Page 51 of A Bride By Morning
He struck another blow across Vladimir’s face and the other man staggered. The crowd cheered. They shouted for Gabriel’s victory, but he barely heard them over the pounding blood through his ears.
“You ought to have remembered what I was like in Moscow,” Gabriel said, coming forward again. His fist rocked the Russian back. “The name Medvedev’s men gave me. You know what they used to call me, Volodya. Or do you need reminding?” He wrapped a hand around the other man’s throat and squeezed. The Russian staggered against him, his face mottled red and bloody. Gabriel leaned forward and whispered the name in Vladimir’s ear as the other man struggled against him. “Zver. The Beast.”
Then he broke Vladimir’s windpipe.
The crowd roared as the Russian went down—not yet comprehending that Gabriel’s defeated challenger was dead. Gabriel departed the ring before the announcer could check the other man or declare the winner. As he pushed through the crowd, hands smacked him on the back. Money was passed around. Men shouted and cheered him as he left the building. Gabriel made them all plenty of coin—and in a few moments, they’d know he left them with a corpse.
Outside, Wentworth caught up with him. “Did you leave him alive? I couldn’t tell.”
Something calm settled through Gabriel, the same repose he felt after a kill. He’d done it so many times, it simply made a space within his soul, hollowed it out into the shape of a blade. And with every pass of the whetstone, pieces fell away to sharpen its edges.
“No,” Gabriel said simply.
Wentworth flattened his lips. “Youfuckwit.”
Gabriel grasped his coat from Wentworth’s hands and yanked it on to cover his bare chest as he swung into an alley. “That was an authorized assassination. Unfinished business from Moscow.”
“I don’t give a damn. I would have liked to question him before you finished your assignment three years late.”
“Vladimir wasn’t going to betray Medvedev’s location. He’d die before crossing thevory,” he said, using the Russian word forthief. Every Syndicate member followed that code, with inconsistent levels of fidelity.
Gabriel plucked a kerchief from his pocket and wiped the blood from his face. He strode as fast as he could through the streets without running; he had no desire to draw attention to himself after leaving a body at the warehouse.
“I know how to interrogate criminals, Monty,” Wentworth said sharply.
“He threatened Lydia,” Gabriel snapped. The beast inside him was still near the surface, too easily freed. “If you found the bastard who murdered your wife—if you’d had the chance to stop him before it happened—wouldn’t you take it?”
Wentworth flinched. Gabriel watched as memories flitted across the other man’s features, the grief he suppressed by immersing himself in work. Then, after a long moment, he said, “Yes. I would.”
“Then you understand why snapping that man’s windpipe was more of a mercy than he deserved.” Gabriel straightened. “Prepare your men. Once Medvedev hears of this, he’ll plan an attack.”
Wentworth nodded. “And you?”
“I’m moving Lydia from Meadowcroft. She’s not safe there anymore.”
22
Lydia was reading by the fire—preoccupying herself during another restless night—when she heard boots pounding down the hall.
Gabriel.
She shot to her feet as he shoved open her bedchamber door and closed it behind him with a backward kick. Lydia flinched at the condition of his face. A laceration split his lower lip, a ruddy bruise developed on one cheek, and the other had a slim gash near the corner of his eye. His clothing was sodden. The fabric of his overcoat was threadbare, made of coarse wool she had only ever seen on factory workers. Lydia’s notice snagged on the buttons left open at his chest, where a triangle of bare, tanned skin peeked between the textile. What on earth had happened to his shirt? Where had he been?
Lydia pressed the book to her chest, grip tightening on the leather spine. That inferior object was a poor substitute for what she really wanted: to caress him. Tend to him. Take care of him.
But this man before her was different from the Gabriel she knew. This was not the tender husband or even the cold assassin she had witnessed in the Brome’s garden. No, his wild, almost fierce countenance matched his unfamiliar attire.
“What happened?” she asked. “Is Medvedev—”
“Still alive.” His interruption was terse, his breathing uneven as he looked her over, as if checking to make sure no harm had come to her in his absence. “I fought one of his men.”
Killed him, she knew he meant. But she had seen him kill before—in the Brome’s garden, he had possessed such utter composure. He carefully restrained his every emotion as he had scrubbed the blood from her face. This time, Lydia sensed Gabriel’s fraying control as if it were a tattered rope barely holding him together.
This time . . .
Her attention fell on his hands, and she sucked in a breath. “My god,” she breathed.
The book fell to the carpet as she rushed to him. Gently, she lifted his swollen hands, examining the smattering of cuts, bruises, and dried blood. Those fists were proof of his brutality, and yet all she wanted was to set her lips to every blemish.
