Page 28 of Gabriel (Legacy of Heathens #4)

Gabriel

I slipped the handcuffs from my wrists again, easing them discreetly onto my pillow.

I winced, hearing the soft sound carry in the silence, but no footsteps followed. There was just the ever-present creak of the sea pressing in against the yacht’s hull.

In the past three days, my jailers had developed a routine. They would come in the morning so I could use the bathroom and the shower, then change. They’d keep me company while I ate, engage in small talk, and be back several times throughout the day to repeat.

Once they went on with their day, I’d go exploring. By now, I’d done it on multiple occasions. I had yet to find anything, although I did get a sense for the girls’ routines outside their hours spent visiting me.

Elira was probably up on the sun deck, planning something deranged with a mimosa in hand. Amara would be below or pacing along the aft deck.

Dammit, how that woman tempted me. She called to me like a mermaid’s song.

Luis was right. I was so goddamned doomed. Maybe I should have bought earplugs too.

I moved into the bathroom and splashed cold water over my face, chasing off the fog of sleep. Truthfully, I was going stir-crazy after three days of confinement, but there were worse things in life.

Meeting my expression in the mirror, I noted the exhaustion. Ironic really, considering I’d been more or less resting most of the time.

I stepped quietly back into the main cabin and made my way to the door that led outside.

I paused and pressed my ear to the wood.

Nothing.

I turned the handle slowly, easing the door open an inch at a time. I winced when it squeaked, then held my breath and peered through the crack.

Confirming the coast was clear, I slipped out, the door clicking shut behind me.

As I made my way ahead, my feet were silent and the weight of every step was measured.

I passed another cabin that seemed to be just a glorified storage closet. Stale air was thick with the scent of old wood polish and forgotten linens.

Then came the staircase—sleek, chrome-accented—curving upward in a lazy spiral. I crouched low, the soles of my boots making no more than a whisper against the steps.

Two decks up, I found the main lounge that was luxurious but empty.

Pale leather couches framed low tables that gleamed like obsidian. A bottle of champagne sat unopened in a bucket of half-melted ice. The lights were dim, diffused, casting faint streaks of amber across polished teak floors.

Each time the yacht groaned under its own weight, I ducked low and froze, my heart hammering in my throat, breath caught mid-inhale until the silence returned.

I had a fairly good layout of the boat by now, but what I needed to figure out was where the fuck we were going.

I had to find some kind of “war room” or at least an office that would have some information on our destination.

One thing I didn’t waste time on was a comms panel.

I knew Amara and Elira weren’t that careless.

If there was any open line to the outside world, it would be guarded tighter than a vault.

I moved on, slipping past the galley. It was spotless. Sterile. The faint scent of lemon oil lingered in the air, mixing with the cold metal tang of stainless steel.

Someone had cleaned recently, which probably meant the crew didn’t have enough to do.

I made it down another staircase, narrower this time, and steeper. Plush carpeting gave way to steel grated steps. The walls turned industrial. This was no longer the yacht of champagne and chrome. This was the machine that kept it alive. It was an office set up with a map and screens everywhere.

And then I heard it.

A voice—low, precise, and familiar—crackled through a nearby speaker. I stopped breathing—stopped moving—as I stood frozen in the dark corridor, ears straining.

“Just distract her,” said Jet, whose gravelly voice was unmistakable.

“She’s going to start putting it together. She’s already suspicious,” Elira replied, voice tight with warning. “You know Amara isn’t stupid, and when she figures out why you did this—” She paused. Barely a heartbeat. “She’s going to be furious.”

“That’s why I have you, sis. Work your magic. I warned Santos, but he wouldn’t listen.”

Jet’s voice coiled through the space, making my skin crawl.

A sliver of yellow light spilled into the hallway from a cracked door ahead, cutting through the dark and catching the floating motes of dust.

I moved closer, just enough to see.

Elira was sitting in a lounge chair, phone in hand and ankle propped over her thigh, looking the picture of casual, as if she weren’t broadcasting something treacherous into the open air.

A rookie mistake—stupid, even—for someone like her to have that conversation on speaker.

“It’s simple math,” Jet said coolly. “They won’t know what hit them until it’s too late.”

I frowned. They?

“Are you sure this is the only way?” she replied, unease bleeding into her tone. Not so casual, then . “Maybe Santos?—”

“It’s the only way,” he snapped. “I’ll give her what she wants… and I’ll get what I want. Trust me.”

Something twisted hard in my gut, like a wire being pulled tight.

“All this just to get her ? Is she really worth it?” Elira asked.

“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.