Page 20 of Salvation

After spending the entire morning with the medical examiner, I’m exhausted and frustrated and know in my gut that Gabrial is my guy. But… I have no way to prove it.

The medical examiner was able to tell me that Eli died from a single gunshot to the chest. It immediately punctured his heart, and once his blood pressure dropped, he died within seconds, about fifteen of them. Just long enough to probably think, “Oh shit… I’m dead.”

Other than that, he had some marks on his arms as if he was restrained with heavy pressure. And there was cocaine in his blood…

This information was not new and not what I was hoping for…

It was all stuff I’d already deduced from the crime scene. I was hoping for something, anything, to give me something concrete. But alas, nothing.

Mrs. Mascareni is still completely off the grid. Either she’s running, or my intuition is that someone’s hiding her. My instincts say it’s Gabrial…

I just don’t know why or where.

My associates, even my partner, seems to think that Gabrial may have killed her as well. Yet, we have no body, and we have no proof that he even killed Eli… just my gut feeling.

I went to Gabrial’s house last night after calling Hope all afternoon. I just wanted to ask her what time he showed up there yesterday afternoon and if he was acting at all out of the ordinary. Yet, she didn’t answer, or return, my calls.

I worked at the office until midnight. All the paperwork we had from our investigation of Eli Mascareni, as well as possible related case files, are scattered over one of the tables in the conference room. I just need a connection… anything that will give me some insight on where to go from here.

But nothing… no one wants to talk when it comes to Gabrial. He’s feared by many, but also respected. He’s a charmer. He always has been, and I understand his allure.

Hell, we were as close as brothers for years and years, but then he decided to dive headfirst into the crime that surrounded us to make something of himself. And me, I joined the force to put criminals away. We were suddenly on opposite sides of a battlefield.

At first, I tried to get him to stop. I pleaded with him, tried to reason and get him to see that he had other options. I begged him not to get in too deeply, but the lure of the dark… the power… the money… it was too enticing for him. I even understand it.

He literally came from nothing. His own mother hated him. She called him “evil” and the “Devil’s spawn.” She starved him. She neglected him. Once Hope and I befriended him, we saw firsthand the hell she put him through.

She was always high or drunk. She had a sickness, brought on by her involvement with Gabrial’s father, or so she said. She’d rage and scream terrible things at him while her body twitched and rebelled, craving more and more of the poison. But instead of fighting it, she’d just give in. She was always whoring herself out to pay for the next fix and the men… lord, she’d go through men. The scum of the earth… drug dealers, gang bangers, and pimps… they would beat her and do much worse, truly horrible things to her, and Gabrial would be there, a helpless child, watching it all unfold. He watched her be beaten, raped, sold, passed around. He watched as the depraved men used and abused her for their own sick pleasures. Completely helpless to do anything to prevent it.

I know he feared becoming like them, and that even though she hated him, he wanted to save her… To protect her. After all, she was his mother.

The things he saw those men do to his mother… it still makes me shudder.

Yet now he’s a supplier, a dealer, himself. Drugs and guns. I know he doesn’t use. He’d never give in to the dangerous allure of the drugs he sells. He despises them. But he saw a way to make money… to forge a path for himself, and he took it. The drugs led to guns, and now he’s a huge crime lord, and in my honest opinion, somewhat of a vigilante.

I think about him all the time… how can I not? We were so close. He was not just my friend. He was my brother. The three of us, Gabrial, Hope, and me… we were family. The bonds we forged as children should have lasted a lifetime.

Could I have done something differently? Is there anything that I could have said to steer him down a different path?

What did I miss?

I honestly don’t know the answers to those questions, though I’ve gone over them a million times, and it eats me up inside.

So, I decided I’d just go to his house and ask him the questions I couldn’t get answered from Hope. I knew she’d been there earlier in the night while I was rifling through paperwork. I thought she’d gone home though. I never expected she would be there… in his house… in his bed.

I don’t know why I didn’t think she’d still be there. I know she fucks him. I’ve known forever. It’s one of the reasons that no matter how enflamed we get I’ve never taken her in that way. I may have to share her heart with him, but I will not share her body with any man… not even Gabrial.

I love her and I want her. I want her with a passion I can barely stand, but I will not cave. I won’t make Hope a woman who fucks two men. I respect her too much. She’s too important.

It’s so hard to stop sometimes though.

I’m far from a virgin and I take my pleasures with women. I have since I was seventeen, but never with Hope. Never with the one woman I want more than I want my next breath.

My fists clench on my knees under my desk as I try to shake off the rage I’m still feeling.

Gabrial answered the door. He was wearing unbuttoned pants that he hastily pulled on, so I knew I woke him. He never said he had company and I never asked. Maybe that was my fault. I asked my questions and he avoided them. He’s good at that.

I goaded him and was praying for a response… anything I could work with, but then, we heard Hope in the hall.

---