I look over David's head as he takes a second swig, to find Gabriel doing exactly what I thought he would be.
Staring at me.
Without a word, he raises his glass in a mock toast.
"Bless him," I say to David, loud enough for Gabriel to hear. "He's been stood up by his own date. Apparently, she took one look at him and turned right back around." I drop my voice to a stage whisper. "I suppose you run that risk when you use ten-year-old pictures on your online dating profile."
I swear, out of the corner of my eye, I see Gabriel's lips curl upward behind his low-ball glass.
Ten minutes later, David's halfway through a story about his college roommate's dog when he coughs.
It's short, dry. But the second one is harsher.
I give him a sympathetic smile, mutter something about the steak being chewy, and push his water glass toward him.
He moves to lift it, then his hand changes course and flies to his throat.
My eyes narrow. "Are you okay?"
When he opens his mouth to reply, a gurgle bubbles out of it. First, ew. Second, what the hell?
My voice sharpens. "David?"
I palm the table, but before I can leap to my feet, an awful scraping sound cuts through the air.
My pulse skids to a stop.
Black boots, lazy strides. Gabriel emerges from the shadows, dragging a chair behind him, and saunters up to our table. He spins it around with a lazy flick of his wrist, hitches up his slacks, and sinks into it.
I stare at him, frozen in shock. "What have you done?"
He settles against the backrest, like a man taking the weight off his feet after a long day working the yard.
"Lesson three," he says, sounding bored. "Never accept a drink from a stranger."
David makes a horrible, wet sound. His eyes are wide now, red creeping into the whites.
My heartbeat spikes so fast I taste it in the back of my throat. "Make it stop," I whimper. "Please. I'm sorry. I'll do anything. Just … stop."
He casts a disinterested look at my lips before slowly reaching into his pocket as though he has all the time in the world. As though the man to his right isn't running out of it.
"You make it stop."
I stare numbly at the syringe he places on the table. "What does that mean?"
"Say you won't go on another date."
I stare up at him like he's lost his mind.
"What? What do you care if I date?"
He returns my look with an even glare. "You're a safety risk to my family. Anyone who wants to get to Rory, would go through you." He flicks a look of disgust down at my half-eaten salad. "All because you can't resist the chance to talk about yourself over a free dinner."
A beat passes before it hits me like a freight train.
He's lying.
It's in the heat behind his eyes. In the way his jaw tightens beneath his beard.
I breathe out so hard the room spins. "Oh, my God. You really do have a crush on me."
His eyes narrow. "What?"
"Gabriel Visconti," I announce, loud enough for the entire restaurant to hear. "You have a crush on me."
He barks out a laugh laced with unease. "You're out of your fucking mind."
But it's too late; the realization has seeded in my bones and is growing roots.
"It all makes sense now. Why you carried me through the forest after the port explosion instead of bundling me into that trunk. And then when you did bundle me into a trunk, you felt so guilty that you took time out of your night to teach me how to get out of it. You also snapped at that poor sever for literally no reason. Oh—and then there was my panic attack in your garage, you talked me down from that too." My gaze lifts to his.
"And we both know what happened after that …" I trail off, leaving bruised wrists and gunshots burning over candles and white linen.
If looks could kill, I'd be dead ten times over. "Say it," he growls. "Say you won't date."
"Say you're jealous."
David lets out a strangled sound, his face now alarmingly pale, lips tinged gray. He slumps over, grappling at crumbs and silverware and nothing that can help him.
Gabriel doesn't even flinch. He just looks at me.
"Time's running out."
I inhale once, slow and deep, and lean back in my chair. I'm trembling, but I force stillness into my limbs, fold my arms across my chest and tilt my chin up, calling his bluff.
"Admit it."
"No."
"No, you don't have a crush on me, or no, you won't admit it?"
Frustration curls his lips. "You're really going to let a man die because of your ego?"
"No, you're going to let him die because of yours."
David gurgles again. My body twitches on instinct, a plea on my tongue. All the good in me wants to help—knows I should help—but something low and ugly and stubborn inside of me slithers up from where I buried it years ago and stitches my arms to my side.
It's not like I've never seen a man die before.
Besides, his name is David.
And David is the king of boring anecdotes.
Gabriel and I stare at each other as though we're the only ones in the restaurant. His gaze is inflamed, but he sits as still as stone, watching my every blink.
I'm sick in mind, body, and spirit.
My date is dying, and I'm too ugly to care. Too distracted, too captivated by the monster beside him. His attention is addicting. It burns through my veins, settles in cells of my DNA, and brings the world to rights.
Gabriel Visconti has just poisoned a man for me.
Me.
A river of calm trickles through me.
I wouldn't cave for love or money.
It's not what I was born to do.
David lets out a final breath, slow and stuttered.
I flash Gabriel a halfhearted smile. "Oops."
His gaze mars with uncertainty. He opens his mouth, but another voice from the shadows cuts him off.
"Um, Boss?"
He turns his eyes to the ceiling and runs a hand down his throat, then swallows.
Seconds etch by before he barks out a curse. Then he reaches for the syringe on the table, and with one swift, reluctant motion, he stabs it into David's neck.
His eyes spark to mine, all the hatred in the world fanning the flames. "Happy?"
I hitch a shoulder. "Indifferent."
We both look down at David's lifeless body. A beat passes. Then another. Then suddenly, he inhales a violent breath. His chest jerks and a cough rips from his throat, messy and wet.
The restaurant leaps into action. Chairs scrape, suits appear. Large hands fist fabric.
Every head in the restaurant turns to watch David's withering body as two men drag him through the maze of tables and toward the kitchen.
I hear the hum of murmurs like they're coming from another room. See hands clamp over mouths and rest over hearts but only in my peripheral.
A roomful of Good Samaritans. None of them are me.
With my spine rigid and too few breaths, I slowly drag my napkin from my lap and lay it gently on the table.
I stare down at the candlelight dancing on the walls of David's empty glass. "I guess it's time to call it a night."
The words trickle from my lips, void of feeling. They sound as empty as I am.
Carefully, I rise from the table, pushing back my chair with more steadiness than I feel.
I don't say another word. Neither does he, but it doesn't matter. Because I notice the tight jaw and the sharp lines of his shoulders. I see the tremble in his palms spread flat against the table. I feel his gaze, murderously cold, follow me across the restaurant and out of the door.
The night air hits me like a punch, more violent than a midnight email ever could. I stagger forward toward the light of a streetlamp, but I don't make it that far before I double over, grip my thighs, and throw up all the rot within.
The burn of bile lingering at the back of my throat, I wipe a shaky hand over my mouth and force myself to straighten up.
He wants me.
Gabriel Visconti wants me.
It never left his lips, but I saw it between the cracks of his galvanized demeanor, and catching sight of it was the worst, most dangerous, irreversible, soul-ruining thing I could have ever done.
Because no matter how much pink I wear or how many good deeds I do, that one sentence—five words, thirty-five characters, including spaces—is set in stone.
Mildred Black has a daughter.
And she is exactly like her.