Page 61 of Gabriel

Elira didn’t bother with pretense. She shot me a wink—sharp and glinting like a trigger warning—then disappeared out the door, toast in hand.

Amara had lingered before following her sister.

She paused in the doorway, posture rigid, eyes unreadable. Her jaw was tight, like she was holding back more than just words. Regret, maybe. Or something heavier.

Then she turned, and I was once again alone.

Silence settled in. I let it stretch, listening. An hour passed, maybe more. I didn’t move, just sat with the weight of it all.

The self-imposed kidnapping was going according to plan. More or less. Elira’s comments about shagging still rang in my ears, and I had no doubt in my mind that she was working with Jet. After all, why would she suddenly be okay with my interest in Amara?

I let out a sardonic breath. It was so much more than just interest. She and I had been circling each other for years. Never colliding, never close enough to burn, but always within gravitational reach. A glance here.

No sudden moves. No reckless advances.

Not with her.

The wrong kind of attention around someone like Amara could mark you for the wrong kind of consequences. My mind drifted—uninvited—back to the first time I saw her.

I’d learned early on that people projected ambition through posture, and at D’Arc, it was all chest-forward arrogance. Every student here had some kind of legacy to carry on. I was on the edge of graduation, walking out of my last seminar, half set on vanishing from this place and taking over the Santos Cartel empire so my half brother could retire.

But then I saw her. Amara Cullen.

From the looks of the campus map in her hands and her open, curious expression, she was here touring the school.

Despite the sense of awe emanating from her, she carried herself like someone who had already decided she owed this place nothing.

Amara Cullen was the daughter of Emory DiLustro, who was part of the Kingpin Syndicate, and Killian Cullen, the adopted son of Liam Brennan. Both were known for arms dealing. Amara was Kian Cortes’s granddaughter, the man known for running private security for many in the mobster world, but also the head of the Cortes Cartel, which was previously known for human trafficking. Of course, Kian ended that after his brother was killed. As if that wasn’t impressive enough, Amara was also the adopted daughter of Liana Volkov, known for arms dealing, human and organ trafficking, drugs, and a bit of everything else.

Needless to say, Amara’s reputation alone should’ve made her predictable and calculable. Or at the very least, the sheltered mafia princess.

But the moment I saw her, I knew she wasn’t.

She wasn’t polished. She was pressure-forged.

You didn’t get that kind of composure from training alone.

She moved through the crowds of students like she was collecting intel—reading tells, cataloging weak points. Maybe she’d never use them. Maybe she would.

The moment she spotted me across the campus amid the chaos of passing students, our eyes locked, and I felt something shift inside me. The world blurred, and in that stillness, I vowed she’d be mine one day, no matter how long it took. I’d wait until the end of time for her.

I knew she was a rare gem, worth every second of my patience. Not because of her legacy, but because of her essence that shone in her eyes.

Most people glanced away when I watched them. She held my stare like she was pulling something from it—and then, just as easily, let go.

Like I wasn’t useful yet, but I might be. That was the moment I knew I’d stay.

The idea landed fully formed. I didn’t question it. I delayed graduation, took the internal offer for an adjunct role under another professor’s mentorship, where I’d trained second-years.

She never took my class, not that it mattered. I hadn’t stayed to teach her. I’d stayed to watch her.

Amara wasn’t just her legacy.

She was a live variable. A volatile one. And I’d never been good at walking away from volatility.

Yes, patience wasn’t a novelty to me, and especially not where it concerned Amara and her family. After I’d waited an hour, long enough to hear the yacht settle again, I got to work on my professional-grade steel cuffs.

My skin already burned around the edges where I’d rubbed them raw from tugging.