Page 46 of Gabriel: Duke of Bencalor

Ko­dra gave Dupont a con­cil­ia­tory smile. “I want Vera to have a big ring, a nice wed­ding. You un­der­stand.”

“Bet­ter than you think,” Dupont said. “I’d give you some good ad­vice, but you won’t take it.”

Ko­dra laughed in a know­ing way. “She has the long legs, you know. Hard to think with those wrapped around a man.”

“I could hook you up with a source for the ring. High qual­ity, low prices.”

“That would be good.” Ko­dra paused. “But what about the job? A hon­ey­moon in Paris won’t be cheap.”

Gabriel al­most dropped his phone as the words sucked him back into the tent, where he lay naked on the cot and heard the hall­way door open and that same voice—more muf­fled but iden­ti­cal—speak the ran­dom phrase Paris isn’t cheap. Then si­lence un­til the pad­lock on the zip­per opened with a click. The slider sep­a­rated the metal teeth with a whine, and the masked fig­ure en­tered his prison with a tray of food.

White-hot fury flared be­hind Gabriel’s eyes. Now he could say with cer­tainty that Ko­dra had ab­ducted him, handed him over to a sur­geon for mu­ti­la­tion, starved him and de­nied him med­i­cal care for twenty-four hours, and kept him a pris­oner for fif­teen days. Gabriel shook with rage and a de­sire to wrap his fin­gers around Ko­dra’s neck and feel the man fight for the oxy­gen Gabriel wouldn’t al­low him to breathe. He wanted to press his fin­gers against the strain­ing ten­dons, to feel him strug­gle against the un­re­lent­ing pres­sure against his throat, to see the fear in the man’s eyes as he un­der­stood that Gabriel would not let go un­til his heart stopped, and then Gabriel would drop him in a heap like so much garbage on the floor of the restau­rant.

Dupont made an an­gry ges­ture. “Maybe I’ll have some­thing for you. Maybe not, af­ter the way you screwed up the last time. I’ll make the call. Don’t con­tact me again, or it will be the last time you do.”

The French­man shoved his chair back and stalked out of the din­ing room with his goons, al­low­ing Gabriel only a brief glimpse of his face be­neath sil­ver hair. It didn’t mat­ter since no one had ever re­moved their mask.

Gabriel slowly and de­lib­er­ately turned his head to look straight at the ta­ble where Ko­dra sat, scowl­ing into his wine. Gabriel wanted to stare di­rectly into the eyes of his kid­nap­per, even though Mikel would be­rate him for it.

Ko­dra took a drink from his wine­glass and put it down be­fore he looked up. Gabriel waited un­til Ko­dra no­ticed him and re­turned the glare. Then Gabriel pock­eted his phone and saun­tered back to Quinn at the fish counter. He wanted Ko­dra to won­der who Gabriel was and whether he needed to worry about him. Let his sup­posed sense of self-preser­va­tion keep him awake at night as a feel­ing of im­mi­nent dan­ger nagged at him.

He waited while Quinn paid for her fish be­fore he bent to mur­mur in her ear, “I re­mem­ber Ko­dra. Not Dupont.”

The sug­ary scent of her sham­poo filled his nos­trils. He wanted to rip off her jeans, lay her across one of the Formica table­tops, and bury him­self in­side her to re­lease all the anger and fear.

She nod­ded and handed him the parcels of fish crammed into a plas­tic bag. “Let’s get out of here,” she said, grab­bing his hand and pulling him out the door.

Quinn blinked as her eyes ad­justed to the sun­light out­side the dimly lit fish store. What she saw made her swear un­der her breath.

Dupont was half­way into the back seat of a black SUV parked right in front of them, while one of his goons held the door for him. Raul was ap­proach­ing with an el­derly man lean­ing on his arm. The old guy was hunched and un­steady on his feet. He wore a rum­pled and stained suit jacket and a bat­tered hat with a wide brim. If she didn’t know it had to be Mikel, she wouldn’t have be­lieved it. Her boss was good.

Raul wore a base­ball cap, sun­glasses, and a cheap wind­breaker and bent so­lic­i­tously to­ward his sup­posed grand­fa­ther, speak­ing in flu­ent Por­tuguese. But it wasn’t enough. He still car­ried him­self with that in­bred con­fi­dence and au­thor­ity that screamed roy­alty to Quinn.

Dupont’s other body­guard was watch­ing the pair with nar­rowed eyes.

Gabriel, who ex­uded the same royal air, was only ten feet away from his cousin and di­rectly in Dupont’s line of sight.

Dupont hadn’t got­ten to his po­si­tion as a ma­jor crime boss by be­ing un­ob­ser­vant.

“What is it?” Gabriel asked in a low voice.

“Spill the fish on the ground and kneel to pick them up,” Quinn mur­mured. “Keep your face down.”

He let go of one han­dle of the bag so the pa­per-wrapped parcels cas­caded onto the side­walk.

“Fuck!” He dropped to his knee to scrab­ble at the parcels.

Quinn chan­neled a par­tic­u­larly col­or­ful in­mate from her prison days and let out a string of ob­scen­i­ties at a pitch and vol­ume that could break glass. She even smacked Gabriel against the side of his head…care­fully.

“Help the lady with her fish, Bernard, so she’ll shut the fuck up.” Dupont’s voice jerked her gaze up to see the French­man star­ing di­rectly at her, his flat dark eyes gleam­ing with in­tel­li­gence and malev­o­lence. A shiver ran down her spine like a trickle of ice wa­ter. If Dupont was the kid­nap­per, he would have killed Gabriel with­out a mo­ment’s hes­i­ta­tion if the ran­som hadn’t been paid. Quinn shut down that ter­ri­fy­ing train of thought.

The goon by the car door made a face but bent to help Gabriel shove the fish back in the plas­tic bag.

“Thanks,” Quinn said, giv­ing the thug a sassy smile. “Maybe you could carry my fish in­stead of my klutz of a boyfriend.”

“Hey!” Gabriel protested from his crouch on the ground, where he was now fid­dling with the laces on his sneaker. “The han­dle broke.”

The goon ig­nored both of them and closed Dupont’s car door.

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