Chapter 14

GABRIEL

For the first time in as long as I could remember, I wanted to go home. I hadn’t expected to go to London on Saturday, but I had to after I completely botched the meeting with Jason Williams by going to beat up Arthur Geller instead. Peter couldn't convince Williams to give us another chance, so I had to fly to him.

I was supposed to take my jet back on Friday night, but I finished work early and decided to come home earlier. I still flew first class, but I’d never done that before. I was appalled at how much time it takes to clear security when you fly with an airline.

“Never again,” I thought as I stepped out of the airport and felt the breeze. It was cold, much colder than it had been at the charity gala last week.

I hated that my first thought was how stubborn Sofia was, and how she probably wouldn’t have taken her coat if she’d gone out.

Huffing, I gave the driver a hundred-dollar bill. “Take the cab home,” I said, grabbing my car keys and tossing the files I’d been carrying onto the passenger seat.

I felt like speeding today. It was one of those days when I craved the risk, the thrill of near-death—a wrong turn, a wrong step on the gas pedal away from disaster—without actually dying.

I took the longer, emptier route home.

Even though I was trying to clear my mind, every thought was about her. Every time I cared about her well-being, I forced myself to believe it was because I’d promised her grandfather, because she was my responsibility—that’s all.

Ashes of dead promises and memories clouded my head on that cold night until I slammed on the brakes, realizing the light was red. My car lurched to a halt after its high speed, despite the cold, slippery roads. I slid forward in my seat, nearly hitting my head on the steering wheel. My phone and the work papers on the passenger seat tumbled to the floor, the papers scattering.

I felt like a mess. The scattered papers got on my nerves. I was overwhelmed with emotions—mostly anger.

Even though I had time to pick up the papers before the light turned green, I left them on the floor with my phone. Loud gusts of wind blew around, audible even with my windows rolled up.

Sofia made me angry. Looking at her was a daily reminder of my passivity, of having no say in my own life except to let things happen.

And yet, all I could think about was her in my bed. Her under me. The overwhelming urge to touch her, to watch her freeze. To kiss her again and again and again for the rest of the night.

I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles whitened, feeling a surge of unexplained anger.

My engine roared as I waited for the light to turn green, uneasiness filling my chest. I looked away at the empty streets, impatient to speed up again, when my eyes fell on a familiar figure sitting by the window of a bar to my right.

Through the glass, I clearly saw her long black hair and wide smile as she gestured while talking—just as she always did when she was happy. The uneasiness in my chest turned to suffocating panic when I saw the man sitting across from my wife—a man I didn’t recognize.

I felt a tightness, a strange sensation in my chest that felt like physical pain and mental anguish at the same time.

The light turned green, and I sped up as planned, my vision blurring as I struggled to breathe steadily.

I didn’t remember the last time I’d felt this way. It was as if the fact that I’d been blackmailed into marrying a woman I didn’t know was finally hitting me. But what felt worse was that while I was fighting my urge to be close to her, she was possibly spending time with another man.

He could be a friend. He could be more.

Back home, hours later, it still bothered me not knowing if she’d stayed out with him—a friend or whoever he was—or if she was alone in her room down the hall.

I’d told her I wasn’t sleeping with anyone else; she hadn’t.

I thought I could go to sleep, but sleep was impossible. Even after showering, boxing for fifteen minutes, and showering again, nothing helped. A little past midnight, knowing I couldn’t sleep without knowing she was in her room and not with that man, I went to her side of the house.

I knocked once. I knocked twice. No reply. She wasn’t inside.

I tried to ignore the sinking feeling in my chest, the returning suffocation, but I couldn’t.

So I banged on her door so hard that it would either wake her (if she was asleep) or break open.

The door didn’t break. It opened. And there she stood, her sleepy, confused face staring at me as I fought the urge to smile.

END