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“Bella, no!” Gabriel tries to push himself up from the floor, and the man standing next to him, holding the gun to his temple, kicks him hard in the ribs. He coughs, sinking forward, and I pivot towards him, dropping to the floor next to him as I reach for his hands.
“Igor will kill you all,” I whisper. “And then he’ll take me anyway. This is the only way you will all be safe.”
I twist around to look at Igor, my hands still clasped around Gabriel’s. “Promise me,” I say coldly, clearly. “Promise that if I go with you, you won’t harm any of them anymore. You’ll take me, and leave them alone.”
Igor’s smile twitches at the corners. He’s enjoying this display, this tableau of misery. He nods, gesturing for me to get up. “I promise,” he says evenly. “No more harm will come to them, as long as you leave here with me, Bella.”
“No!” Cecelia cries out from where she’s sitting, one of the Bratva soldiers’ meaty hands still clamped around her arm. “Don’t go, Bella!”
“Don’t go,” Danny echoes, lifting his red, teary face from his knees long enough to look at me. “Don’t?—”’
“It’ll be okay,” I promise them, hating the lie and knowing that it needs to be told. “I’ll be fine.”
“Bella—” Gabriel’s hands tighten around mine, and I lean in, brushing my lips against his cheek as if I’m giving him a goodbye caress. But I whisper in his ear as I do, pitching my voice so low that no one else will hear.
“I trust you’ll help me if you can,” I breathe against his ear, clinging to his hands. “But only if you can keep them safe while you do.”
A hand grabs my arm roughly, yanking me up and back, away from Gabriel. I clamp my teeth down around a scream, not wanting to already break the promise I made to Cecelia and Danny, that everything was going to be fine. But the memories are crowding in already—of other hands on me like this, dragging me roughly into a car, sliding beneath my wedding dress. Tangling in my hair as I’m pushed to my knees.
I wrench out of the grasp, hard, tilting my chin up as I glare at Igor. “I’ll go with you,” I tell him evenly. “But tell your men to keep their hands off of me.”
The corners of his mouth twitch again, amused. He nods once, curtly, and then strides forward, expecting me to follow. I see his men keep their weapons trained on Gabriel, Agnes, and the children, waiting for Igor’s command.
“You promised.” My voice is strained.
“And I will keep it.” Igor pauses, turning slightly to glance back at me. “As soon as you’re at the door with me, devochka. It wouldn’t do to give Gabriel a chance to fight back, before we’re already leaving, would it?”
My heart pounds in my chest. I’m terrified that Igor is going to break his word, that I’ll step out of the house and hear a rattle of gunfire, like that day in the church. The screams of people dying.
People I love.
They’ll die anyway, if you don’t do this. I keep repeating that to myself, as I put one foot in front of the other, all the way to the front door. Igor steps back as he opens it, allowing me to go out first. My heart slams into my ribs as I step over the threshold, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, terrified of what I’ll hear next.
“Let them go,” Igor calls back into the house, and my knees nearly buckle with relief. His hand closes around my upper arm, supporting me. I draw in a shuddering breath, trying not to think of the times that Gabriel has done something similar.
I can’t think of him now. Not when it’s very likely that he’ll never touch me again. That I may never see him again at all.
The sounds of heavy footsteps come closer, Igor’s men following us out. I open my eyes as Igor leads me towards the waiting car, a black SUV with tinted windows.
“Come along, Miss D’Amelio,” he says, his voice laughably formal. “It’s time to go home.”
2
GABRIEL
The sight of one of Igor’s men grabbing Bella to haul her up from the floor, seeing her flinch as he touches her, makes my blood run cold and then hot, fury coursing through me. I clench my fists, nails biting into my palms as I hold myself still, my thoughts racing.
I can see everything that she and I have worked towards together disappearing, as yet another man lays rough hands on her. All of those moments where I helped her replace her fear and trauma with new memories—memories of gasping breaths and gently roving hands, of longing and pleasure and giving as much as we both took—all of those moments are being wiped away, as Bella is flung back into what she tried to heal from.
I can’t let myself begin to imagine what Igor will do to her. If I do, I’ll lash out, and everyone around me will suffer.
I have to be patient. I have to be calm, and strategic, in the face of what I always feared might happen one day, and never truly believed would. Bella trusts me to try to get her free. And whatever Igor does to her, I’ll help her heal from that, too. I’ll never let her suffer, if I can help it.
I watch her go, my chest aching, teeth clenched so hard my jaw hurts. I wait for the moment when Igor orders us all killed anyway, because I don’t trust him, either. I don’t believe that Bella will be enough. But I understand why she’s doing this—this was a losing game. If she didn’t go, we would all die, except for her. And he would take her, regardless.
I just couldn’t bear to be the one to turn her over.
Every muscle in my body goes slack for a moment, when Igor orders his men to follow him, instead. I turn immediately, helping Agnes up from the floor, one arm around the elderly woman’s waist, as I get her back into a chair. Her lip is split, where one of the men hit her, and fresh rage burns through me.
