Mine To Take (Nine Circles) (39 page)

And then what? When it’s all over? What are you going to do then?

A strange gaping emptiness yawned wide inside him at the thought, a black hole full of nothing.

Of course you’ve got nothing. You let the one person in your life who’d started to make you think there was something more, walk away.

No, fuck, he’d
had
to let her walk away. He’d had no other choice.

Bullshit. There’s always a choice.

Gabriel pushed the thought away. Hard. He’d think about this later. Once his father was ruined beyond any hope of fixing, once he’d taken everything from him, then he’d decide what to do.

Good Christ, it was cold. Why the hell was he feeling it now? And where was Tremain? He should have been here five minutes ago. If that fucker didn’t turn up there would be hell to pay.

Footsteps crunched in the snow down one end of the bridge.

Gabriel turned.

Tremain was coming toward him, his expensive overcoat wrapped tightly around him, his scarf tied around his neck just so. There was no one else around. It was too early in the morning and it was far too cold for many people to be out and about.

His heartbeat began to speed up, anticipation coiling tight. God, what was it with all this emotional shit? For years he’d been cold, like ice, and now it was like all that ice had melted away, leaving him exposed, open to all these damn feelings.

He made himself stay still, folding his arms as the man strode toward him. “You’re late,” he said curtly as Tremain approached.

“I had … things to do.”

“Who is it?” Gabriel snapped, impatient and unable to temper it. “Tell me now.”

Tremain’s hands were shoved in the pockets of his overcoat. He looked pale, drawn. As if he’d had one too many hard nights. “Before I tell you, I meant what I said about Honor last night. She must be safe. I can protect her mother but her…”

Gabriel curled his lip. “Like you give a fuck about her.”

Anger crossed the other man’s face. “I brought that girl up, so don’t you dare tell me I don’t care about her.”

“Not enough to stop the ruin of her company.”

A muscle ticked in Tremain’s jaw. “I had to get out. This is the only way I can still protect her mother. Honor will survive.”

Of course Honor would survive. Because she was strong. She was a fucking warrior. But it was hard fighting all the time. Sometimes you just wanted to sit down and rest.

“She deserves more than survival, you prick,” he said harshly.

“And what would you know about what she deserves? You don’t know a thing about her.”

Lies. He knew she liked pretty things, and being held down while he made love to her. Knew that she was unfailingly loyal and generous and fought hard for those she cared about. That her touch made him breathless. Made his heart ache.

Stop thinking about her.

A sharp, burning need filled him and he had to turn away and take a breath, staring out over the bare, icy trees. At the looming spikes of the skyscrapers, spearing up into the cold, gray sky. Stalagmites reaching for heaven.

“Enough of this shit,” he said hoarsely. “Tell me what I want to know.”

“Not until you can guarantee Honor will be safe.”

He fought down the burning, hot feeling in his chest. Taking his hands out of his pockets, he strode over to the parapet and put them down on the icy stone. The cold burned his bare skin. But it didn’t do anything to ease the burning feeling inside him. “She and I are no longer seeing each other,” he said. “Which makes her importance as a way to get to me negligible.”

“That won’t be enough.”

“I’ll protect her.” He turned, meeting the other man’s gaze. This was one thing he didn’t have to lie about. “No one will ever hurt her again.”

Not even himself.

A certain tension seemed to leave the other man, his shoulders relaxing. “All right, so you wanted—” The rest of the sentence was cut off as he inhaled then suddenly dropped like a stone onto the snowy ground.

Gabriel froze, staring at the man on the ground in shock. “No,” he said into the icy air. “No. Fuck no.”

Tremain let out a low moan, blood beginning to pool in the white snow around his head.

Adrenaline surged, breaking Gabriel’s paralysis, and he was moving, running over to the fallen man, dropping onto his knees in the snow. Tremain was struggling to get up. Blood covered his face, dripping down the side of his head, the left side a bloody mess from a gunshot wound.

Gabriel looked around at the empty bridge and the trees beyond it but nothing moved. Whoever had fired the shot was gone.

Fuck. And double fuck.

So close. So close and now this.

He bent over the other man, taking some of the overcoat to wipe away the blood. “The name,” he said, unable to help himself. “Tell me who the fuck it is.”

Tremain was staring at him, the intensity of the stare almost unnerving. He tried to say something but the sound bubbled in his throat, the words unintelligible.

Gabriel swore, furious and desperate and ready to kill someone. “You can’t die on me now, prick. You’ve got shit to tell me.”

The man on the ground coughed. With a labored, jerky motion, he took his hand out of the pocket of his overcoat and shoved his fist against Gabriel’s chest.

“What—” The words broke off as he realized that Tremain was holding something.

Gabriel took his hand and turned it over. With an almost palpable effort of will, Tremain opened his fingers and something dropped out into the snow.

Two silver dice.

Gabriel picked them up. They were heavy, the numbers mere silvery depressions. All except the one spot, which was inset with a flawless diamond.

He looked at Tremain. “What? What the hell is this?”

The other man just stared at him, his jaw rigid. Then his eyelids fluttered and fell, his body going limp.

“No.” Gabriel put his hand on the older man’s shoulder, shook him. “No, you can’t do this now. Wake the fuck up.”

But the man didn’t move.

Oh, Christ. Quickly he checked Tremain’s pulse. It was weak, thready.

Gabriel sat back on his heels, trying to calm the frustration that sank its claws into him. The man was deeply unconscious—hell, he was lucky he was still even alive given he’d been shot in the head.

But one thing was for certain, he wasn’t getting that name out of Tremain today.

He swore again, harsh and raw. The stupid dice were still in his hand so he shoved them into his pocket, grabbing his phone. Then he called an ambulance and the police.

He didn’t leave his name. There would be too many complications, too many questions asked if they knew he was here.

Placing Tremain in the recovery position, making him as comfortable as he could, he waited until the sirens drew near then he turned and strode away, over the bridge and into the trees, moving fast.

It wasn’t over. It still wasn’t over.

He had nothing, the only clue as to the identity of his father the silver dice in his pocket. Clearly someone had discovered Tremain would be meeting him and had decided to silence the guy and his secrets along with him.

Which meant there was something bigger going on here. Something far more dangerous than he or Zac or Eva had thought. Something that was perhaps bigger than one illegal casino.

God. It would never be over, would it?

Weariness swept through him. The same exhaustion that had gripped him the night before. He was no nearer, no closer to the truth than he had been weeks ago, and now, if Tremain didn’t survive that shot, there would be murder to add to the list.

And it would be his fault. All his fault.

If Tremain dies, Honor will be devastated.

He stopped dead.

Oh, fuck, Honor. If they were prepared to take out Tremain to stop him from talking, then anyone connected with him was going to be in potential danger. And that was his fault, too.

Someone approached him from behind, a flash of black the only hint he got, and adrenaline rushed through him, even though he already knew who it was. There was only one man he knew of who could move that silently through snow.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Gabriel demanded, temper fraying.

“I was interested in your little meeting,” Zac said.

Gabriel turned sharply. “How did you know? I told no one—”

“You don’t need to tell anyone. I would have thought you’d know that by now.”

Frustration and anger hissed and spat inside him like oil on a hot stove. “This is none of your fucking business.”

“You involved us, Gabriel. So now it has become our fucking business.”

He couldn’t seem to stand still, shifting on his feet. “Then uninvolve yourself.”

Zac’s unnerving amber gaze searched his face. “Tremain looked like he got shot. I saw him go down but I didn’t hear anything or see a shooter.”

“I don’t have time to stand here discussing this with you.” Honor was in potential danger. Unprotected. He turned away.

“You were meeting Tremain for a reason, Gabriel,” Zac said, all of his smooth British charm stripped away to reveal the iron beneath. “And now he’s been shot. We’re a part of this, and if that means Eva is in danger also then I need to know about it.”

There was pain in his chest now and he hated it. Wanted the cold, the detachment. But that was long gone, melted away, and now there was only hurt. And he was tired, so fucking tired of the pain. So fucking tired of the anger.

So fucking tired of being alone.

“Honor didn’t tell you last night?” he said finally.

“No. She didn’t say a thing.”

Even though she hated secrets, she’d kept his.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” had always been the club’s first rule. And they all had secrets. Too many secrets. But perhaps they needed one less.

“Thirty-five years ago my mother was raped in a hotel room. I thought Tremain was the man who raped her. He wasn’t but he was meeting me here today to give me the name of the prick who did it. The prick who happens to be my father.”

Silence fell, deep and thick as the snow around them.

“You wanted revenge,” Zac said at last.

“No, I wanted justice.”

And because you wanted justice, she is now in danger. If you hadn’t involved her, she would be safe.

Fear gathered inside him, so sharp he couldn’t breathe. He’d hurt her so many times. First he’d played stupid head games with her, seduced her, shattered her world twice with more truths than one person should have to bear, been the reason the man who’d brought her up had been shot. And now, the final nail in the coffin, her life could be in danger.

All because he wanted justice. For a dead woman.

All the air went out of him in a white freezing cloud.

Zac was right. It was revenge. His mother was dead, she didn’t care anymore. She was beyond pain. Which meant this quest for justice was for himself.

But how else could he stop this anguish? How else could he stop being so angry all the fucking time?

“Did he give you the name before he was shot?” Zac asked him.

“No.” Reaching into his pocket, Gabriel took out the dice. All his plans, all his investigations, all for two lumps of silver. “But he gave me these. I have no idea what they mean.”

You don’t care what they mean …

His hands were shaking. Jesus, he was falling apart.

“Looks like they’re another invitation,” Zac said. “Like the black dice I gave you and Honor yesterday.” His forehead creased, staring at the dice in Gabriel’s palm. “What’s wrong? Your hands are shaking.”

Everything. Everything was wrong.

Tremain getting shot. The mystery behind his father’s identity deepening. Honor threatened. Violence begetting more violence. There was no end to it.

There is an end.

Yeah, there was. He could choose not to follow this lead. Just let it go. And then … what? What would be left for him? What else was there? What would he do with this anger that sat inside him? That poisoned him?

No one could forgive him. No one could take it away. Because the person he was most angry at was himself. For the fact he existed at all.

Which meant following this further was pointless.

Gabriel closed his fingers around the dice, the only link he had to whoever his father was. Then he shoved them abruptly at his friend.

Zac looked at him, eyes widening in surprise. “But don’t you—”

“Take them,” he said hoarsely. “I have somewhere to be.”

The other man’s amber gaze searched his. “Where are you going?”

“To protect Honor. After that? Probably to hell.”

*   *   *

The city streets were full of snow and heavy afternoon traffic but Gabriel barely noticed, weaving the Norton through the lanes, uncaring.

Handing the dice to Zac should have felt like a weight lifting from him but it didn’t. Instead, it felt like he was walking into the pitch-black darkness, unsure of his footing and with no idea of where he was going. Directionless and blind.

Except no, there was one light in the dark. One compass point.

Honor.

He would protect her. That’s what he would do from now on. That would be the whole of his existence. Without his anger, without his justice, he had nothing else. She was his whole reason for being.

Pulling up outside her building, he parked the bike and strode through the front doors. The doorman gave him a suspicious look but Gabriel wasn’t in any mood to fuck around. “Honor St. James’s apartment. Now.”

Five seconds later he was traveling up in the elevator, pacing restlessly back and forward. Christ, if something had happened to her that would be the last straw. The final sin that would break him.

The elevator stopped and he got out, striding down the hallway and reaching her door. Hammering on it.

Eventually it jerked open but it wasn’t Honor. A woman with blond dreadlocks and lots of silver jewelry stood in the doorway, a belligerent expression on her pretty face. She looked him up and down, frowning. “Gabriel Woolf I presume?” she said, a spark of anger in her clear, turquoise eyes. “I’ve been wondering when you’d show up.”