"I'll handle the Brotherhood."
"Will you? Because from where I'm sitting, it looks like you're compromising everything we've built for a woman you've known for three weeks."
"I'm not compromising anything."
"You're not eating. You're not sleeping. You're delegating responsibilities you've never delegated before. You spent two hours yesterday staring at surveillance footage instead ofattending the Morrison meeting." He stands, his composure cracking for the first time. "This isn't like you, Gabriel. You're the one who taught me that emotion is weakness, that attachment is a liability. You're the one who—"
"I know what I taught you." I stand as well, placing my hands flat on the desk. "And I know what I'm doing."
"Do you?"
We face each other across the polished wood, two brothers who've shared everything—secrets, sins, the weight of a legacy that would crush lesser men. We've kept each other alive, kept each other sane, kept each other anchored to something resembling humanity even as we did inhuman things.
But this is something I can't share with him. This hunger, this obsession, this inexplicable need that's taken root in my chest and won't be dislodged—he wouldn't understand. He's never felt anything like it.
Neither have I, until now.
"Trust me," I say finally. "Please."
The word is foreign on my tongue. I don't ask for trust. I command loyalty, demand obedience, expect results. But Josiah is different. Josiah is my brother.
He holds my gaze for another long moment. Then he sighs, and some of the tension drains from his shoulders.
"I trust you," he says. "I always have. But I'm not the only one watching, Gabriel. The Brotherhood has eyes everywhere. If you can't control this—if she becomes a problem—"
"She won't."
"I hope you're right." He moves toward the door, then pauses with his hand on the knob. "For all our sakes."
He leaves, and I'm alone with my thoughts and the silence of my office.
I sit back down and pull out my phone. No messages yet. She's only been home for—I check the time—forty-seven minutes. Not long enough to read the contract thoroughly, to wrestle with the decision, to come to terms with what she's about to agree to.
But I want to know what she's doing. I want to know if she's thinking about me, the way I'm thinking about her.
I dial Hutton.
"Sir?"
"Report."
"Subject arrived home at 2:23 PM. She's been in the kitchen since, seated at the table. The contract is in front of her. She's been reading it for approximately—" A pause, presumably checking notes. "—thirty-one minutes."
"Has she made any calls? Sent any messages?"
"Negative. She picked up her phone once, looked at the screen, put it down again. No communication."
She wanted to call someone. Bea, probably. Or her mother. She wanted to reach out, to ask for advice, to share the burden of this decision. But she didn't.
Because she knows there's no one who can help her. Because she's smart enough to understand that involving others would only put them at risk.
Good girl.
"Continue monitoring," I say. "Inform me immediately if anything changes."
"Understood, sir."
I end the call and set the phone on my desk, staring at it as if I could will it to ring. As if she might call me—not about the contract, just to talk. Just to hear my voice.
