she slides her eyes to mine, she places her hand on the glass, and I don’t hesitate to do the same.
Damn it.
I hate the one thing keeping us apart is something my brother put between us.
“He said if you try to keep me from him again, the next thing he will send you—instead of me alive—will be my head. Then, he said he will kill you, Sebastian.”
“No.” I shake my head, in complete denial. “No. He won’t. He won’t ever be able to touch me. You don’t need to worry about me.”
“You have to let me go,” she admits, but she doesn’t mean the words.
“Gabriella, no. We can do this. In a year, I’m out. I’ll keep you safe. I can do that. I can keep you safe.”
“I won’t be alive in a year, Sebastian. You and I both know that.”
“You have to keep fighting. You must keep running. I’ll find you, Gabriella. I always do. Don’t give up.” I want to tell her not to give up on us, but there never was an us, and there never will be.
My brother will never allow it.
“It isn’t about giving up, Sebastian,” she says, wiping her cheek. “It’s realizing that I’ll never get out of the situation I’m in. And it’s about you. Your life doesn’t need to revolve around keeping me safe.”
“What life?” I ground through the emotion in my chest. “You’re my best friend—”
“I’m nothing to you now, Sebastian. I can’t be. We can’t communicate. I will not write you back. Save yourself from him. Okay? I can’t, but you can. You still have time.”
“No!” I slam my fist down on the table.
“Keep it down!” Andrews shouts at me, hitting the wall with the baton to make his point.
I take a deep breath and claw my fingers into the old worn wood of the counter. My body shakes with anger. I want to bust through the glass and hold her, to tell her everything is going to be okay, but I can’t lie to her anymore. I have no idea if things will ever be okay again.
If she goes back to my brother, Gabriella will be nothing but a ghost to me. I’m haunted in many ways, and losing her will put me in purgatory, where the doomed, broken, and dangerous are meant to be.
“Goodbye, Sebastian,” she sobs my name and hangs up the phone with a soft click as I stare at her.
There’s no doubt she can see my pain. “No, Gabriella! Gabriella!” I shout for her through the glass. She presses her palms against the counter as she stands. I notice the light pink handprint around her throat when she moves her hair off her shoulder. The bastard tried to choke her. “Don’t do this,” I beg. I hit the phone on the receiver and bang my fist against the glass. “Gabriella. Please!” She gives me her back as she walks away, no doubt hearing my muted cries behind the glass. I bang my fist until the glass cracks. “Gabriella,” her name breaks in half as my throat turns raw from the amount of force I use to stop her from walking away from me.
Something hard hits against my head and spittle flies against the glass. “Shut the hell up!” Andrews says, hitting me with his baton to subdue me. I struggle against him, still shouting for Gabriella to stop, but she walks out the door, leaving me wondering if she’ll survive the madness that is my brother.
Andrews let lose all his pent-up aggression with every abusive swing. I don’t feel it.
All I feel is the pain of knowing I’ll never see her again. The moment Gabriella walked out this prison and ended out agreement, she signed her death warrant.
One more year, and then, revenge is mine.
Chapter One
SEBASTIAN
Present Day
“Yeah, I have the blueprints right here,” I say into the microphone in an annoyed huff as I stare at the layout of the building. “Yes, Owen. The vault is to your left.” He turns right, and I want to yank the earpiece from my ear and be done with this fucking job. “You idiot. Your other left!” Owen stresses me out. I cross my arms and pinch the bridge of my nose to breathe in and out. It takes all I have not to get out of the van and run into the building to knock sense into him.
Owen is brute force, but he’s so aloof. I often wonder if common sense missed him completely or what.