Page 86 of Gabriel

“No, it’s more than that. My instincts tell me something’s off.”

His heavy exhale came through the line.

“Fine, I’ll check it out and call you back if I learn anything. In the meantime, go find your husband and enjoy the alone time with him.”

Then he hung up.

I stayed where I was, staring blankly at the flickering lights of Boston beyond the glass. My responsibilities had me often roaming the world: Russia, Venezuela, Boston, and England since Jet and Elira went to college there. Truthfully, no place was my home without my children.

On the shelf to my right, two photos stared back at me. In one, Jet and Elira were frozen mid-laugh and caught in that fleeting, golden age just before adolescence. They clung to the swings’ ropes, legs flung high into the air, faces lit with joy. As if nothing could ever touch them.

In the other, Amara sat beside me on a patch of sun-warmed grass, her small hand curled tightly around mine, watching her older siblings with a grin so wide it nearly swallowed her cheeks. Back then, she held on to me like I was the center of her world. Like I was gravity, and if she let go, everything would drift.

Now?

Now she held on to the distance like it was a shield.

And the worst part was that I couldn’t blame her, because I was the one who taught her how to build walls. I was the one who taught her how to lie.

And now all I could do was wait. Wait and wonder just how far away my children really were.

Not in miles.

But in spirit.

Amara

Icouldn’t sleep all night.

The cabin was too quiet—unnaturally so. The shadows on the walls stretched too long, like they were watching me instead of the other way around.

I lay on my bed long after my call with Liana, staring at the ceiling like it held answers. It didn’t.

The taste of Gabriel still lingered on my lips, far too vivid for comfort. It was the kind of kiss you didn’t forget.

That alone scared me more than if it had been laced with lies.

Calculated kisses I could survive. Honest desire? This was something else. Something that slipped beneath my ribs and made a home in the softest parts of me.

I got up before the sun was finished bleeding across the sky. I stepped out into the narrow hallway wearing nothing but a simple, two-piece pajama set.

My feet knew where they were going before I did. I stopped just short of his door. The air was cooler this morning as if it warned of something that was about to come.

What the hell am I doing?

A man like Gabriel Santos haunted with his charisma and charm, and when he kissed me, it was like I was somethinghe was dying to taste. And when he smiled… Gosh, my soul shuddered when that man smiled. And then there was the fact that I fucking loved the way he looked at me.

He’d talked about his mother like someone still carrying the weight of her death.

And when he kissed me again, it was with pure need and something far more terrifying.

Hope.

I hated that I believed he was being genuine. Because if it was real, then I was in trouble. And if it wasn’t, I was already caught in the web.

But when I reached the door, I couldn’t bring myself to open it.

Mother Liana’s voice echoed from some long-buried training session in the back of my skull:Never show your throat. Never hand someone the blade they’ll use to gut you.