Chapter 11 - The Blood on the Marble
"Gabriel, please!" Damian wheezed, his face turning an alarming shade of mottled purple as Gabriel’s thumb pressed into a nerve cluster near his collarbone. "I didn't... I was just talking to her! We have history!"
"You had history," Gabriel corrected, his voice so devoid of emotion it sent shivers down my spine. "Now you have a liability."
Gabriel stepped closer, planting his shoe directly beside Damian’s trembling hand on the marble floor.
"Every penny Ava spent on your tuition," Gabriel whispered, leaning down, "every utility bill she covered while you played at being a scholar, has been compiled into an itemized civil fraud claim by my forensic accountants. Tomorrow morning, your firm’s senior partners will receive a copy, alongside a criminal referral for student aid manipulation."
Damian’s eyes bulged with terror. "That... that’s not fraud! It was a gift!"
"In a court where I own the judges and the firm’s credit lines, Damian, it is grand larceny," Gabriel replied calmly. "You will be disbarred before you ever see the inside of a courtroom."
Gabriel released his grip. Damian collapsed forward onto his hands and knees, gasping for air, clutching his bruised shoulder like a broken wing.
Gabriel turned his back on him, completely indifferent to his existence, and reached out to take my trembling hands into his own. His touch was warm, steady, and completely grounding.
"Did he hurt you?" Gabriel asked, his voice softening into an entirely different timbre—one meant only for me.
"No," I whispered, though my heart was pounding like a war drum. "I’m fine."
Gabriel glanced over at Claire, who had appeared silently at the end of the hallway, flanked by two stone-faced security operatives.
"Remove this garbage from the building," Gabriel ordered without looking back. "And inform Richard Langford that if his daughter or her pet comes within fifty feet of my fiancée again, Thorne Capital will short Langford Real Estate into bankruptcy by the closing bell tomorrow."
"Yes, Mr. Thorne," Claire said crisply.
Gabriel wrapped his arm around my waist, pulling me against his chest, and guided me away from the corridor. As we walked out toward the grand exit, I could hear Damian’s pathetic sobs echoing against the ancient marble behind us.
The car ride back to the penthouse was silent. The city lights blurred through the rain-slicked glass.
I looked down at the twenty-million-dollar Langford Emerald resting in the velvet box on my lap.
"Gabriel?" I asked quietly into the dim cabin.
He turned his head to look at me, the shadows cutting sharp contours across his aristocratic face. "Yes, Ava?"
"Why are you really doing this?"
He went still. "I told you. The board—"
"No," I interrupted, shaking my head, turning to face him fully. "You could have hired an actress. You could have forced an heiress into an NDA with your billions. You didn't just pick me because I hated Damian. You knew my name before you walked into that ballroom. You knew about my grandmother. You knew about my tuition payments."
I leaned forward, my eyes searching his impenetrable gray gaze.
"How do you really know who I am, Gabriel?"
For the first time since I had met him, Gabriel Thorne looked away. He stared out the window at the rain falling over the Brooklyn Bridge, a muscle ticking violently in his jaw.
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"Get some sleep tonight, Ava," he said softly, his voice tinged with an ancient, unresolved pain. "Tomorrow, the real war begins."
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