Page 113 of Gabriel

I couldn’t breathe.

The air scraped in and out of my lungs like broken glass. My heartbeat galloped behind my ribs, like it wanted to break free and chase after her.

I wanted to ask her about it, question whether she meant it or not, but then a familiar, soft voice traveled through the air.

“Amara?”

The soft call pierced the moment.Anya.

I turned, slowly, with Jet behind me, bruised and forgotten. My knuckles throbbed, the coppery tang of blood filling the air, but none of it mattered now.

Only two things existed in the foyer of this house: the woman who said she loved me, and my sister at the opposite side of the room, lingering in the hallway.

Anya stood just beyond the shadows, barefoot on the marble floor, her body fragile in the pale silk of her nightgown. She looked like a ghost the house had been holding on to. Moonlight spilled across her face, catching in the mess of her silver-blonde braid. She looked so much like our mother in that moment that it hurt to look at her straight on.

But she wasn’t looking at me.

Her eyes had found Jet and locked on to him with an intensity that rooted me in place.

There was hope, longing, and something else on her face that I didn’t dare speak, because naming it would make it real.

And then I saw her left hand.

My breath snagged in my throat.

A ring. A fucking ring.

It glinted in the dark hallway, and in that second, everything tilted sideways.

And suddenly, it wasn’t just about blood or secrets or love blurted in desperation. It was about family and friends. Lovers.

I opened my mouth to call her name—Anya—and I did. I knew I did. But I never heard my own voice.

Because that was the exact moment the world cracked open.

A deep, bone-rattling boom tore through the hill, the earth, and the house itself.

The windows shuddered violently, panes groaning in their frames. The chandeliers above us swung like pendulums, glass shards threatening to scatter on the marble. The air pressure changed so fast it made my ears pop and my knees falter.

My eyes snapped to Amara—her face frozen, wide-eyed—then darted to Anya, who stood exposed in the hallway, looking fragile and terrified.

Jet moved first, closing the distance between them in seconds. No hesitation. No thought. Just pure, brutal instinct. He lunged, throwing himself over her just as another shockwave ripped through the foundation.

I saw their bodies hit the floor hard, Jet shielding her completely with his own, his arms wrapped around her as debris began to fall.

I was already moving, reaching Amara in two strides. I wrapped my arms around her and shoved her behind the nearest wall. My body folded over hers, covering her head with my arms as crumbling plaster rained down on us.

“Gabriel!” she shouted beneath me, voice shaking. She tried to sit up, tried to see what was happening.

“Stay down!” I barked, the command ripping raw from my throat, louder than I meant. Louder than anything had a right to be over that noise.

She flinched but listened, curling into me as the ground itself seemed to heave beneath us.

My heart was a war drum, thundering behind my ribs. Each second felt like a battle. One part was a relief that she was here, alive, beneath me, and another was panic that something worse was still coming.

I felt it in a rising, consuming rage that we’d found ourselves in this position, and all the while, my mind screamed two things.

My sister married a psychopath.