” I snapped. “If Anya is in this house, then none of us are going anywhere until I see her and we get some goddamn answers!”

Jet’s chest heaved. Gabriel’s eyes were wild. But slowly, reluctantly, they both pulled back. Just as I thought we were in the clear, Jet shoved Gabriel against the wall, hard enough to rattle the windows, and pulled out a gun.

He pressed it against Gabriel’s temple.

“Don’t you fucking dare take her away from me. She’s my wife and I want?—”

“I don’t give a shit about what you want,” Gabriel growled, his own gun now pressed against Jet’s temple.

“What’s wrong with you two?” I hissed, my heart beating. “I have half a mind to shoot you both myself. You’re lucky I love you both.”

I broke off suddenly. Had I really spoken those words out loud?

I just said I love Gabriel Santos.

Before I could dwell on it, somewhere down the hall, a door creaked open and a familiar soft voice called out, “Amara?”

Gabriel

The walls of the corridor felt like they were closing in—narrowing, tightening around me—until the only things left in focus were her words echoing in my head:You’re lucky I love you both.

Amara had said she loved me.

The world didn’t stop, but I did.

The wordlovefelt jagged and unreal, too big for the space we were standing in and too bold for the chaos around us.

Did she mean it, or was it just rage and adrenaline, twisted up in the moment and spit out like a truth she didn’t know she’d spoken?