Page 127 of Gabriel

Because I had chosen her a long time ago. And I’d keep choosing her for the rest of my life.

Then, finally, she said in a clear and unwavering voice, “Okay.”

My heart stopped, then kicked painfully in my chest.

“Let’s get married,” she said, no hesitation this time. “And let’s work on starting a family.”

“Just like that?” I asked, suspicion curling around my relief.

She let out a tired laugh. “Just like that. I’m definitely looking forward to the exercise of trying to get pregnant.”

I shook my head faintly, a smile ghosting across my lips. “You’re an unusual woman, Amara. That’s probably why I love you.”

She chuckled. “Says the man who’s been stalking me for years and now wants to put a baby in me.”

Her lips brushed mine—soft, sure, and devastatingly real. I smiled against them.

“I love you, Gabriel Santos.”

I deepened the kiss, tasting the weight of her words and the promise they carried. A promise that tasted like fire and forever.

A promise bound by blood, family, and love.

Raphael

Hospitals made me itch. Not physically—no, this was deeper.

It stretched all the way back to my mother’s long hospital stays, and to Sailor, during her recovery after the attack. The antiseptic stench—too clean, too sharp—clung to my skin, crept under it. It made me feel helpless all over again. I still remembered how hard it had been to clean Sailor’s wounds and how impossible it had felt to make her whole again.

But now my brother needed me. And there was nothing—not even God himself—that would keep me from being here.

Because when Santos blood spilled, the world bent around us.

Watching Anya and Gabriel grow up had been the most rewarding—and most terrifying—part of my life. They were strong. Independent. Capable. And all I wanted was to lock them in my house and keep them safe from the world.

But I didn’t.

And now this happened.

“Don’t go all macho on me, Raphael,” Sailor said quietly, her fingers curling around mine. “They’re adults. Locking themaway wouldn’t protect them. It’d only trap them, and they would resent us for that.”

She always sensed the storm building inside me before I even felt the lightning strike.

I exhaled, jaw clenched.

“I’m worried sick about them. Anya and Jet…” I hesitated, then shook my head. “Actually, no. I do know how I feel. I want to murder that psychopathic Volkov heir.”

“Raphael,” she said sharply, her tone cutting through me. “You can’t put the sins of the father on the children. We don’t know the full story yet. But that picture of Anya—smiling after she married him—that doesn’t lie.”

“That boy should’ve never done it like that,” I growled. “I was supposed to walk her down the aisle. He stole that from me. And now Gabriel’s in here, blind, because of him. His actions lead to fucking catastrophes.”

Sailor wore her calm like armor, but I knew the cracks. The tremor in her chin. The way she squeezed my hand just a little too tight. She was just as wrecked over this as I was.

“We can’t blame him,” she whispered.

But I did.

My daughter was out there alone with Jet, and Gabriel lay broken behind those doors with bandages over his eyes, shoulder torn up, the future I’d imagined for him possibly stolen.