Page 137 of Their Will be Done

Suddenly I don’t want Gabriel to see anything. I want him to keep talking. But when I lean forward to take the envelope, he moves it out of reach.

His brown eyes dart over my face, hunting.

“What is it?” he asks.

I have no way of knowing, but the second he asks that question, it’s as if I can see right through the fucking envelope.

“A photo.” I lick my lips. “It’s a photo of you.”

He tilts his head a little. There’s even a hint of a smile on his mouth. “Of me?” That smile stretches. “I hope they got my good side.”

I laugh, but it sounds like I’m seconds away from losing my mind.

Or maybe I have already.

Gabriel lifts the envelope a little. “May I?”

My head nods, but it’s as if someone else is doing it for me. My eyes move, but not because I ordered them to.

I watch, frozen in place, as Gabriel opens the envelope.

Takes out the photo.

The coy smile he’d been wearing melts away. For a second, his face could have belonged to a corpse.

Then his gaze flashes up to mine. “So young,” he murmurs.

He tips up his chin, staring down at the photo a second longer. When his eyes lock with mine again, my body goes ice-cold.

“Who left this here?” he asks.

I can’t move, let alone speak.

Gabriel comes closer, glancing between me and the photo, eyes slowly narrowing. I stifle a gasp when he grabs my jaw, tilting my head back so he can stare at me at just the right angle.

His eyes widen a little.

“So much of your mother in you, isn’t there?”

My stomach drops.

“And to think,” Gabriel says, his mouth breaking into a fond smile, “She swore to Keith and me that she’d never have children.”

He turns the photo to me, drawing my eyes.

Middle row, two from the left. A young Gabriel Blake, hands behind his back, stern expression on his face.

“But then she fell pregnant. A boy, did you know that?”

Middle row, four from the left. A young Keith Malone. Solemn, bleak. But so were all the kids in that photo.

My eyes fly back to Gabriel.

“She didn’t keep that baby though. Or the next. But she kept you, Trinity.” Gabriel’s eyes move back to the photo, and my gaze follows. “She kept you, because you were special.”

Middle row.

Three from the left.

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