Betty stirred a stainless-steel cup of tea, perched on her desk. But it was the beauty tucked on the secretary’s chair, staring absently into her own cup that consumed my attention.
“Time for a smoke, I think,” Betty cackled. She hopped nimbly to the floor and scooted outside, pipe dangling between her fingers.
The moment the door fell shut, Gabriella shivered.
“Here.” I shrugged out of my suit jacket and went toward her. When she pulled away from the seat, I draped it around her shoulders. “Better?”
Gabriella murmured an assent.
I squatted carefully in front of her. She was clearly scared of me. I searched for those warm whiskey eyes, but she wouldn’t lift them. She wouldn’t look at me!
The anger bubbled in a caustic vat in my chest.
“Why were you walking with Billy?” I demanded, unable to keep the questions back any longer.
Her lip fucking trembled. She pulled it between her teeth, biting it as she took a deep breath. I wanted to tug that lip free. Sink my teeth into it.
“I wasn’t!” she finally fumed.
Wrath shot white hot through my veins. “He was harassing you, then?”
Gabriella nodded and fidgeted with her untouched tea.
“Did you recognize the shooter?” I hated to bring it up. But I needed to fish for the truth. Now. While it was still fresh. If I didn’t, this cunning little creature might come up with some kind of lie.
“No,” she whispered. “Whoever it was, they had a helmet. They were there and gone in a flash.”
The detective was going to want a statement from her. Amanda was able to delay that since the key witness was under duress.
But I had no such compunction. I needed to know this wasn’t a setup.
“Was it one of your father’s men?”
I was good at poker. The key was to play the man, not the game. In this case, the woman.
Gabriella’s face went blank. She forced her muscles still. That, in itself, was a tell. But the sharp way she caught her breath, turned the breathing from natural to a forced tempo, that was the winning combination.
I slid my hands onto her knees. Squeezing hard, I forced her to focus on my next words. “You’ll never belong to another man. Not while I breathe.”
Gabriella swallowed hard and looked up.
Fucking finally.
The amber tones of her irises were cold. Crystalized like honey in the winter snow.
“I didn’t seek that workman out!” she protested. “I slapped him when he wouldn’t take a hint and go.”
“I’m not talking about him.” Connor had mentioned the slap. I hoped it hurt like hell. It was too easy a price for his sin, however. “I’m talking about your father. Whatever game he’s playing at, he’ll lose. You’re already mine.”
“But….” Gabriella licked her lips. “What makes you think it was him?”
How much did I want to tell her? That I had the sixth sense that he wasn’t happy with the marriage? Deluca never congratulated me. He never embraced me as a son-in-law. That was what made the Morelli men so bold, at our engagement, at our wedding. They wouldn’t have acted like impervious littlepricks if their leader had backed this arrangement with his full weight.
Plus, when Conner wasn’t spying on my wife, he watched her father. My best friend hadn’t found anything damning yet, but Deluca was one shady piece of shite.
“You didn’t deny it,” I pointed out.
“Yeah, but what would my father gain from killing you?” she countered.
