“No.” Gabriel’s nape prickled. “But do you see what I see?”
“That these were painted with an affection that I did not think Tiberius capable of?”
He shook his head impatiently. “Look here. Along the edge of this one.” He stepped closer to the portrait in the middle, ran a finger down one side of the frame. “The paint on the wall here is darker.” As if it had been previously covered, shielded from the sun.
“The portrait has been moved,” Pompeia said.
When Gabriel tried to remove the portrait from the wall, it wouldn’t budge.
“It’s bolted.” He produced a blade.
“Wait, you’re going to cut it?” For an instant, he thought that she wanted him to spare the portrait out of sentimentality. But her next words proved her to be the Pompeia he knew. “If you destroy that painting, Heath will know for certain that someone has been in his flat.”
Gabriel was already running the tip of the blade along the seam where painting met frame. “If there’s nothing behind this painting, I’ll apologize to him personally.”
He cut along the top and sides, and the canvas peeled down.
A safe was embedded in the wall behind.
Gabriel quirked a brow at his former colleague.
“Iron boxes are my specialty, I believe.” Pompeia removed a pair of lock picks and set to work. Within moments, a click sounded, the door of the safe swinging open.
Papers, stacks of banknotes. And…
Pompeia reached in, withdrawing a string of sapphires. Even in the dim light, the stones glittered with dark fire. “My bracelet,” she said. “The one I gave to the Spectre.”
At that moment, a whistle sounded shrilly. Footsteps pounded up the stairwell. An instant later, Heath burst into the room, his hair and eyes wild.
“Youbastards.” He waved a pistol. “Come to get me, have you? Not if I get you first.”
Gabriel was already running, tackling Heath before the other could take aim. They both hit the floor with a thud, the gun skittering out of reach. They grappled, rolling over papers and books, until Gabriel managed to get the upper hand. His fist cracked against Heath’s jaw. The other man groaned, his head lolling to the side, his grip on Gabriel slackening. Gabriel grabbed his opponent by the lapels.
“You bloody turncoat,” Gabriel snarled.
“I’m going to kill you.” Heath thrashed wildly.
Gabriel slammed the other’s head against the floor. Images exploded in his head. Marius falling. The smoke-choked interrogation chambers. Octavian bleeding out on the carpet. Control snapped, the need for vengeance roaring free. His fists made contact again and again. He gripped Heath’s windpipe, crushing…
Strong hands yanked at his shoulders. He shook them off, refusing to relinquish his prey.
“Tremont, let go. You’ll kill him.”
Kent’s calm voice cut through the haze. Gabriel looked down and saw his hands wrapped around Heath’s throat. Saw the other’s bulging eyes, bloodied face. With effort, he loosened his grip, and Heath’s head thudded to the ground. The other moaned, eyes closing. Unconscious but not dead.
Looking up, Gabriel saw the ring of faces. Pompeia was staring at Heath, her face hard with fury. McLeod had a pistol aimed at the man on the ground.
At Tiberius—the Spectre. The perpetrator of evil. A comrade who’d betrayed them all.
Numbly, Gabriel rose to his feet. His hands curled and uncurled, something sticky dripping from the knuckles. His senses were as acute as an animal’s; his mind was curiously blank. In some distant part of his brain, he remembered this sensation. It was as familiar as slipping into an old skin, watching it happen from the outside.
Rage hollowed him. Made him empty and cold.
“Rest easy, my lord,” Kent said. “We have him now.”
“Yes,” he said tonelessly.
He waited for the relief to come. To feel anything at all.
