Yes.
Me.
My sister.
“Yes,” I say softly, before I can stop myself.
Something in his expression shifts, subtle as a breath.
“I didn’t like it,” he continues. “My superior wanted to wave them through. Keep it moving. I told him no. Called for secondary inspection.”
He pauses, like he can still see it.
“The driver had paperwork that said they were family,” he says. “He even had the right names. The right story.” His mouth turns hard. “But it didn’t fit. The woman kept looking at him like she was waiting for permission to breathe.”
My chest squeezes. My ribs remember what it’s like to live inside someone else’s control. To measure every breath. Every move. Every word.
“He wasn’t their husband or their father,” Saint says. “He was trafficking them. We pulled them out. Got them safe.”
He doesn’t look proud when he says it. He looks like it cost him something. Like he’s still paying.
“The woman wouldn’t stop crying,” he adds. “Kept saying ‘thank you’ like she didn’t believe it was real. When I told her my name…” His gaze holds steady on mine. “…she heard what she needed.”
“What’s your name?” I ask, quieter than I mean to.
His eyes don’t flinch.
“Gabriel.”
The name lands like a key turning in a lock I didn’t know existed.
“And she called you Saint Gabriel,” I whisper, more statement than question.
A corner of his mouth twitches. Not quite a smile.
“Yeah,” he says. “She pressed this into my hand.” His fingers touch the cross at his throat. “Told me saints protect families. Protect women. Protect the innocent. Then she walked away holding her kids like she wasn’t letting go again for anything.”
My breath comes shallow. I hate that my eyes burn. Hate it even more that it’s not just sadness. It’s admiration. It’s relief. The idea that someone looked at danger and chose to stop it, even when it would’ve been easier not to.
“That must have been…” I search for the word. There isn’t one. “A lot.”
His eyes don’t soften. But something in him does.
“It was just the right call,” he says.
“You still wear the cross,” I point out.
His thumb brushes the pendant once, absent. Protective. Habit.
“It reminds me not to get complacent,” he says. “Reminds me what happens when you let things slide because it’s easier. Reminds me to trust my gut when no one else wants to slow down.”
His gaze shifts fully back to me. The weight of it warms my skin in places I don’t want to name.
“And the club?” I ask, because I need air. “They just… accepted the name?”
“They like what it stands for,” he says. “Same thing. See what other people miss. Step in when it matters.”
I swallow around the tightness in my throat.
