Page 160 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

“Mikel, you never need to apol­o­gize for car­ing,” Gabriel said, his chin no longer jut­ting in the air.

Mikel rubbed his hand over his face. “Bien.”

“What will hap­pen to Odette?” Gabriel asked.

When Mikel opened his eyes, they had that flat, deadly look that made Quinn won­der about her boss’s past. “She is be­ing treated for her in­jury in the high-se­cu­rity prison’s in­fir­mary. I will be in­ter­ro­gat­ing her my­self.”

“Is she on sui­cide watch?” Quinn asked. “She meant it when she told me to shoot her.”

Mikel nod­ded. “I can as­sure you that she will spend the rest of her life in­car­cer­ated, know­ing that she failed. As will Jean-Pierre Dupont and the sniper. The rest of the team that ab­ducted you will be iden­ti­fied by Ko­dra, and we will ar­rest them as well. No one will re­main un­pun­ished, in­clud­ing that cabrón of a plas­tic sur­geon.”

Quinn wouldn’t want to be any of those peo­ple fac­ing Mikel in aveng­ing-an­gel mode. How­ever, they each de­served all the hell­fire he would rain down on them.

She checked on Gabriel to see him star­ing out the win­dow, his ex­pres­sion thought­ful. “All of them pun­ished,” he mur­mured be­fore turn­ing back to Quinn. “My ap­petite for re­venge seems to have faded.”

“Mine has not.” Mikel glanced at his watch. “I have to go.”

“One ques­tion that’s been both­er­ing me,” Quinn said. “How did Odette get into the house with that gun? You checked ev­ery­one go­ing in and out of Finca de Bruma. Ex­cept your peo­ple, of course.” It felt good to know she was one of those.

Mikel winced. “It was al­ready in the house. It be­longed to Gabriel’s grand­fa­ther, a gift from an Amer­i­can naval of­fi­cer af­ter World War II ended.”

“Dios mío! My fa­ther kept it—and the am­mu­ni­tion for it—in a locked glass-fronted dis­play cab­i­net with the fam­ily swords. Raul and I were fas­ci­nated by all those weapons when we were kids,” Gabriel said. “Once there were no more chil­dren in the house, Papa would leave the key on top of the case.” He scowled. “So we handed Odette the weapon she tried to use against us.”

“She would have found an­other one,” Quinn said. “She was so crazy, she might have gone af­ter Raul with one of those swords.”

Mikel looked at his watch again.

“Will you push Odette about Iowa?” Quinn asked as Mikel started to­ward the door. “That’s go­ing to bother me un­til we get an an­swer.”

Her boss nod­ded as he turned back to her. “I am proud to call you my col­league.”

Be­fore Quinn could speak through all the pride and grat­i­tude that swamped her, Mikel gave a brief bow to Gabriel and walked out the door.

“Wow! That was in­tense,” Quinn said.

“It has been an in­tense two days,” Gabriel said qui­etly as he picked up the fresh shirt the hos­pi­tal had pro­vided. They were in the VIP wing, of course, which had high-level ameni­ties as well as se­cu­rity.

Quinn took a deep breath. “Let me help you with the shirt. You don’t want to pull out your fresh stitches.”

“Gra­cias.” Gabriel sur­prised her by hold­ing out the neatly wrapped shirt with­out ar­gu­ment.

She set it on the bed and tore off the plas­tic, busy­ing her hands with un­but­ton­ing it. “Thank you again for sav­ing me. I—no one has ever done that for me be­fore.” She swal­lowed. “But I agree with Mikel. If you’d been se­ri­ously hurt or…or worse, I would have felt re­spon­si­ble.”

“The only per­son re­spon­si­ble would have been Odette Fontaine.” Gabriel’s tone was stern. “Don’t take her crimes on your soul.”

“She’s the one who hurt you so much.” Quinn’s hands went still as she looked up at Gabriel. “I wish I had shot her through the heart.”

He shook his head. “She’s the one who brought you here to me. I would will­ingly sac­ri­fice my ear—and my shoul­der—all over again for that.”

“Stop!” Quinn’s heart som­er­saulted in her chest. “Don’t even think that.”

“I don’t think it. I feel it. You are the gift that came from my pain.” His voice throbbed with in­ten­sity.

Hope blos­somed in­side her. But it was hard to ad­mit she had made a mis­take. Even harder to imag­ine he would want her back.

Just as she was about to speak, there was a com­mo­tion out­side the room. The door opened, and a large man in a dark suit scanned the room be­fore he said, “The king would like to speak with you.”

Luis swept into the room, and the large man closed the door. Quinn dropped into a curtsy, while Gabriel leaped to his feet and bowed.

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