Page 81 of Gabriel

Long enough to make friends. Not long enough to know which ones I could trust.

That’s when I saw him.

He was leaning against the west archway near the archives wing, dressed in a dark three-piece suit. Older than most students, but not old enough to clearly mark him as faculty. His hands were in his pockets, his posture too relaxed for this place. He wasn’t watching the quad like a student at all—he was surveying it like a chessboard.

“Hey, Santos!” a shout rang out across campus.

He turned, flashing a smile that made my heart stutter.

That’s when it clicked.

Gabriel Santos.

The only student turned professor on campus this semester—a strange arrangement cloaked in even stranger rumors. Heir to the Santos Cartel, raised by an aunt who was a journalist and a half brother who was a mobster. People whispered about him the way they whispered about blackmail: carefully, and only when they thought no one was listening.

But the man leaning against the arch didn’t fit the image of a professor—or a criminal.

He was too still. Too self-assured. Too charming.

The way he watched people wasn’t idle. It was calculating. As if he already knew everyone’s next move—and found them predictable.

Then his gaze shifted and found mine, holding it for a stretch of a moment.

I didn’t look away. Neither did he.

A flicker passed between us—not flirtation, not quite. More like recognition. Two hunters, spotting each other from across a clearing, each wondering who’d make the first move.

Then he smirked. Barely.

I turned away before the moment could stretch into something more. I had no time for trouble.

Still, as I walked off, I felt his eyes on my back.

He didn’t follow. He didn’t have to.

Somehow, I already knew I’d see him again.

And I was right.

He’d be my silent, dark shadow for many years to come.

Santos ended up playing the long game.

He always knew how to spot things people tried to bury, and now he’d seen it in me. Worse, he’d named it.

Desire. Chaos. Fear.

Dammit, this wanting—especially when it came to someone like him—was a liability. Although deep down I knew he was right; it didn’t make me weak.

Pretending I didn’t want him? That was what would break me.

I pressed the heel of my hand to my chest, grounding myself in the steady thrum of my heart. Below deck, I could hear the men working away, the sound of metal clanking against metal.

It served as a reminder of why we were here, and what we’d yet to accomplish.

Pull yourself together, Amara.

No sooner had I stepped into the office than the comms unit on my wrist buzzed—a sharp, needling vibration that felt more like a slap than a nudge. It startled me, slicing through my memory like ice water down the spine.