“Over here,” I said, loud enough for Gabriel to find me.
I kept my attention on the door as he made his way toward me. I knew I’d messed up. No reason to see the disappointment on his face to confirm it.
“Are you okay?”
Gabe knew I was physically unharmed, so I didn’t pretend otherwise. I kept working on the door even when he was right beside me. “Obviously, my people skills need work, and anger management classes wouldn’t hurt, I suppose.”
A swirl of energy surrounded me, and the small shards of wood rose slowly from the floor. With enviable skill, Gabe repaired the door in about the same amount of time it took me to break it. “Show-off.”
A hand grabbed my shoulder and gently turned me around. “Let’s go sit down.”
I blew out a frustrated breath and followed him to the living room. He pointed to a chair and disappeared into the kitchen. I’d just sat when he returned with two bottles of beer.
“Where’d you get those?”
The corner of Gabriel’s lips quirked up just a hair. “If you hadn’t decided to pick a fight two minutes into your arrival, you’d have known the kitchen is fully stocked.” He handed me a bottle and settled into the chair across from me. “Did you know Zeke spent fifteen years as a top-rated chef in Paris?”
I hated rhetorical questions. He knew I’d have skimmed the personnel information. Glaring at him, I took a sip.
“Of course not. He gave me quite a shopping list so he could cook for you both.”
We gently moved toward the real purpose of the conversation because that information wouldn’t have been in the file. “I fucked up, okay? I didn’t mean to, but you know why I didn’t want to come here.”
He fixed me with a level look. “Walk me through exactly what happened.”
You learned humility quickly as a soldier. Hiding information because you were embarrassed to tell your commander cost men and women their lives. In painstaking detail, I led him through what happened. All two minutes and thirty-seven seconds of our time together.
Gabe listened without reacting. The picture of patience and understanding. When I finished, he took another drink before responding.
“Since he didn’t agree to be tested, you decided to test him when he was in his room,” he said with enough snark that I got his message. “At least he proved he could handle himself.”
He didn’t miss anything. All the bits of the broken door were on the outside of the door. “I didn’t say I was acting rationally.”
Avoiding his stare, I rubbed the back of my neck. “He’s just like her. You should’ve warned me.”
“He’s practically your stepbrother, even if you never spent any time with him.” The admonition was heavy in his words. “And I gave you a complete profile.”
It was a load of turds, and he knew it. “You knew Zeke and I barely interacted and that was almost a hundred years ago. I’m not even sure he’d come into his powers the last time we met. Nothing yougaveme could prepare me for what I saw.”
“You knew Ares dotes on his son,” Gabriel said. “He’s the most like Ruth of all of them.”
Ruth was Zeke’s mother and the love of Ares’s extremely long life. Spend two minutes in her presence and you’d know why. “It’s not an excuse, Gabe. I know I was wrong, but how can I protect him if he won’t let me?”
Gabe shook his head. “Don’t lie to yourself, Ori. You never gave him a chance. You don’t protect someone by locking them away.”
The words stung more than I cared to admit. I had barged in and given orders like Zeke was some green kid playing private detective.
My gaze drifted back to the bedroom with its newly repaired door. Zeke had been angry but never cowered in fear. He held me back and only released the barrier when my actions might have destroyed the wall.
“You’re right.” I finally looked him in the eyes. “He’s not a rabbit in a wolf’s den. So, what now?”
Gabe finally smiled. “Ares is talking to Zeke. He’ll be back soon. Then you two can work things out.”
If Ares came back with his kid, I might need a month to recover. “Why did you really ask me to do this? You or Ares could’ve done it.”
“Ares is too close. He’d be more overprotective than you and he knew it. Same goes for Zeke’s older brothers. I could do it, but my other responsibilities make it difficult for me to spend an indefinite amount of time here. You’re the next best option. We’d hoped you wouldn’t go all mama bear on him and would give him the freedom to do his part.”
In other words, they needed me to step up and I was blowing it big time. “Why didn’t you tell me that the first time? Instead, you gave me that crap about Michael wanting to give me purpose.”
