all of this screwing around and finish this!”
A pitiless smile curved his lips. “Don’t for a minute fool yourself into thinking I can’t do whatever the fuck I want. From here on out, you’re mine, sweetheart, and you’re not going anywhere.”
Her gasp was sharp, her expression icy in her outrage, those eyes hardening to the same dark azure Gabriel saw every time he was in the room with Vasily. “Since you clearly have more to say, why don’t you start talking.”
Gabriel did, but not because she’d ordered him to.
“For the past couple of months, I’ve been your father’s eyes and ears where you’re concerned. There hasn’t been one second of one day since Vasily came to me that your movements haven’t been monitored by me or one of my boys.”
She stumbled until the backs of her knees hit the bed and she went down heavily, bouncing slightly on the mattress.
“Caleb Paynne is on my payroll. You were right. We know each other. He agreed to go to New York to keep an eye on you when I couldn’t be there.”
She shook her head. “That can’t be. He would have told me.”
“Call him. He’ll confirm it.”
A spark of betrayal flashed in her eyes before she bowed her head to hide her expression.
He went on. “Everything I see is put into a report. Everyday stuff that your father used to see himself before he left. I know about your penchant for double-raw-skinny-lattes from Starbucks. I know you prefer OPI nail polish to Zoya. Like your father, you’ll sit with your back to the wall rather than the room, every time. You drive carefully but like speed. Your favorite color is blue, unless we’re talking clothes—then it’s black. Leggings and a tank top are your choice when going casual, jeans and too-small shirts if you’re going for a ride on that asshole’s bike. When a man checks you out, the second his back is turned you roll your eyes because you never fail to notice. For some reason, you enjoy cut green beans the way others enjoy an expensive steak, and you’ll almost always stop when you pass by a store that has shoes in a window display. If someone is walking a dog, I’ve yet to see you go by them without mauling the thing for at least a minute.”
“Oh my God.” A lone tear trailed down her ashen cheek as she tented her hands over her mouth.
Closing his eyes against a wave of self-loathing, he recalled some details Vasily had given him during a call they’d shared about a month after Gabriel had started watching Eva. “Your father has known you your whole life. He may have left to keep you and your mother safe, but he was never far away. He told me about the day you lost your first tooth, said you were in a park. You were five, and he was there. And the day you had your first haircut when you were three? He was standing in the shadows across the street watching because he didn’t want to miss it.”
She shook her head and pressed her hands over her ears, so he raised his voice.
“He was there every year on your first and last days of school, birthdays, Christmas, Thanksgiving. Told me it nearly killed him watching you and Kathryn cry together the time she brought you and Nika to some girl’s summer camp you’d insisted on attending. You were thirteen. And that fat estate deposit you receive every month? The one your mother used to get before her death, from the wealthy uncle that passed away without a next of kin? The uncle never existed. It’s from your father. Just one more way he arranged to take care of you two.”
“Stop it,” she whispered, dropping her hands. She was visibly shaking. “Please, stop. Oh my God. What are you doing? How do you know these things?”
He didn’t stop. “Vasily chose me to protect you because he trusts me. He knows I’m more than capable. But what neither of us realized was that your connection to me might bring you into more danger than your connection to him.”
She pushed to her feet, but that didn’t stop him from talking.
“My father was the head of our crime family, and the last job I did for him was to leave a truck filled with explosives in front of a factory owned by one of his enemies. Long story short—my brother’s woman was in the building that blew up. The