Luther laughed. “Yeah, right.” He gestured with a hand, praying Fabian would redirect his focus from Gaby. “C’mon, Fabian. Drain me.” And then with a taunting smile, “Dare ya.”
Fabian snarled. “There is a propensity in the lesser specimens of humanity to oppose anything that tests preconceived notions. Those narrow-minded attitudes are why we superior beings are often forced to live in secret, instead of celebrating our unique qualities.”
“Your insanity, you mean.”
Gaby raised a hand to quiet Luther. “Fact is, Fabian, I’m not whatever it is you think I am. Trust me on that.”
He composed himself with effort. “You hurt, Gaby, I see that even if he doesn’t.”
Luther bristled, but kept silent. Gaby wanted to handle this, and he trusted her to do so. No matter how hard this might be, she would always be strong.
She would always do the right thing.
“The pain is caused by your need to take, to absorb energy from those weaker than you. The agony can be alleviated that way.” Fabian braced himself. “But it can be obliterated altogether . . . by drinking and feeding.”
Red flags went up for Luther, but again, Gaby didn’t react at all.
“Most times, Fabian,” she told him, “I don’t think of food. What I do, what calls to me, isn’t sated that way.”
Fabian relished the close confidence, the way she shared with him.
He closed the space between them. “Only because you haven’t sated it properly. By taking from others, you fulfill yourself and enhance your abilities.” More vivacious now, he snatched both her hands. “I alone understand this.”
“Just you, huh?”
“Yes.” He went taut with expectation. “I understand everything about you, because you inherited your talent . . . from me.”
Time seemed to stand still.
Luther heard the wind stirring outside, the ticking of the clock on the wall, his own heartbeat. He felt the whirlwind of emotions gathering inside Gaby and put his hands on her shoulders to help ground her. He prayed that his touch would be enough to calm her.
“Just what the fuck are you saying?”
Luther started, unnerved to his bones by that whisper of sound from Gaby.
“I am your father.”
Luther’s heart dropped into his stomach. Gaby blinked, swallowed audibly. The unexpected bomb had thrown her; he felt it, but didn’t know what to do about it. In a show of subtle support, he squeezed her shoulders.
She didn’t notice.
Fabian removed an aged photo from his pocket. He laid it on the table and turned it toward Gaby, then slid it over to her. “The woman beside me is your mother.”
Hands folded over the counter, Fabian smiled at Gaby, magnanimous in his claim, heedless to the inferno he’d just ignited.
“As your own flesh and blood,” he announced, “as one equal to you in our elevated capacity, I’m inviting you to join me in my quest for divinity. Partner with me, Gaby, partake of life with me, share my conquests. Be my family.”
Eyes glued to that old, creased, and crumpled black-and-white photo, Gaby shook her head. Hand trembling, she traced the faded outline of a woman’s face.
Her hand dropped away.
“Join you?” Very slowly Gaby looked up, and danger crackled in the air. “Father mine, I will destroy you.”
Before Luther could surmise her intent, Gaby upended the heavy steel table and all the tattooing implements, sending inks, needles, alcohol, and more, crashing to the floor.
Fabian stumbled out of his chair and backed up in haste, but it was fury on his thin face, not fear. “You dare!”
Gaby held her ground, heaving. “If you think . . . ” She had to stop to draw air, to collect herself enough to make the words sound as more than a raw-edged growl. “If you think telling me that you’re the son of a bitch who left me behind will in any way ingratiate me to you, you’re even sicker than I thought.”
“I did not know your mother was pregnant when I left her,” Fabian rushed to tell her.
“Would you have cared?” Gaby whispered right back.
Luther saw it on Fabian’s face, the consideration to lie or tell the truth.
Truth won out.
“No, likely I would not.” He sniffed, brushing at a splash of alcohol on his sleeve caused by Gaby’s eruption. “Your mother, child, was a filthy whore, and a pathetic one at that.”
Gaby’s knife went through the air without warning, embedded to the hilt in the cabinet beside Fabian.
Fabian’s eyes widened as he finally experienced an appropriate dose of alarm for his current predicament.
In two big strides, Luther moved between Gaby and Fabian. Had she missed on purpose? If so, why?
Gaby snagged Luther’s arm and started around him with a heavy, deliberate stride. Luther tried to stop her, but this was Gaby at her most dangerous.
Fabian scrambled back, but he had nowhere to go. “Stop right there.”
“Not until you’re dead at my feet.”
He stopped retreating, and a glint of rage entered his eyes. “I think not.”
Just as Gaby reached Fabian, he called out, “Now,” and the interior door to his office slammed open.
Luther had his gun out just as quick, but when he saw the sight before him, impotent fury froze him.
Gaby remained near Fabian, but unmoving.
Gleeful, Fabian said, “Did you really think I’d meet you without backup? Gaby, Gaby, Gaby. My dear, you disappoint me.”
Mouths gagged, hands tied, Dacia and Mali stood clamped close to the side of a man with venom in his eyes. His friend held a gun on the girls.
Smiling, the fellow said to Luther, “Drop it, and kick it toward me, real slow-like, or I splatter brains all over this fucking place.”
It galled him to do so, but Luther complied.
The man picked up the gun, then said to someone behind him, “Get in here,” and two more hostages came forward.
Bloodied and wet with tears, Bliss fell to her knees before the men. She looked at Gaby in abject apology and shame. Luther’s heart broke for her.
Next to her, Mort stood rigid, his eye bruised, his nose bloody, the gag cutting into his face. But he didn’t fall, and he didn’t cower.
Gaby’s influence on him showed in his inner strength, his brave composure. Mort stepped nearer to Bliss, trying to shield her from the men, lending her what protection he could.
Fabian had attacked everyone dear to Gaby, and in the process, attacked her where she was most vulnerable.
Fuck procedure, Luther decided. One way or another, he would kill Fabian for this.
Before the night was through, the man would be dead—at Gaby’s feet—as she had wished it.
Chapter 17
In a single heartbeat Gaby took in the situation, assimilating the various scenarios about to unfold. She prayed Morty wouldn’t try some foolhardy stunt. He looked ready, almost anxious to do that.
God love him. He was the dearest of friends.
And Bliss . . . she was like a sister to Gaby in every way that counted. And these men had harmed her, frightened her.
Gaby couldn’t look too closely at the girls. Doing so might impinge on her tightly strung control, might send her into the mindless zone of a paladin. Right now, she needed to stay clearheaded and in control of her own faculties.
“Mort, do nothing. Do you understand me?”
Whit laughed. “He’s not that stupid.”
“No, but he’s that brave.”
Scowling, Fabian said, “You know his thoughts?”
She peered at each of her targets, and felt that small smile slip into place again. “I know what each of you is planning.” That wasn’t entirely true. She could read Mud and Whit, but Fabian’s thoughts, perhaps because of the familial connection, mostly eluded her.
But she could still gauge what a lunatic in his position might do, so she felt confident in her assumptions.