Gabriel (Legacy Series Book 2)

by RJ Scott

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Sleep just wasn’t happening tonight, and Gabriel knew exactly why.

  Cam’s insistence on watching films, and eating Lay’s chips, and talking about normal stuff, and then not having sex had forced Gabriel to snap tonight. He’d wanted Cam so badly that he hadn’t been able to sit still on that damn sofa, and then the taste of Cam, the weight of him on Gabriel’s tongue before watching him come, had been enough to have him getting hard.

  Properly hard. Completely needy.

  And then he’d arrived home and there had been no sign of Stefan but for a note on the fridge with details of Gabriel’s next two bookings and a short sentence about how Stefan would be back in the morning.

  Now Gabriel lay back in his bed, his hand on his cock and the image of Cam burned into his brain.

  I wish I could feel this.

  He couldn’t believe he’d admitted that to Cam, like Cam would even be interested.

  Sex for him was a duty, nothing more than a transaction, a way of getting what he wanted. He’d become a man in a way no person should have to, he knew that, but now at least when he had sex he received something in the bargain.

  Not like back then. When his mom had died, she’d left him alone, but the ranch had taken him in. Hank Castille had taken him in.

  It’s okay, he’d said to the confused, heartbroken ten-year-old, there will always be a place here. He’d even dealt with the people the state had sent, or at least that was what he’d told Gabriel.

  In hindsight, he wasn’t sure that anyone outside the Bar Five had actually known who he was.

  Frustrated with the direction his thoughts were taking him, back to a time he was happy to forget, he focused back on getting himself off.

  Nothing was working—not gentle motion, not the pain of pinching, and not even when he pressed his other hand to his throat.

  Stefan was right. He was utterly broken.

  Softening and miserable, he buried himself under the covers and closed his eyes.

  When he slept, he dreamed of pain, and the scent of horses, and the abject fear and horror that refused to leave him, and he woke up drenched with sweat. Stefan’s door was shut as he walked past it to the shower, his wallet on the table by the door.

  Stefan could give him the pain he needed to get off, and for a second the need to come outweighed the fact that going into Stefan’s room would make him angry. Then it wouldn’t be getting off, it would be a world of hurt that Gabriel didn’t think he could handle tonight.

  He skipped the shower, dressed, and took himself and his cell phone out of the apartment and down to the lobby, and for a second he stood looking out of the door, contemplating what to do. He felt the itch of wanting to talk to someone, to argue, to shout, and all he could think was which person would even want to talk to him?

  He moved outside into the cool night air and parked himself on a bench outside the building. This wasn’t the most expensive part of Dallas by any means, but it was a clean neighborhood, and quiet after dark, and this bench was out of everyone’s view and no one could hear what he had to say.

  He was lucky Stefan let him have a cell. It was only to be used in emergencies and for checking in with Stefan, and Gabriel wasn’t allowed to store numbers in it, but still, it was a path to the world he tried to ignore.

  A connection that he needed tonight.

  He found the number easily enough and keyed the numbers into the pad, his thumb hovering over “OK”. As he waited for the ring tone, he almost chickened out and ended the call, but the sleepy voice that answered was enough to shock him back to the here and now.

  “Legacy Ranch, hello?” the voice said. Gabriel said nothing, his mouth dry. “Hi, this is Kyle, can I help you? Are you okay?”

  Gabriel took the phone from his ear and stared at it. Did Kyle know it was him? Or did he have that question in a list for any lost soul who called the ranch? He ended the call.

  And he stared at the sidewalk in front of the bench, his phone in his hand. The screen lit up with an incoming call. He stopped it immediately.

  The screen lit again a few moments later. This time he stopped the call and pocketed his cell. He didn’t want to talk to Kyle—it was ridiculous to even think of wanting to connect with the man.

  He took his cell out again and looked at the three missed calls; clearly Kyle had tried again when the phone was in his pocket. He evidently wasn’t giving up.

  The next time it lit up, Gabriel slid the call to answer.

  “Legacy is a safe place,” Kyle said before Gabriel could say a word. “Whatever is happening with you, we can help.”

  Another set of standard words, no doubt. There were no safe places. What was he going to say to Kyle? After all, Kyle was doing okay with his boyfriend and his horses and life.

  “They broke my legs,” he blurted out. “They caught me running away and they got a baseball bat and they beat me so hard that they broke my legs and shattered my kneecaps. Did you know that?”

  Of course Kyle didn’t know that. How could he? He’d been long gone.

  “Gabriel? Where are you?”

  “And then, when they’d done that and they knew I couldn’t run, they even took me to a hospital, said I’d had a fall. I still hurt when I kneel, and sometimes I limp, because after that first visit for medical help they never took me back. You know what I think now? If only at the hospital I’d told someone that I hadn’t been in an accident, that Hank and Yuri had deliberately targeted me, then maybe someone would have given me my own kind of Legacy Ranch.”

  “It’s not too late, Gabriel. Tell me where you are and I will find you and bring you here.”

  Gabriel felt a momentary bloom of hope, then it vanished. Stefan would be so mad, and what would happen if he had to come to Legacy to pick him up? Gabriel would be letting down so many clients.

  “I can’t leave Stefan.” Even as he said it, he knew he wasn’t being rational. He’d only spent a few nights on the streets when he got to Dallas, not even sixteen. He’d been lost and alone until Stefan had saved him. And now he’d lost count of the number of years he’d had with Stefan looking after him. Unbidden, his free hand went to his throat. Stefan knew what he needed. Stefan was a mix of father, and brother, and boss.

  “You can,” Kyle said softly, encouragingly. “And we can help you.”

  “No you can’t. I don’t want help.”

  “We can deal with Stefan—”

  Gabriel ended the call.

  Walking back into the apartment, he knew Stefan was awake. The place was flooded with light, and there was a tension in the air.

  “Where were you, Angel?” Stefan asked from inside Gabriel’s room, stepping out from it and into the light. “I woke up and your door was open.”

  “I couldn’t sleep and I went for a walk.” He smiled broadly at Stefan. Sometimes a ready smile worked on Stefan’s temper, and it was worth a try, because he looked pissed.

  “Let me see your phone,” Stefan said, deceptively calm, holding out his hand.

  Gabriel handed the phone over. There was no point in keeping it from Stefan; he’d end up getting it anyway.

  “Who did you call? Was it Cameron Stafford? Because I’d hate for him to get the wrong idea. Hate to have to show him that he needs to remember you’re a whore and not a person.”

  Gabriel felt a flash of defensiveness, then he remembered Six was always around Cam; nothing Stefan felt he had to do would hurt him. “No,” he said.

  “Then who was it?” Stefan asked, and pressed a few buttons, to do what Gabriel didn’t know. Then he held the cell out in front of him and put it on speaker phone, and at that moment Gabriel knew he was screwed.

  Fear knifed at him, but he pulled his shoulders back and waited. The door to the apartment was right behind him; he could just turn and leave.

  The call connected.

  “Gabriel, we can help you.”

  Stefan ended the call and gently placed the cell on the table. “Who
is that, Gabriel?”

  “Legacy,” Gabriel said, because Stefan would find out; what was the point in lying?

  “Why are you calling them, Angel?” he asked, deceptively calm.

  “Kyle was one of the boys from when I was at the Bar Five.”

  Stefan nodded. “Another lost and broken boy.”

  Gabriel recalled Kyle with the horses, Kyle with Jason, Kyle not in fear of his fucking life every single waking second.

  “Yes,” he said instead.

  “Go to bed, Angel,” Stefan murmured, his arms crossed over his chest.

  That was it? Stefan wasn’t going to tell him he was wrong, or shout at him? Gratitude and warmth spread through Gabriel, and he smiled at Stefan. “Okay.” He went to walk past Stefan, dodging slightly to the right when the impulse to hug him struck him. Stefan hated the shows of affection that Gabriel wanted to give at the best of times, and it was two a.m., but his guard down, Gabriel felt light, wanted, needed. Stefan reached out and gripped his arm, just a little too tightly. Gabriel didn’t pull away.

  “You’re nothing without me, right? I’m the one you come to if you need to talk,” he said calmly.

  Gabriel looked at Stefan and nodded. “I know.”

  “Seemingly not enough,” Stefan said, and he smiled sadly. “You know what I have to do.”

  Gabriel nodded. He knew he’d fucked up. “Please don’t hurt me,” he said. He always said that.

  Stefan shook his head. “I don’t want to, Angel. But someone has to look out for you.”

  “Please—”

  Stefan pinned him to the bed, his hands around Gabriel’s throat, but he wasn’t angry, his expression was utterly focused. “If I killed you, no one would care, you know that right?”

  Gabriel whimpered. All he could think was that Cam would care.

  Wouldn’t he?

  “I could press harder and harder until every breath was gone from you, and you’d let me, wouldn’t you?”

  No. Don’t hurt me. I want to live.

  But the pressure on his throat was too much, and his vision was darkening, and he could only think of one thing.

  Stefan was right. No one wanted Gabriel Reyes.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Julie sat in front of Cam, knotting her hands nervously. “I didn’t know what to say,” she began.

  “Start from the beginning,” Six said from behind him. “Tell Mr. Stafford what you told me.”

  “He’s always quick to get angry when he’s here—Mitchell, I mean—and I know we shouldn’t speak out about him, being that he’s family and married to your sister, but he scares some of the young girls.”

  “How?” Cam asked, his stomach in knots. He was sick of feeling this way, like his life was out of control and the people around him were being hurt.

  “I wouldn’t say anything, but I’m on maternity leave after this Friday and I can give my notice here and now if you don’t want me back.”

  There was defiance in her tone, and Cam was proud of her.

  “Start from the beginning.”

  By the time she left, she’d stopped crying, and Cam had said he would deal with it. He was seething and worried, and pissed that he’d missed so much.

  “Get Mitchell up here,” he said.

  Mitchell was in the hotel on a fact-finding task set by Sebastian—something about market share, not that Cam had agreed to any of it.

  As soon as Six had left, Cam called Sophie, but yet again it went to voicemail. This time he left a long, detailed message. “Sophie, it’s Cam. I’m your brother and I love you, and I will always be here for you. Call me.”

  Mitchell arrived five minutes later, his breath a little on the wheezy side, which made Cam think that Six had somehow coerced the man to come to the office.

  “Six, can you wait outside?” Cam asked, and Six left, shutting the door behind him. Cam stood up and rounded the desk, leaning back on it with a sense of where Mitchell was standing.

  “What’s wrong?” Mitchell asked. “Your ape was most insistent; he needs to know who I am and back off.”

  “I had to make him go outside,” Cam began calmly. “Because Six wants to kill you.” He heard the gasp but didn’t give Mitchell time to talk. “You will treat my sister with respect. You are not a Stafford, you are a wannabe who will be out the door once I explain to Dad how you have insulted several of my staff and how forcing them into the locker room and pawing them counts as sexual harassment.”

  “What the hell—”

  “Shut. Up. I have several of my staff willing to put your advances in writing. Some already have. I will be filing them here, and you will not step foot inside my hotel again.”

  “You can’t do this—”

  “You see, Mitchell, actually I can.” He raised his voice. “Six, you can come back in.” The door opened. “If you could escort this man from the premises.”

  “I can take myself out,” Mitchell snapped, and left. “You’ll be hearing from my lawyers.”

  The door slammed after him.

  “Six, go to Sophie. Help her; tell her to come here. Don’t let Mitchell take it out on her.”

  “On it.”

  When Six arrived back a little after eight that evening with a tearful Sophie, Cam wondered for a moment if he’d completely fucked up. She might hate him. She might tell him he was wrong.

  But all she did was hug him, and they sat on the sofa quietly for the longest time with Armageddon running in the background. When it ended and she’d cried so much it broke Cam’s heart, she simply held him close.

  “I’ll take one of the rooms here,” she said, “if that’s okay.”

  “Six will put you in a suite.”

  “There’s no need—”

  “You’re my sister and I love you. This is a family hotel.”

  “Love you too, big brother.”

  Cam rolled over in bed, the shrill alarm of his phone waking him from fragmented dreams in which he was being chased by Mitchell with a cleaver, not that he really knew what Mitchell looked like, but he picture a giant ogre and went with that in his dreams.

  He scrambled for his cell, disoriented, and connected the call.

  “What’s wrong?” he answered.

  “You can have him,” a voice said. “You fucked with his head and he’s no good to me. Two million and you can have him.”

  “Who is this?”

  A laugh echoed down the line. “You know who it is. You have an hour.” The phone went dead, and all Cam did was reach over and press the emergency button. In less than a minute, Six was in the room and Cam was half dressed.

  “What?” Six snapped. “Is it Mitchell? I should have dealt with him more than leaving him at the bus station without his wallet.”

  “No, it’s not him. We need to get money; we need to save Gabriel.” He pulled on the shirt he’d discarded before bed, fumbling with the buttons, losing all control of how he usually managed to get dressed.

  “Save Gabriel. What?” Hands gripped Cam’s arms, stopping him from moving. “Talk to me.”

  “That man you book with, Stefan, he called me. He wants money for Gabriel.”

  Six shook him a little, and he cursed.

  “We’re not paying someone for Gabriel,” Six said, his tone calm, his hold still firm.

  But it wasn’t the tone that made Cam snap—it was the desperate need to do something, anything, and knowing that Six had to help him.

  “Fuck’s sake, Six, we have to go—”

  “Okay, calm the hell down.” Six released his grip, and Cam wobbled a little before pulling himself together and reaching for where he knew he’d put his jacket. Six beat him to it, helping to put it on.

  Cam whistled for Gidget and petted her, “Stay here,” he said, talking like she would even understand that Six was with him and he was going to be okay. She nosed his hand and whined soft and low, but then Cam heard her turning circles on her bed. He couldn’t think about Gidget. He couldn’t even get his head around wh
at they needed to do. Only in the car did he remember the money again.

  “How much money can I get now?”

  “It’s five a.m.,” Six snapped.

  “We can transfer it—”

  “Cam, enough. Let me think, okay?”

  Cam subsided, feeling like everything was out of control, then abruptly knowing that Six would be the one to take the brunt of whatever was happening here.

  “Thank you,” Cam murmured, scrubbing at his eyes with his fists. “I never say it, but thank you.”

  “You won’t be thanking me if I kill the bastard.”

  “You’re not hurting Gabriel. This isn’t his fault—”

  “Jesus, Cam, I’m not hurting Gabriel.”

  They drove in silence again, but the way that Six took corners felt like they were traveling at speed. What if they picked up a cop? Did they want the cops involved in this?

  The car came to a sharp stop and Six opened his door. “Stay here.”

  Cam wasn’t doing that. “He called me,” he said, and opened his own door, wincing as it hit something that sounded metal, probably a fire hydrant.

  Six laid a hand on Cam’s arm. “But he’s dealing with me.”

  There was danger in Six’s tone, and Cam knew he had to be realistic. Whatever was happening with Gabriel and this Stefan guy wouldn’t be helped by him getting in the way.

  “I have the money,” he said, a little desperately.

  “Cam, I know. Leave this to me.”

  “He may not want to leave,” Cam murmured. “He thinks Stefan is his only choice.”

  Six rested a hand on his knee, squeezed it. “Stay here and lock the doors after me.”

  Cam nodded. He could do that. It was pretty much all he could do, but it was something, right?

  Six left, Cam locked the car, and then all he could do was wait.

  * * * * *

  Gabriel shifted in the chair that Stefan had recommended he sit on. His tone had been more forceful than suggesting, but Gabriel wasn’t arguing. He hadn’t laid a hand on him, nor shown him why he’d been wrong—all he’d done was make a single phone call in his room, and then he’d come back out and sat on the sofa, staring right at Gabriel.