Page 47 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Good thing I love you,” Quinn said, grab­bing Gabriel’s free hand to tug him up with his back to the car. She stood on tip­toes and gave him a loud, smack­ing kiss on those gor­geous lips of his.

Peek­ing around Gabriel’s wide shoul­der, Quinn saw the SUV pull away from the curb. The win­dows were tinted, which meant she couldn’t see Dupont in the back seat. But she swore she could still feel the coiled vi­o­lence em­a­nat­ing from him.

She shiv­ered again.

“Are you all right?” Gabriel asked, run­ning his hands up and down her arms as though to warm her.

She threw a warn­ing glance to­ward the restau­rant where—lucky for them—Ko­dra re­mained in­side. “Let’s take our fish home be­fore it spoils,” she said. And get the hell away from the bad guys.

They am­bled down the street, even though Quinn wanted to race to the safety of the car. Ev­ery time a ve­hi­cle came around the cor­ner, she braced for the sight of Dupont’s black SUV. She didn’t know what he would do, but it wouldn’t be good.

Fi­nally, they ar­rived back at the car. Only An­neliese and Ivan waited for them.

“Mikel’s with the prince,” An­neliese said. “He said to wait un­til he gets here.”

Quinn slumped back in her seat and blew out a long breath, her nerves still jan­gling. “That was tense.”

“What were you afraid would hap­pen?” Gabriel asked, his hand curl­ing around hers on the cush­ion be­tween them.

“That Dupont would rec­og­nize you and Raul. You were too close to­gether, and you look too much alike. Also, you both look—I don’t know—re­gal. Nei­ther one of you knows the mean­ing of the word ‘slouch.’” She shook her head be­cause it sounded like a flimsy ex­cuse for her panic. “I prob­a­bly over­re­acted. I’m not used to be­ing out of the of­fice.”

“You did an ex­cel­lent job of cre­at­ing a dis­trac­tion. No one paid any at­ten­tion to Raul once you started curs­ing,” Gabriel said. “It was im­pres­sive.”

He was try­ing to ease her nerves, so she tried to smile. It wa­vered be­cause she didn’t want him to ask about the source of her vo­cab­u­lary. “You said you re­mem­bered Ko­dra. What trig­gered it?” she asked.

“A phrase.” His jaw tight­ened, and he stared straight ahead.

“Are you all right?”

“I want to kill him.” His voice vi­brated with rage, and his hand was shak­ing.

Quinn stroked his fin­gers to soothe him. “I don’t blame you. He’s just a tool, though. We’ll use him and then pun­ish him. Mikel will make sure of that.”

“That’s why I re­strained my­self.” His grip on her hand tight­ened.

There was a knock on the pas­sen­ger win­dow, and Ivan again va­cated his seat so Mikel could slide in. He was still wear­ing the rum­pled suit jacket, and his hair was sil­ver.

When Mikel piv­oted to­ward them, Gabriel held out the plas­tic bag. “We got your fish.”

For a mo­ment, Mikel stared at the bag. Then a smile cracked the taut­ness of his face, and he barked out a laugh. “I needed that.” He took the smelly bag, put down the win­dow, and tossed it to Ivan to dis­pose of.

He turned back to them. “Nice dis­trac­tion, Quinn. You kept Dupont’s at­ten­tion away from Raul and Gabriel. I’m sure he didn’t rec­og­nize ei­ther of them as his pre­vi­ous tar­gets.”

“Thank you. Your dis­guise was amaz­ing,” Quinn said, while his com­pli­ment spread a warm glow through her chest. She’d done the right thing af­ter all. “I couldn’t tell it was you, ex­cept that I knew it had to be.”

Mikel ran a hand over his col­ored hair. “This spray-on dye itches like hell.” Then he fo­cused on Gabriel. “Was it worth the risk?”

“I re­mem­bered Ko­dra,” Gabriel said, his jaw tight. “A phrase about Paris not be­ing cheap. I heard it when he was about to en­ter the room where my tent was. He must have opened the door be­fore he fin­ished speak­ing. It was def­i­nitely him.”

Mikel’s face lit with a dark en­ergy. “Raul be­lieves that one of Dupont’s thugs was in the group that ab­ducted you. The man’s right pinky fin­ger was miss­ing its tip. He re­mem­bers the plas­tic glove he wore flap­ping at the end when he came close to knock Raul un­con­scious.”

Gabriel flinched. “That would ex­plain why Raul no­ticed it. Fear makes you fo­cus on strange things.”

Was he think­ing of the sur­geon’s fin­gers?

“It is not proof,” Mikel warned. “The mus­cle men of­ten have miss­ing body parts. It’s a by-prod­uct of their pro­fes­sion. How­ever, the con­nec­tions are start­ing to pile up.”

Quinn nod­ded. Her gut was telling her that Jean-Pierre Dupont was the mas­ter­mind be­hind Gabriel’s kid­nap­ping. She would keep dig­ging, and they would nail him to the wall.

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