"She's here," I state simply.
Gabe's expression changes. Just a fraction. Enough.
"The ghost," he murmurs.
"Yes."
He doesn't ask which one. He's always known there was a woman in my past. Just not who. When men spend as much time together as we do, they see things. They notice things they don't see. He never asked. I never told. He nods again, like this explains everything it needs to.
"And?" he asks quietly.
"And she dropped a truth on me," I say, voice flat now. Dangerous. "One that changes everything."
Gabe studies me for a long second, glances toward the guest room from where small noises betray a presence. He cracks his neck once, slow and deliberate, like a man settling into familiar work. He reaches under his jacket, pulls his gun, and checks the chamber with practiced ease.
Anyone else in this room—even Enzo—would already be disarmed and bleeding for a move like that. Not Gabe. I just watch him.
He meets my eyes, calm as ever. "Okay," he says. "Who do we kill?" He pauses, then adds thoughtfully, "Please say we can do it slowly. I'm in the mood for slow."
I don't answer right away. I don't need to. Gabe knows better than to rush me when my silence sounds like this. He's got his own ghosts. Always has. That's why he stalks a woman instead of asking her out like a normal human being. Married or not, morals were never the obstacle. Gabe takes what he wants. Who he wants. When he wants. Except this time.
"Whoever took Carter and Amauri Whitford," I finally spit out. The wrong last name burns my mouth. My jaw tightens around it.
Gabe's head snaps up. "Come again?"
I don't look at him. I can feel his mind working, fast and lethal, grabbing for threads, trying to weave something coherent out of what I just said. He comes up empty. I sigh and turn toward the kitchen. The faucet hisses as I shove my hand under cold water. The sting distracts from my mood from the mess of emotions I don't know what to do with. My knuckles throb, the split skin burns as blood swirls down the drain in diluted ribbons. Gabe follows without a word. He opens the freezer, grabs a bag of frozen peas, and presses it into my hand like this is just another morning after a bad night. I take it. Hold it against my knuckles.
"They took my son," I say quietly.
Silence follows. The kind that isn't empty, just stunned. Gabe doesn't move. Doesn't speak. I can feel the shift in him anyway, the way something heavy settles into place.
"Whitford isn't your name," he states slowly.
"No," I reply. "It isn't."
I lean back against the counter, eyes closed for a brief second, the cold biting into my skin, grounding me.
"She never told you," Gabe guesses.
"No."
Another beat.
"And now?"
"Now," I say, opening my eyes, "someone put my blood in a helicopter and thought I wouldn't come for it."
Gabe's mouth curls into the cold mask he's famous for. A mask that has made grown men cry and shit their pants.
"Okay," he says calmly. "Now we're talking."
His mind is already recalibrating, already moving pieces on a board only men like us can see.
"Then," he adds, dropping his voice an octave, "we don't just get them back."
I meet his gaze.
"No," I agree. "We don't."
