Page 19 of Gabe

He held out a plate in front of him.

I wasn’t sure what I found more distracting. The word “please” coming out of his mouth, or the plate of eggs and bacon made exactly how I preferred.

My stomach growled. Still scowling, I snatched the plate from his hand.

“You have five minutes.”

After I put on a pair of pants, we ended up sitting around the small bench table in the RV. It was an awkward position. The size of the table meant there was no way to sit without our knees knocking. I tried to ignore it and focused on my breakfast as I waited for Gabe to figure out what he wanted to say.

“I was an ass yesterday.”

I looked up at him with surprise, and a piece of bacon hanging halfway out of my mouth.

That was not how I imagined the conversation would start. If anything, I had expected him to try and convince me that the whole argument was actually my fault.

Swallowing my mouthful of food and chasing it down with several heavy gulps of orange juice gave me enough time to get over my shock. When I was finally able to talk, my words came out clear.

“Yes, you were.”

The fact that he was taking responsibility for his actions was a good start, but if he wanted forgiveness, he was going to have to give me a proper apology first.

Gabe sighed and nodded, like he’d already expected that response. “I shouldn’t have said what I said, and I’m sorry. It was uncalled for, and wrong. You’re not unfit to be a physical therapist. I was just worried, although that’s no excuse.”

He was saying all the right things, but the way he spoke made the apology sound rehearsed.

The eggs on my plate had been steamed instead of fried or scrambled, which is how I knew Newt had made the breakfast. It wasn’t the most common way to prepare eggs, but I hated the crispy edges that they got when fried and I didn’t like mixing the whites and the yolks together to make scrambled.

Newt must have encouraged Gabe to come talk to me. He’d probably even helped Gabe plan out what to say and told him that offering of food would be the best way to get me to listen. He wasn’t wrong. I hadn’t eaten much the day before—which may have contributed to how angry I got—and the food definitely helped me think more clearly.

Most importantly, I trusted Newt. He wouldn’t have helped Gabe plan an apology if he thought the other man wasn’t sincere.

I pointed my fork at Gabe. “You claim you were worried, but we’ve been in hiding for weeks and you’ve never been that rude before. What changed?”

He eyed my fork, which was pointed right at the center of his forehead. “You’re right. Yesterday, I... found one of the moles in my agency and managed to get some information out of him.”

I didn’t want to know what that meant, and resolutely kept any questions about the identity of this mole or how Gabe questioned them to myself. Instead, I only asked about the information he’d learned.

Gabe placed a folder on the table, careful to keep it far enough away from my breakfast to avoid stains.

Flipping open the file, I was greeted with a picture of a man I didn’t recognize. He was a large man, with a big barrel chest and sloping shoulders. It was the kind of largeness that came from strength, even if his muscles were hidden under a healthy layer of fat.

His hair may have once been red but was now so gray that the original color was indistinguishable.

“Is this supposed to mean something to me?”

“Probably not,” Gabe said, though he tapped the paper to draw my attention to the man in the photo anyway. “His name is Robert McLeod, and based on the information I’ve procured, he’s the man running the pedophile ring that’s trying to kill us.”

That info did make the image of the man look a little more threatening, but the picture still meant nothing to me.

“I thought the Mafia King that Sebastian and Damien have history with was the one running the pedophile ring.”

“The Mariano family is definitely bankrolling the pedophile ring in some way, but they’re not in charge of it. Damien is off finding a way to get rid of David Russo once and for all, but I’m afraid that wouldn’t stop this pedophile ring. They would still exist, and they would still be trying to kill all of us. If we want to be safe, we need to get rid of this person as well. One way or another.”

In my mind, the people trying to kill my friends—and by extension, me—were a group of amorphous and shadowy villains. Like the kind of boogeyman monster children were warned about in old fables. To see that the person hunting us was just a man like any other, was simultaneously both a letdown and also very disturbing.

Humans shouldn’t be capable of such monstrous actions.

“I still don’t understand. Why are you so worried? Shouldn’t knowing who this person is be a good thing? Now you know who to go after.”

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