office opened. He looked up, and Maria walked through. She crossed the room and switched on the two tall lamps, bathing the office in light. She moved silently to the liquor table and poured out two glasses of brandy, then came to the fire and handed Gabriel a glass.
“Thank you,” Gabriel said as Maria sat in the chair opposite him. She was dressed in jeans and a white button-down shirt. Her hair was down, falling to the backs of her thighs. Gabriel knew she would never cut that hair. It was hair that Raphael obsessed over, had broken all of the Fallen’s strict rules to own.
“Has he told you?” Gabriel took a soothing sip of the brandy, praying it would bring him some reprieve from the headache that was pounding at the back of his skull.
Maria sat back in the armchair, and Gabriel finally met her eyes. She nodded. Raphael had told her what happened in the gym. And he had no doubt told her what his brothers had asked of Gabriel.
Maria leaned forward. “How is your neck?”
Instinctively, Gabriel raised his hand to his dog collar and the bruise that was burgeoning underneath. He recalled Diel’s face as he’d slammed Gabriel against the gym wall. As he’d wrapped his hands around Gabriel’s neck and started to squeeze. In that moment, Gabriel had witnessed the evil in Diel’s eyes. He had come face to face with the monster that Diel said lived inside of him, the one that his victims would see as they fought for their final breaths. The blue in Diel’s eyes had been eradicated, blackened by his dilated pupils. His teeth had been gritted, and Gabriel didn’t know if Diel knew it, but he had chanted a name over and over again.
Brady … Brady … Brady …
In his head, Diel had been in Purgatory. He wasn’t killing Gabriel; he was killing one of the Brethren priests.
“Gabriel?” Maria’s voice tore him from the haunting memory. “Are you okay?”
Gabriel stared at her. He thought about how Raphael was with her now. He always held her hand at dinner, always stared at her whenever they were together, as though he couldn’t believe that she was with him, as though she was the prize for enduring all those years of hell.
Gabriel recalled when she had been smuggled into Eden Manor. As soon as she’d been discovered, Gabriel had known she would die. And Maria had. Just not in the way he’d believed. Her life as a nun had come to an end; her life of seclusion and prayer had been replaced with one as Raphael’s soulmate and only love. Raphael, Gabriel’s brother and a born killer, had found someone who loved him for exactly who he was. Maria’s old purpose was discarded, and she had been resurrected as Gabriel’s right-hand woman, someone to share the burden of being the Fallen’s leader.
“They want the Brethren.” Gabriel downed the rest of the brandy.
Maria sighed, then moved to the wall where they planned who would be the next target for the brothers. But then she went to the smaller section of the wall, where Gabriel had compiled a small list of Brethren he knew were still alive—names, parishes and where they lived. It wasn’t much, but it was all he had been able to gather. Gabriel had made sure he and his brothers were wiped from the map for the sake of their safety; the Brethren had clearly done the same. There were thousands of priests in Boston alone. He had no idea how many of them subscribed to the Brethren’s teachings.
“You and I both know this isn’t the sum total of how many Brethren are out there,” Maria said, folding her arms across her chest.
Gabriel rose from the chair and stood beside her. Maria was petite, yet somehow she had managed to contend with Raphael’s lust for her death with the strength of David facing Goliath.
He looked at the grainy pictures of the five priests on the wall. “How would Raphael kill them now he has you? His …” He paused, carefully thinking of how to phrase what he wanted to say. “His preferences are very specific.” Raphael was a lust killer. He had always gained sexual gratification as he killed his victims, had often been inside them as their hearts ceased to beat.
Maria stilled, but then explained, “The strangulation is enough for him now.” She cleared her throat, and her cheeks blazed. “He has me for the rest. To fulfill the rest of