Page 77 of The Pretty Psycho

"The warehouse is approximately three kilometers away from here, as you can see.” He pointed at the warehouse with the red peeling facade. “There's at least ten of them," Ethan said, clearing his throat. "I scouted the area quickly, so we would have to be careful, but there are at least two snipers on top of the warehouse." He pointed in their direction. "The rest of them are inside the building, waiting for Adrian."

"Good." Gabriela grinned, clasping her hands together in front of her. "Now, was that so hard?" she asked him, her stare unwavering, drilling into Ethan.

"No," he bit out, glaring at her, but neither one of them did anything else. The thick tension in the air could be cut with a knife, but no one had any intention of drawing attention to that fact. I looked over my shoulder at a pale Yolanda and her shaky hands. She held her phone in her right hand, smiling weakly at me, but I could see her frightened eyes and the sweat beading on her forehead.

"All righty then," Gabriela murmured, turning toward us. "Shall we do this?"

It wasn't like we had much choice. If Gerard Zylla sent his soldiers to Wolfhöle, then that meant the rest of the party wasn'tfar off. Was Heinrich going to appear as well? Would we be able to take down both monsters and reclaim this world as ours?

"We need a plan," Adrian said as his arm tightened around me. "I don't want us going in blind."

"Oh, now you want a plan." Gabriela chuckled. "Maybe if we had a plan from the very beginning instead of you driving here like a maniac and worrying my girl—" Adrian groaned. "—then I'd be able to go back in time and watch my favorite TV show!" Yeah, Gabriela was pissed at him.

"Are you done?" Adrian asked, obviously not amused at her shrieking and calling him out. "I thought I had no choice."

"We always have a choice, pretty boy," she smirked. "And we both know that subconsciously," she took a step closer, staring him down, "you wanted an out. You wanted to stop feeling it all in here." She pressed her forefinger to his chest. "You wanted it all to go away, because you're tired of having this weight on your shoulders."

"Gabriela," Adrian warned. "Don't."

She grinned like a madwoman, putting some distance between them. "Truth hurts, doesn't it, Adrian?"

"It does," he agreed, making me look up at him. "But you already knew that, didn't you? Thetruthhas hurt you the most." Her eyes narrowed, the grin disappeared, and if she looked scary before, it was nothing compared to the look on her face right now. "I like you, Gaby, I really, really do," Adrian murmured. "But you don't get to behave like a raging bitch toward me and my friends. You're part of our circle, you always were, but before telling me about the hurtful truth you should look in the mirror and ask yourself why you've spent the last couple of years on a suicide mission, instead of going home."

"I went home."

"Nah." Adrian shook his head. "We both know that's not the home I'm talking about. We both know that he waited, and waited, and fucking waited, but you never showed."

"You don't know anything, Adrian," she fumed. "Nothing at all!"

"I know enough." My man shrugged while I watched the altercation. "I know that you would rather have spent all these years out in the world instead of going to the one place that could heal all those open wounds you've been carrying around. And we both know what happens to open wounds, Gabriela—they get infected. They make you rotten from the inside out, and you, for all your goodness, you've allowed yourself to become rotten."

Her eyes misted, but Adrian wasn't done. I had no idea if this was something that’d been building up over the years, but I wasn't going to stop him.

I liked Gabriela. Hell, I liked her more than most people, but she needed to hear this. If this was the truth she has been running from, then she needed to face it or she would never get to really live.

I knew a thing or two about running from yourself, from the people who loved you and the places that you knew could heal you. I knew what it was like to look in the mirror and hate the person staring back at you, but you couldn't replace your skin with someone else's. You had to live with your mistakes, with your tragedies.

And every single one of us had tragedy carved on our bones, chipping away the pieces of who we wanted to be. That desperation to forget, to erase the past, to erase all the good and bad things was what kept us from moving forward. That desperation came from fear, from a place in our souls that wanted us to stay stagnant, to stay put, because the enemy you knew was more often than not your own mind and your own soul, even when your heart knew you needed to move forward.

I was afraid of love, of Adrian, of the future we could have together, and Gabriela… Well, that look on her face told me she was terrified of whatever the hell Adrian was talking about.

"So the next time you put your hands on any one of my men, I'll rip your throat out and feed it to the dogs."

She blanched. "You wouldn't dare."

"Try. Me." The vein on the side of his neck was protruding, his eyes filled with a wildfire I didn't want to put out, but I knew he would hate himself if he said anything that would really harm their relationship.

"Okay," I murmured as I moved in front of him, blocking Gabriela. "That's enough, Adrian."

"She doesn't?—"

"No," I pushed, placing my hand over his heart. "You've said enough, Adrian. Please." I looked up at him, waiting for those dark eyes to look down at me. "Look at me." His lips flattened, the tic in his cheek becoming prominent, but he finally relented and looked down at me, swallowing me in the darkness and the fury he just spat at Gabriela. "Hey," I smiled, placing my hand on his cheek, hoping it would calm him down. "We don't fight our friends, remember?"

His eyes closed as he placed his palm on top of my hand, inhaling slowly and exhaling quickly, calming himself down.

I could hear footsteps behind me, but I doubted Gabriela would try anything else right now. She was vicious, but she wasn't someone who would attack for no good reason, and if she did just because they had an argument, then she wasn't the kind of person I thought her to be.

"She just pisses me off," he grunted, lowering his face to the crook of my neck, his breath tickling my skin. "She's so fucking stubborn and she can't see what she's doing."

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