Chapter 2 - Glass in the FirelightGabriel moved before Evelyn heard the shot.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and drove her to the floor as glass burst across the cottage in a glittering spray. The lamp on the table shattered. The fire spat sparks. Titan lunged toward the broken window with a sound that did not seem possible from any living animal.
“Stay down,” Gabriel ordered.
This time, Evelyn obeyed.
A second shot cracked through the night, punching into the wall above the cot.
Gabriel dragged Evelyn behind the heavy iron stove. His body shielded hers, hard and controlled, one hand already reaching beneath his coat. He pulled out a gun with the practiced ease of a man who had never lied to himself about the world.
Evelyn stared at it.
He noticed.
“Now is not the moment for judgment,” he said.
“I was not judging.”
“You were.”
“I was noticing.”
Despite the danger, his eyes flickered with something almost like amusement.
Titan slammed his front paws against the windowsill. Outside, someone cursed. The SUV engine roared awake. Gabriel fired once, not toward the sound, but at the ground near the escaping vehicle. The shot was deliberate, a warning shaped like thunder.
Tires screamed over frozen gravel.
Then silence returned in pieces.
Evelyn became aware of her cheek pressed against the floorboards, Gabriel’s arm braced beside her head, and Titan’s growl fading into a low tremor.
From the mansion, lights began turning on.
Gabriel stood and extended a hand.
Evelyn ignored it and pushed herself up, because fear had taught her one useless kind of pride.
Her palm landed on broken glass.
She gasped.
Gabriel caught her wrist.
“Stop.”
“I am fine.”
“You are bleeding.”
“I have done that before.”
His jaw tightened. “That is not the comfort you think it is.”
The cottage door flew open. Victor Sloane entered first, weapon drawn, followed by two estate guards and Rosa in a wool robe thrown over her nightgown. Vanessa appeared behind them, dressed in a silk wrap that made her look less like a woman disturbed from sleep and more like someone who had been waiting for a scene.
“What happened?” Vanessa demanded.
Gabriel did not look at her. “Someone shot through the window.”
Vanessa’s eyes widened just enough to perform horror. “At you?”
“At her,” Gabriel said.
The room changed.
Evelyn felt it more than saw it. Victor’s expression sharpened. Rosa crossed herself. Vanessa’s hand tightened against the doorframe.
“At the maid?” Vanessa said.
Gabriel turned then. “Do you find that difficult to understand?”
“No, of course not. I only meant—why would anyone shoot at her?”
Titan growled.
It was not loud. It did not need to be.
The sound was aimed at Vanessa.
Evelyn felt every eye move to the dog.
Vanessa laughed softly. “Surely we are not taking direction from an animal now.”
“No,” Gabriel said. “We are taking warning from one.”
Victor stepped toward the broken window. “Black SUV. No plates visible from here. Professional enough to go dark, careless enough to get close.”
“Or confident enough,” Gabriel said.
Evelyn pulled her injured hand free. “It was Martin Kell.”
Gabriel looked back at her.
“I do not know if he sent them,” she corrected. “But I know what this means. He found me.”
Victor’s eyes narrowed. “You brought this to the estate?”
Rosa snapped, “She brought herself to work.”
Victor ignored her. “Mr. Romano, with respect, this is exactly why every employee background check exists. We do not house unknown liabilities.”
Evelyn almost laughed. Liability. Such a clean word for a woman men had failed to kill.
Gabriel’s voice cut through the room. “Enough.”
Victor went silent.
Gabriel took a towel from the back of the chair and wrapped it around Evelyn’s bleeding hand with surprising care.
“You are coming to the main house,” he said.
“No.”
“You cannot sleep here with a missing window and a shooter who knows where you are.”
“I am not sleeping in your mansion.”
“You are not being asked.”
There it was. The command beneath the courtesy.
Evelyn looked up at him. “Then I quit.”
Rosa inhaled sharply.
Victor looked pleased.
Vanessa looked relieved.
Titan stepped between Evelyn and the door.
Gabriel stared at the dog, then at Evelyn.
“You would quit to avoid accepting protection?”
“I would quit to avoid becoming a prisoner.”
His face closed.
For a moment, she thought he would argue. Instead, he crouched in front of her, lowering himself until they were eye to eye.
“No locked doors,” he said. “No guards inside your room. You keep your phone. You come and go within the estate. But until we know who fired through that window, you sleep behind walls that can stop bullets.”
Evelyn wanted to refuse.
Pride wanted it. Fear wanted it. Every bruise in her memory wanted to run into the snow and keep running until no powerful man could decide her safety for her.
Then Titan turned his massive head and touched his nose to her injured hand.
The pressure was gentle.
Her throat tightened.
“One night,” she said.
Gabriel rose. “One night.”
Vanessa smiled faintly. “How generous.”
Gabriel looked at her.
The smile died again.
Evelyn was escorted through the snow toward the mansion with Titan pressed against her side. As they approached the eastern wing, the dog abruptly stopped.
His hackles rose.
Evelyn followed his gaze.
One window on the third floor glowed behind old velvet curtains.
A window Rosa had told her belonged to rooms that had been closed for twelve years.
Gabriel saw it too.
His face went pale in a way Evelyn had not imagined possible.
“Who opened Lucia’s room?” he whispered.
No one answered.
May you like
From behind the curtain, a small hand pressed against the glass.
Then disappeared.
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