KEPT

G A B R I E L

DECEMBER 2022

The trial was over before Gabriel even reached his chair. He knew it the moment he locked eyes with James Hendrix, and the fool smiled. Fucking smiled.

Walking into the courtroom was like stepping into a feeding frenzy. All eyes were on him. Anticipation hung in the air, vibrating from the gallery all the way to the judge’s bench. The sniveling worms and insects who thought themselves on his level were eager to feast on his flesh.

But, Gabriel Thorne was not a creature so easily cowed. He held his head high. He would survive this.

He’d spent nearly a million covering his tracks. Greasing palms, pulling strings, and calling in every favor he’d collected over the last ten years. Doherty might still want his head. But, he wasn’t going to just lie down and take it.

Really, he could have swallowed the assumed guilt that would come from holing up in his loft and building more of a defense. But, something more than pride had pulled him into the courtroom. Curiosity. Rage. Desire.

Her.

Third row from the back. Dark hair pulled into a practical ponytail, a cheap blazer that had loose threads on the cuffs and was too wide on the shoulders, and a face scrubbed clean of makeup. She looked nothing like the woman in the red dress with matching scarlet lips.

Gone was Meredith Steele, the mask used to ensnare him. Gone was the woman who’d tossed her hair and flashed a long strip of thigh at the hotel bar, who’d laughed at his jokes and challenged his opinions and let Gabriel bury himself so deep inside of her, he hadn’t felt the knife slide right in.

A shudder licked down his spine: hot and fast. Livid. Dangerous. He needed to control himself. But, he couldn’t look away.

Hello at last, Harper Cross.

This creature looked more real, another predator in the courtroom. Something scrappy with fangs all her own. A coyote. She was a little scavenger who’d done her job and came to watch the results. Eager to sup on the fruits of her labor no doubt.

Their eyes met.

Gabriel watched recognition flicker across her face—the brief widening of her eyes, the slight parting of her lips. She hadn’t expected him to know. Had thought she’d gotten away clean, her cover intact, her deception undetected.

Surprise, he thought, and let his mouth curve into the slightest smile. I recognize you.

Something shifted in her expression. Harper squared her shoulders, hazel eyes hardening from molten metal to flinty stone. Confidence, righteous satisfaction oozed out of her.

She hid the memory of coming on his cock well. He’d fix that.

It doesn’t matter, her gaze seemed to say. I beat you anyway.

The defense attorney stood. “Your Honor, we’d like to introduce new evidence.”

Gabriel kept his eyes on Harper Cross as his career collapsed around him.

Financial records. Bribery documentation. Every damning file she’d stolen from his phone while he slept. It was all laid out in precise detail for the judge and jury. The courtroom erupted.

Gabriel didn’t move.

For the first time in years, someone had surprised him. Someone had seen through his masks, matched his games, and emerged victorious. She’d walked into that hotel bar knowing exactly what he was, and she’d fucked him anyway. It was enough to make him feel alive.

That rush of rage was there. But so was the thrill of a new hunt. A new chase.

She’d used her body as a weapon with the same silver-tongued professionalism he used his law degree. And she’d won. This battle at least.

Once the heat died down, he was going to spend every second planning how to take that body apart inch by inch. With no masks in the way this time. The creature in his chest licked its fangs. Saliva welled on his tongue, savoring the idea of hot blood and soft meat. Her sobbing in agony and desire.

Fuck.

The judge called for order. The defense attorney was still talking, laying out the case for dismissal, but Gabriel wasn’t listening. He was watching Harper rise from her seat, gather her things, and walk toward the exit.

She didn’t look back.

The courtroom doors swung shut behind her, and Gabriel stood motionless in the wreckage of everything he’d built.

She thought this was over. Thought she’d walked away clean, another case closed, another wrong righted. She’d go back to her life and forget all about the prosecutor she’d destroyed.

But Gabriel wouldn’t forget.

He’d remember the way she’d looked at him across the bar, sizing him up. The way she’d risen to every challenge, parried every probe, refused to be intimidated. The way she’d felt beneath him, around him, her body responding with a passion that couldn’t have been entirely faked.

The way she’d stood in this courtroom and let him see exactly who had beaten him.

The bailiff was approaching, face grim. Gabriel would let himself be escorted out, handed over to internal affairs, fed into the machinery of professional destruction. There would be investigations, hearings, and consequences. But he had his own walls and safety net. It was all about damage control.

The Syndicate would understand. They had to understand.

In the end, none of it would matter. The public would find some new scandal to cling to. And when he was ready—when the time was right, when the trap was perfect—she would never walk away from him again.

The bailiff’s hand closed on his arm.

Gabriel smiled.

See you soon, Harper.