Page 111 of The Beast

He shudders, and I feel him let go—not to the beast, but to the feeling. To the overwhelming vulnerability of being truly loved.

We come together, his face buried in my neck, my arms wrapped tight around him. And when the aftershocks finally fade, and he lifts his head to look at me, I see something in his eyes I haven’t seen since before Aspen.

Peace.

“I told you so,” I say, and he actually laughs, then rolls to his side, pulling me with him. We lie tangled together, his hand tracing lazy patterns on my back, and for the first time in longer than I can remember, everything feels quiet. Still.

“I have a meeting this afternoon,” I murmur eventually. “Supplier negotiations. I should probably...”

“No.” Gabriel’s arms tighten around me. “Stay.”

“Gabriel.”

“Five more minutes. Then you can go save the casino.” He presses a kiss to my hair. “Let me have this. Just a little longer.”

I shouldn’t. There are things I need to do, a business to run. But when I look at his face—relaxed, almost peaceful, so different from the haunted mask he’s worn for days—I can’t bring myself to move.

“Five minutes,” I agree.

Twenty minutes later, I’m still in bed, and we’ve somehow ended up having sex again—even slower this time, lazier, both of us half-asleep and moving on instinct. It’s the kind of morning I used to dream about during the five years he was dead. The kind of morning I’d given up on ever having again.

By the time I finally drag myself to the shower, there’s no way I’ll get to the meeting on time. Thankfully, that’s what subordinates are for, and I call my Assistant Manager from the bathroom, apologize profusely, and pass off the task to him.

I end the call and realize with a start how good I feel. Not about passing off a meeting, but about my life with Gabriel. I’ve been carrying a weight in my gut for what feels like an eternity. But I feel lighter now. Like the world is settling back on its axis and turning the right way again.

I get dressed again in my dark slacks and silk shirt—the kind of outfit that says boss without trying too hard—and find Gabriel in the kitchen, making an afternoon pot of coffee. He’s wearing sweatpants and nothing else, and the sight of him barefoot and domestic makes me smile.

“Meeting handled?” he asks.

“I dumped it all on Greg.” I accept the cup he hands me. “What about you? Any fires to put out in your criminal empire?”

His mouth twitches. “Nothing that can’t wait. I’ve got some emails to deal with, but I can do that from here.”

“So you’ll be here when I get back?”

“I’ll be here.” He pulls me close, coffee cups pressed between us. “Always.”

The word settles into my bones, warm and certain. Always. We might actually get there. We might actually build something real out of all this wreckage.

I’m halfway to the Monarch when my phone rings. It’s one of the food and beverage managers panicking about a liquor delivery that got sent to the wrong loading dock. I handle it, then get pulled into an impromptu meeting about a staffing issue in housekeeping, then spend an hour reviewing the quarterly numbers with the CFO. So much for pawning off my first meeting and having a less stressful day.

It’s afternoon by the time I finally make my way back to Gabe’s apartment. My feet ache from walking the casino floor, and I’m starving. But mostly I just want to see him. To confirm again that we’ve really turned some kind of corner.

When I step inside, his back is to me, staring at his phone. Every line of his body is rigid, tension radiating off him in waves.

“Gabriel? What’s wrong?”

He turns, and my heart stops.

The peace from this morning is gone. In its place is something cold. Something dangerous. The mask he wore when he first came back—the one I thought we’d finally shattered—is firmly in place.

“You’re scaring me. What happened?”

He holds out his phone. “Listen.”

I take it with trembling hands and press play on the voicemail.

The voice is AI-generated, but it’s the words that make my stomach turn.