the past, “my father put me in the ring, and then bet that I would lose. I was a small lad. I could fight, but I hadn’t the brute strength or killer instinct Gabriel had developed. Upon learning of this, Gabriel locked me in a trunk and took my place in the pit. That night, someone hit Gabriel with a plank of heavy wood, and tore his nose clean off. It would have crushed me. I was all but thirteen. He was fifteen.”
A tear fell for the boys before she even knew it had welled within.
“And after, he still fought in the ring as a freak they dubbed the Monster of Monaco. Once my father founded the Fauves, he relieved Gabriel of the pits, but he then groomed us to be gangsters. We extorted people out of money, we beat them to keep them in line. We were beasts. We are beasts; I am merely a more elegant creature than he is.”
“Why are you telling me this?” Felicity dashed at her damp cheeks. “In hopes that I’ll forgive him? That I’ll pity him?”
Because it was working. Her heart was an open wound. Everything he’d said before made perfect sense. He’d been trying to warn her all along.
And she’d been too besotted to listen.
Raphael reached to her and took her hand. His hold reminded her of Morley’s or Titus’s. Gentle. Platonic.
But his had a deeper, more fervent zeal behind it. “You have a soft heart, Felicity Goode. And in your world, that is an admirable quality. Gabriel, he… he has powerful feelings for you… he has since that first moment we met by the sea. And even though you are angry or hurt, I want you to trust the fact that he will die to keep you from harm. That is how we are.”
Felicity nodded and squeezed his hand. “I believe that,” she murmured.
“I will leave you with this one thought,” he said as his grip strengthened. “Though he will protect you, Gabriel is no shield, mon sœur. He was raised, conditioned, to be a weapon. We have a saying where I come from: You might use a spear as a cane, but that doesn’t change its destiny.”
“Are you warning me away from him?” Felicity put a hand to her throat.
“I’m saying that I’m not certain Gabriel knows how to do anything but hurt people. It’s all he ever knew. All he was ever good at. He’s never had a pet, let alone a lover. I don’t know if he’s divulged that to you. If you’ll excuse my forwardness, I feel you must know. It isn’t that he hasn’t lain with a woman, it’s that he’s never kissed one, touched, flirted with… nothing.” He glanced down, fighting an obvious battle within himself, as she knew he must feel as though he were breaking some sort of confidence. “I thought he never touched a woman because of how he looked, but I’m not sure that’s it, entirely…”
“What do you think it is?” she breathed.
“He never learned how to handle fragile things without breaking them. I think that frightens him.” Raphael asked the question as if he didn’t want the answer. “Has he… has he ever frightened you?”
“Not once,” she said with ardent meaning. “I’ve always known I’m safe at his side, and have never needed safety from him. That’s just it…” She looked up, her eyes threatening to spill over again. “He tells me all the time he is not kind. Insists he is every sort of terrible and treacherous thing… but he’s never been anything but gentle with me.”
Raphael’s own features tightened with emotion.
“Because we no longer wanted to be criminals, it turned some of our men into enemies. Marco, the one who struck you, it was not confirmed that he died in the fire. We are afraid he’s behind your current need for protection. That it is Gabriel’s feelings for you that put you in danger in the first place. I don’t think you can imagine the guilt he carries for that.”
She digested that information for a moment, shredded to bits by claws of ragged grief for what her terse protector had been through. “If only I’d have known…”
Raphael nodded. “I agree. You should have known. But Gabriel’s protection of you was unfortunately absolute. I know my brother. He would spare you having to carry a secret. Or the fear such an enemy might impose upon you, especially when fear already seems to be your particular foe. He knows so