Blythe stopped in her pursuit of Georgette and started toward Gabe, but Georgette kept striding toward the warehouse—or striding as much as a woman eight months gone with child could. It was more of a waddle.
“Georgette!” Gabe shouted as she reached the warehouse door. He heard keys jangling, and knew she must have taken his extra set out of his office at home.
“Don’t you ‘Georgette’ me!” she shouted back at him without stopping what she was doing. “I can’t sleep knowing the cradle isn’t ready!”
“I planned to bring it home momentarily,” he replied, rushing after her even as Blythe still came his way.
Georgette slung open the warehouse door, then turned, taking a few steps toward him. “Then hurry your arse up before—”
Aboomblasted the calm of the night, and the ground beneath Gabe’s feet began to shake. Before his mind registered what was happening, Georgette seemed to fly through the air toward him as the warehouse behind her burst into orange flames. Blythe’s screams echoed around him, and Gabe’s heart stopped, then started again at a full gallop. He raced toward Georgette, passing his sister along the way. Georgette was lying facedown in the street surrounded by debris and moaning.
The feeling of doom that had been with Gabe since he’d awoken dropped him to his knees beside her. He turned her over, worry snaking through him at the blood trickling from her mouth and nose. He began to scan her body for injuries, then stilled with a curse frozen in his throat. A piece of thick wood was buried deep in her chest. Her eyes were glassy, but she was mumbling something to him.
“Go get help,” he called to Blythe. Then he leaned in, his body shaking violently, and said, “It’s going to be all right.”
She grasped him by the arm as she coughed, blood spewing from her mouth. “Remember your vow to me, Gabe,” she struggled to say. “You won’t kill him.”
“Shh,” he cooed instead of answering and cupped her face with his hand as waves of guilt and grief washed over him. Her gown was soaked in blood, and the only color on her face was the brown of the eyes that clung to his.
“Thought I loved him,” she said, her voice a threadbare whisper.
Gabe frowned. “What?”
“I…thought I loved him,” she repeated. “Gave myself to him because I thought I loved him.”
Her words rendered him speechless.
Her hand dropped from his to the street, her breathing growing more labored. “Sorry. So sorry. Saw him kill…a man over a quarrel for money, and…knew I could never be with him again. Then…then he forced me.” Her eyes fluttered shut, then opened once more and locked on Gabe. “I was scared,” she whispered. “Needed protection from him…for me and the babe. Hoped one day…” She coughed up more blood. “Hoped one day maybe I could let him into the babe’s life. He used to be good.”
She’d lied to him. He couldn’t hate her. He couldn’t even be angry with her. She’d been desperate, and she’d been afraid to tell him the whole truth. Now he understood how Hawk could have twisted things in his mind and blamed Gabe, even if it still wasn’t reality.
“Gabe… Gabe… I’m cold.”
He gathered her to his chest and held her tightly as she began to shudder.
“Gabe… Keep your promise to me.”
Her desperation sliced through him and cut into his thick hatred of Hawk, who must have done this. When her nails dug into his arm, he pulled back and met her frantic gaze. “I’ll keep it,” he vowed, hugging her close again. “Go in peace.”
Her body gave another shudder, and a cool burst of breath wafted against his cheek. Gabe froze, afraid to look at her and equally afraid not to. He knew that whooshing sound. His mother had made that same sound. That was death, claiming its next victim. He pulled back once more and their eyes met for a brief moment before hers fluttered closed.
Behind him, footsteps thudded in rapid succession. Gabe laid Georgette on the ground, only now noticing the heat from the flames of the warehouse. He stood on weak legs and turned to see an onslaught of people coming at him from his club and the surrounding houses and businesses. Orders were being shouted, and Bear was suddenly there, along with the local doctor and three other men who hurried to take Georgette to the doctor’s office. Gabe followed in a daze, moving through the stream of people dashing this way and that to try to contain the fire. Blythe appeared out of the darkness as Gabe trailed behind the men carrying Georgette’s still body. She took one look at Gabe and swept her gaze back to Georgette. Her mouth slipped open, her only show of shock, and then she walked slowly toward him, put her arm around his shoulders, and they moved as one behind the men, through the thick smoke billowing from the warehouse.
Not long later, Gabe stood with Blythe at his side and watched helplessly as the doctor worked first on Georgette, pronounced her dead, and then tried and failed to save the babe. He saw the doctor talking to him, heard Blythe answer the man when Gabe failed to, but it was as if he were floating above, looking down on the scene, drowning in the guilt and rage that he couldn’t contain. His throat burned with the need to bellow, and when he opened his mouth, an inhuman sound poured out of him. The grief he’d held in for years—for the loss of his father, then his mother, then Hawk as a friend, and now Georgette—burst forth, scraping his throat raw.
Near dawn, Gabe left the doctor’s office and somehow made his way back to his office. He ordered everyone out of the club, but Blythe refused to go. His sister. The only other person left whose loss could cut him to the quick. It was too late to push her away, but he’d be damned before he’d let anyone else close again.
“Gabe, what are you doing?”
He couldn’t recall ever having heard his sister sound so worried. “Waiting,” he said, knowing deep in his bones that Hawk would come.
“For what?” Blythe whispered, kneeling suddenly and glancing up at him. “She’s not coming back, Gabe. I’m sorry. I know you loved her.”
He sat still, his heart thudding, his mind processing what his sister was saying. She thought he’d just lost the woman he loved. And he did love Georgette, just not as Blythe believed. He’d let her keep believing it, though. He’d not betray his promise to Georgette, even in her death. His vow was his honor, and that honor was what separated him from Hawk.
“Gabe, please.” Blythe squeezed his knee. “Let me go get the vicar.”
“Soon,” Gabe promised. “Go now. Hawk will come, and I don’t want you here when he does.”
