and walked out of the cave. Dinah was coming down the tunnel. She walked past Noa, holding a phone, and went straight to Diel. Noa followed. “Speak. He wants to know you’re okay.”
The cell phone was on speaker. A voice said, “Diel? Are you there? Talk to me. Are you okay?”
“I’m here,” Diel said, but his eyes never moved from Noa, tracking her like prey. His sadistic grin widened, and shivers ran down her spine. “And I’ve got something you and our brothers are really going to want to see.”
Chapter 7
Gabriel lifted his head, and Maria exhaled at hearing Diel’s voice. “There? You satisfied?” the woman said again. Dinah. She’d said her name was Dinah. She had Diel and wanted to meet to give him back.
“Listen to me,” Gabriel said, his temperature rising with panic. “He’s dangerous. Diel … he …” Gabriel searched for the right words to explain his brother without telling her too much. “He has … issues. He could hurt you.”
“No shit. Like the fact he needs to wear an electric collar? And he wants to kill us all? Yeah, we got that.” Maria moved closer to the table and closed her eyes in worry. “But let’s just say, Gabriel, we have a lot more than Diel in common.”
Gabriel looked at Maria. The confusion on her face mirrored his own. “We do?” he asked tentatively.
“Where do you want to meet?” Dinah said, changing the subject. Maria moved to a map and pointed to a place they both knew would be safe. Protected land that they owned. Free from anyone’s eyes if this turned out to be a Brethren trap somehow.
“I’ve got a place that’s safe,” he said and set a time with Dinah. When he hung up, Gabriel ran his hands through his blond curls and tugged at the collar of his shirt. He exhaled a long breath, then nodded. “Diel’s alive. And he’s contained. We have to find solace in that.”
“How are you, Diel and she alike?” Maria mused, arms crossed over her chest as she paced in front of the fire. “How do she and the Fallen have anything in common?”
“We’re about to find out.” Gabriel moved to the door of the study. Maria followed, and when they stepped outside, the rest of the brothers were waiting on the grand staircase in the manor’s vast hallway.
“Someone has Diel, and we’re going to meet them at the family graveyard. Soon.” Gabriel met the eyes of Bara, Uriel, Raphael, Michael and Sela, who were all watching him in return.
“Someone ‘has’ him,” Uriel said. “How the fuck do you even get Diel without him tearing your head off first?”
“I don’t know,” Gabriel said. “They know about the collar.”
“There’s more than one of them?” Uriel asked.
“She said ‘we.’ There’s more than just her,” Gabriel explained.
“You think this is a trap?” Raphael asked.
“We spoke to Diel himself,” Maria said to her boyfriend. “He sounded okay, then said he has something he wants us to see.”
“Well, this is going to be fucking fun,” Bara said. “I’ve been bored out of my goddamn mind these past few days.”
“And which Diel did you speak to?” Sela asked Gabriel, eyebrow raised. He knew his best friend better than any of them.
Gabriel sighed. “His monster.”
Michael was leaning against the table, staring at the grandfather clock and the pendulum that swung from side to side. Gabriel’s younger brother was as silent and distant as always.
“We’re going to get him.” Gabriel checked the time. “Get ready. We’re leaving in fifteen minutes.”
“Is this the Brethren?” Sela asked, and the brothers halted in their tracks. “Are we being played by those fuckers right now?”
“It was a woman we spoke to,” Maria said. “The Brethren might use women in their plans, but they wouldn’t allow them to be organized or be leaders in any way. The woman we spoke to, Dinah … she certainly wasn’t meek like I used to be. That gives me faith that she is not involved with them. She sounded strong. She sounded bold.”
Maria sighed, likely remembering her previous life as a nun and how she unknowingly became a pawn in the Brethren’s wicked game to lure in Raphael and kill him. How easily Father Quinn and Father Murray manipulated her into believing she was doing God’s work and that it would benefit the wider church by having a killer such as Raphael contained in their custody.
But Gabriel felt his heart plummet when he saw a flash of doubt in Maria’s gaze. “We don’t believe this