Page 6 of Gabe

Just one.

“Son of a bitch,” I exclaimed. I searched the house again, just to make sure I hadn’t missed a hidden door somewhere.

Nope. There was only one other bedroom, with only one bed.

Newt and Sebastian would be staying in the first bedroom, which meant Gabe and I would have to share the one remaining bed.

I’d already been sharing a bed with Gabe for weeks. Finally having my own place to sleep was the one thing I’d been looking forward to, but the house somehow seemed to be even smaller than Sebastian’s apartment.

Maybe I could convince Gabe to sleep on the couch?

Checking the front room, the biggest couch I found was a loveseat meant for two. It would never fit a man of Gabe’s height. I might be able to fit if I propped my feet up on the armrest, but that didn’t sound very comfortable and there was no telling how long we’d be calling this place home.

Grumbling under my breath, I started collecting pillows and blankets to build a barrier wall down the center of the bed.

At least it was a queen-size bed so we wouldn’t have to sleep on top of each other.

CHAPTER 3

Gabe

Getting settled into the safe house took longer than I expected. Once we arrived, got Sebastian set up, and handled the argument around Damien leaving, I had hoped things would quiet down. But, no. We still needed supplies like food, clothes, and all the other odds and ends required for humans to live comfortably. Usually, a proper protection detail would already have this sorted out, but since we’d taken off without permission, the whole thing was a mess.

That is why I usually never acted without a clear plan. Plans kept things from getting messy.

There was no choice. As much as I hated leaving someone under my protection alone, I also didn’t feel comfortable sending either Newt or Frankie into town by themselves. They were civilians. If they were attacked, they had no way to defend themselves.

There’d already been too many close calls under my watch. No more.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t drive an RV—at least not confidently enough to be certain that I wouldn’t tip the clunky thing—so Frankie had driven me into town and dropped me off at the nearest store, after which I’d ordered him to immediately drive back to the safe house. With a couple hours’ effort, I managed to pick up all the supplies we’d need for at least a week, and also rented the most nondescript car I could find. The RV was necessary to safely transport Sebastian in his injured state, but it was too noticeable. We needed a better mode of transportation.

As soon as I returned to the safe house, I immediately locked myself in the bathroom.

There wasn’t much privacy in a house so small, and both bedrooms were occupied. Sebastian couldn’t be moved, and I didn’t have the heart to kick Frankie out of the little space he’d carved for himself. Sharing a bedroom with the man was hard enough without intentionally creating animosity between us.

The kitchen and front sitting room were also not private enough for my work, so the bathroom ended up becoming my office. Luckily the house had two bathrooms, so things wouldn’t get messy.

Why was everything always a mess?

I perched on the edge of the tub, looking over the files I had stacked on the floor and the laptop that sat open on the sink counter.

Sebastian and Damien were so focused on Russo and the Mariano family, they refused to hear about anything else. However, I had my doubts about their involvement with the pedophile ring. So far, the only connection that we had found between the Mariano family and the pedophile ring was Lorenz Mariano, Russo’s brother-in-law. The man was certainly scum, but he wasn’t ‘ring leader’ material either.

No. Lorenz Mariano was certainly funding this pedophile ring, probably to supply his own desires, but he wasn’t the one pulling the strings. Someone else was in charge of this little ring of bottom feeders. Someone powerful enough to accept funding from the Mariano family without crumbling under the pressure of such a dangerous debt.

I wouldn’t be able to conduct this investigation on my own. Especially not with the limited resources I currently had. I would need help.

My fingers flew over the keys of my laptop, bringing up a video call with a familiar number.

It picked up almost immediately.

“Gabe. I wondered when you’d be calling me.”

Lily Kim’s smiling face greeted me through the screen.

“It’s a bad situation. Not many people I can trust right now.”

As the FBI director’s personal secretary, Lily was one of the few people not afraid of the man. According to her, it was hard to be afraid of someone when you knew their every coming and going. She probably knew more about the director’s life than even he did. Someone like David Russo would commit genocide to get someone like her on his payroll. The information she knew could topple whole countries.

---