Page 47 of Redemption
"You're in a hotel; you're safe."
"I... I don't understand." My words were strung together with a loose thread, my mind still hazy, like dust particles floating in a beam of sunlight.
Gabriel stood and approached me. He wore jeans and nothing else, as usual, but his face masked with concern. His blue eyes were less at ease than I had grown used to. His bare chest moved with his slow, steady breaths.
"You were drugged," he finally said, his voice barely a whisper above the hum of the air conditioner. "By those men at the club. They planned to kidnap you."
I blinked, confusion giving way to fear. The club? Then I remembered the drink, following Connor to the dance floor, and then... nothing.
"We..." I rasped, my voice catching in my throat. Gabriel reached for a bottle of water on the bedside table and handed it to me. I drank while trying to remember more, but there was nothing there to remember.
"We need to go to the police," I said after a moment's pause, pushing myself to sit against the headboard.
Gabriel shook his head. "No, Sophia. That would only put you in more danger."
"But..." I stared at him incredulously. "They tried to kidnap me."
"I know." His response was immediate, his gaze never wavering from mine. "And they won't get another chance."
"Why not? How can you be sure?"
"Because that's not something I could let happen." Gabriel's voice was firm, resolute, leaving no room for argument.
I sat up. "I need a little more than your words Gabriel."
He sat down on the bed next to me. "Trust me, you?—"
I cut him off. "Stop saying that, stop telling me to trust you.”
His eyes widened in surprise, then relaxed. "Ok, fine. You want to know why you don't have to worry about those two? Why we shouldn't go to the police?"
I threw a hand up and flicked my gaze toward him. “Yes!” I nearly shouted.
"I killed them, Sophia. You don't have to worry about them because they are fucking dead."
His words hung heavily in the room. I blinked, my heart pounding. Dead. Dead because of him.
"No..." I shook my head, fighting the nausea. "No, you're lying."
"I'm not," he said quietly, his gaze steady.
"But... murder? You can't just murder people!"
He stared at me as if he knew one of life’s greatest mysteries and was about to share it with me. "I didn't murder them. Ikilled them. Murder implies innocence on their part," Gabriel's face darkened, his eyes gripping mine. "They were anything but innocent."
This was too much. I squeezed my eyes closed and clasped my hands together in my lap, taking deep breaths trying hopelessly to calm down. "You should have called the police, Gabriel," I said quietly, avoiding his gaze. "This... this isn't right."
Gabriel sighed and ran a hand through his tousled hair. He looked every bit the dangerous man he had just proven himself to be. "The police wouldn't have done anything, Sophia. You should know this by now. They can't do anything until it's too late,"
"You don't know that," I argued back, sharply turning away from him.
"I do." Gabriel retorted, his voice holding the tone of a parent instructing a child.
His words hung in the air, heavy with bitterness.
"Gabriel... You..." My words trailed off, swallowed by the tension.
His eyes softened slightly as he shifted closer before putting a hand on my thigh. "I did what I had to do."
