Page 67 of Gabriel

“Absolutely.”

Anya.

The name detonated in my mind. This had to be about my sister. It couldn’t be anyone else.

I stumbled back from the door, chest heaving. My heart pounded like fists on steel, each beat louder than the last, drowning out Elira’s low murmur.

My fists clenched. Every tendon in my body coiled with the raw, animalistic urge to burst through the door and slam Elira against the wall. To crush the phone underfoot. To scream down the speaker and demand answers from Jet directly.

But I didn’t move.

Don’t jump to conclusions, Gabriel.

No. Fuck that. This confirmed everything I’d suspected since the night at Revelation. Jet wasn’t circling. He was closing in. And now I knew why.

He was coming for my sister.

A rage unlike anything I’d ever felt surged through me, hot and electric. It roared in my ears. It wanted blood. But rage wouldn’t help Anya. Rage wouldn’t unravel Jet’s plan, and it sure as hell wouldn’t stop it.

I had to be smarter than that.

Grinding my teeth, I turned from the door and forced myself to walk. Back into the cabin. Back into the cage they thought I’d never escape from. Back into the skin of the obedient prisoner.

But things had changed.

The endgame was clearer now.

Amara.

She was my opening. She and Anya had been roommates, good friends—practically sisters—during Amara’s final year at D’Arc. If there was any part of that bond still intact, any flicker of loyalty left under her cool exterior, I could use it.

Even if she still called Jet her brother.

Because once she realized he was coming for Anya, she’d have to choose a side, and I was going to make damn sure it was mine.

Amara

The lantern swung with the ship’s motion, casting golden arcs that sliced across the cabin walls. The air was warm with the faint tang of salt and rusted metal.

Gabriel had been our prisoner for a week, and we’d slipped into an uneasy routine. I was mostly the one who uncuffed him for the essentials like his bathroom breaks, food, and showers. I’d even taken the liberty of procuring him toiletries and some clothes since he wasn’t really prepared for this little adventure.

He didn’t complain once, just watched me with those piercing blue eyes that seemed to see—and know—it all. Something was unsettling in the way he seemed to look at me as if he knew how this would end.

And then there was the silence in the criminal underworld—not even a whisper of Gabriel’s disappearance, which made me restless. That quiet made my skin itch and made me feel as if we were approaching doom. Whose exactly, remained to be seen.

We still had another two weeks before we’d reach Albania, and I was bored out of my mind. Elira was too, but she entertained herself by flirting with the crew.

Pushing the cabin door open, I paused, heartbeat stuttering. Gabriel lay sprawled across the narrow bed—handcuffed,restrained—and yet somehow managing to look like he’d booked himself a luxury cruise.

“I brought you some food and coffee,” I said, the words sticking slightly in my throat as I glanced down at the tray in my hands. “And more movies.”

He turned his head lazily toward me, lids half-lowered, like a jungle cat watching from the underbrush.

“Room service by my beautiful jailor. How decadent,” he purred. The smile touched his lips but not his eyes—those remained razor-sharp. “I must’ve done something right to deserve this kind of luck.”

His gaze was steady, tracking every twitch of my body like he could see straight through to the places I tried to hide.

“Not to worry.” He gave a casual tug against the cuffs. “Still shackled.”