Page 119 of Gabriel

She fell silent, but I could feel her watching me.

“I told him to wait,” she said after a moment. “I told him to wait until Anya was a bit older.”

“You think that matters?” I turned to her, and finally, she flinched. “He lied and manipulated us, and we played along. Anya’s age has nothing to do with it, dammit. Our actions led to this clusterfuck, and no amount of words or excuses can absolve us of our guilt. You think when Gabriel wakes up blind, knowing his sister has disappeared again with Jet, that he’ll give a damn what was said or not said? To you and Jet, it was a game leading us on… all to get us to this very point. Whether you knew the ending or not is irrelevant because youknewsomeone could get hurt in the process, and you did it anyway.”

Elira looked away, blinking hard.

“So what now? You throw me and Jet under the bus and make a deal to save yourself?”

“I’m not saving myself,” I said flatly. “I’m trying to keep us alive. All of us. A marriage alliance with Gabriel could stall theretaliation. We can only hope Jet and Anya know what they’re doing.”

“You think he’ll agree?” she whispered.

“He might.” I glanced back at the bed.

She gave a bitter laugh. “Gabriel should be grateful. He’s had the hots for you for years. The only reason he didn’t act on it was because we kept driving a wedge into his attempts.”

I shook my head.

“Wedge or not, I never entertained anything with him.” Because my own reaction to him worried me, but I wasn’t going to voice that now.

“Jet knew, you know,” Elira grumbled.

“Knew what?”

“He knew if you two were forced into close proximity, that you’d fall for each other. Well, that you’d fall for him, because Gabriel was a goner for you already. That was his angle… not this stupid explosion.”

My brows knitted. “I don’t follow.”

Elira sighed. “When Gabriel flat-out refused Jet’s offer back at Revelation, Jet started planning. Hence all the games. He wanted you two to fall for each other, and it would give him the opening to get Anya. In Jet’s mind, Gabriel would have to be okay with him and Anya.”

I scoffed. “That is the most fucked-up, not to mention chauvinistic, methodology ever, and all of us are old enough to recognize it.”

Elira shrugged. “Be sure to say that to Jet next time.”

“Oh, I will.”

Elira stared down at her lap. “I’ll apologize to Gabriel, on behalf of Jet and myself.”

I couldn’t listen to it anymore. No amount of words could be enough here, and my frustration and anger bubbled back up.

“Please leave, Elira.”

She gasped. “What?’

Outside the room, the commotion was endless—orders barked at nurses, footsteps echoing down sterile hallways—but in here, everything felt frozen. It almost felt as if something was trapped between what had already been lost and what still might be salvaged.

“I need you to leave,” I said firmly. “I don’t want you to be here. Not right now, and I’m getting to a point where I’m so fucking angry at you and even more at myself that just looking at you makes me sick to my stomach. I can only imagine how Gabriel will feel when he wakes up.”

I didn’t tell her that I was fucking terrified Gabriel would ask me to get lost too. Or that he wouldn’t forgive me, as he shouldn’t. And most of all, I struggled to get rid of this guilt of what I had done to this man who had been nothing but supportive, charming, and so goddamn understanding in recent months.

“I never wanted it to end like this,” Elira murmured, standing by the door.

“Neither did I,” I said quietly. “But that doesn’t absolve us of our guilt or our responsibilities.”

I stood and crossed to Gabriel’s bedside, letting my hand hover over his, not quite touching. He looked too still, too far away from the man I remembered—sharp eyes, sharper tongue, always calculating.

Would that man wake up and see me as a traitor? Or a solution? Would he be able to see me at all?