Page 27 of Corrupted Queen

“... more work on the docks,” I hear Vito say.

Harry struggles in my arms, keen to start running in the other direction, and his irritated whimper means I miss part of Gabriel’s reply, catching only, “... another shipment next week.”

I release Harry and he bolts in the other direction. I follow close behind, digesting what I just heard. Gabriel took shipments and did work on the docks before purple heroin came along. Maybe that’s still all it is. Maybe he’s not part of the crisis at all.

I know. Wishful thinking. I don’t want to face the repulsive fact that my father’s son, the man who I maybe—possibly—am falling for for the second time, is scum of the earth.

Gabriel is a criminal, sure, but I thought he at least had a code. Pushing purple heroin onto dealers and saturating the streets with it, while also cutting funding to programs that could help save lives, is so utterly beneath him that it doesn’t make sense to me. Even as the evidence lines up in a neat row before me, I don’t want to believe it. My gut tells me something isn’t right. But how much can I trust my gut when it’s compromised by my apparent residual feelings for Gabriel? I don’t want to believe the Italian Mafia are involved in the purple heroin trade because I don’t want to believe that the man who can look at my son with such love and adoration would be capable of an enterprise so vile.

I need to dig more. If I am going to investigate and expose Gabriel, I want to be very sure. Especially after what I learned about my dad.

My chest tightens at the thought. I was so sure that Gabriel was lying, that he’d murdered a good man. An innocent man. But the evidence doesn’t lie, and seeing my father torture Damien Walsh with a smile on his face …

Harry topples over ahead of me and I push those dark thoughts from my mind. I spent nearly a week entertaining nothing but the cold, leaden weight of my morbid discovery, languishing in the pain.

I’ve had enough of that now. It’s not productive. The pain is still there, but I ignore it when I can. The more I focus on Harry, the easier that is.

* * *

Gabriel comes to the nursery later that afternoon, while I am reading and watching Harry play with his blocks, and before either of us speaks a word he hands me my cell phone. I wonder what I have done to earn this privilege but decide not to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth.

“Thank you.”

Gabriel nods and goes to Harry’s side, helping him construct an even higher tower. I check through my notifications and am dismayed to see several missed calls and a half-dozen texts from Clara. She’s sorry, desperately sorry, she writes. She was scared.

I side-eye Gabriel. He has that effect on her.

I remember testing the boundaries of my freedom, having assumed I was relegated to my room and the nursery. Nobody told me that I was allowed to walk around the house, but I was. I wonder how far I can push the borders of my incarceration.

“Gabriel,” I say.

He glances back at me, and in that time Harry swipes a fist through the blocks and sends them tumbling to the ground.

“Yes?” Gabriel asks, as though he hasn’t noticed the architectural disaster.

“I want to go visit Clara.” I hold my phone out so he can see all the notifications. “Your goons threatened her and she’s worried about me.”

He shrugs and starts rebuilding the structure. “They were under strict instructions not to hurt her. She was in no danger.”

I frown, though the fact that he hasn’t told me no outright is encouraging. “Not being in danger and knowing you aren’t in danger are two different things,” I point out.

“She’s fine, isn’t she? Unharmed. All in one piece.”

“All the same, I want to go see her,” I persist. “She’ll be worried about me. Besides that, I’m worried about her. She’s been drinking again.”

Gabriel tosses a block between his palms. His mouth tilts down at the corners. “Yes, my men had mentioned something to that effect.”

“So you’ll let me go see her?”

I can see the gears working in his head. I wait for his answer with bated breath.

“Okay,” he says finally, stacking the block on top of the new tower. “But Harry stays here. Jessica can look after him.”

One second I’m positively joyous, and a record scratch later, my heart sinks. I can’t leave Harry. Having dinner with Gabriel last night was the first time I’d been apart from Harry since Andrew Walsh’s dirty compound, and even knowing Harry was upstairs still felt like too much distance to me. I know I’ll need to cut the cord at some point, but it seems too soon.

Gabriel watches me wrestle with my indecision. No doubt he is allowing me to leave without Harry because he knows that it is the only way to guarantee that I will come back. I wonder if there is some way for me to show him how committed I am to staying with him—at least for the time being—without revealing that I’m investigating him for connections to purple heroin.

I consider objecting on grounds of safety. What if something happens to Harry and I’m not here to protect him?

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