“Yeah, yeah,” Gabriel grumbles and once again tries to pull me back in for a hug, but I shrug him off.
Narrowing my tired eyes at him, I say firmly, “I’m serious.”
Smile fading, he sighs. “I’m sure Andrew will be around soon.”
As if saying his name summoned him, Andrew begins to stroll into the room, saying, “You rang?”
But then he takes one look at me and stops dead in his tracks. “Oh shit.”
His eyes immediately drop to the ground and he starts to back out of the room.
“Fuck off,” Gabriel growls, yanking me into his hold and turning to shield me from the door.
“What seems to be the problem…” I hear another voice drawl out as my face is shoved into Gabriel’s neck. “Oh, I see.”
I try to push away from Gabriel to see what’s going on, but his arms are so tight with tension it’s impossible to break his hold.
“Here Gabriel, this should cover your wife.”
Gabriel grunts as he twists back around only enough to grab whatever was offered to him. Twisting back around, he drapes a dark suit jacket over my shoulders and then clutches the front tight against my chest.
“May we enter now?” the smooth voice drawls out again, and my brain finally makes the connection of who it belongs to.
Gabriel’s boss, Lucifer.
“Yeah,” Gabriel says reluctantly, as if he’d rather they not.
“Ah… I see you’ve made quite the mess of Alexei,” Lucifer says as he strolls into the room, his eyes taking in the scene with a keen interest.
“He deserves worse,” Gabriel spits out and his arm tenses around me.
“Agreed,” Lucifer smirks.
Something about that smirk of his puts me on edge, and I watch him warily as he walks up to Alexei’s prone body.
The man is just too beautiful, too surreal, and it fucks with my head. He looks completely out of place in this gory mess, and yet at the same time, somehow he seems to fit right in…
It doesn’t make any fucking sense.
Lucifer nudges Alexei’s side with the toe of his expensive leather shoe. “Pity, though, that you couldn’t keep him alive long enough for us to get some information out of him.”
Gabriel grins that maniacal grin of his. “He’s not dead yet.”
Lucifer glances back at him in surprise.
I curl up against Gabriel, wishing that Alexei was dead and all this shit was over with.
“He’s Meghan’s,” Gabriel says firmly, and my hands clutch at his shirt.
“Well, I guess the poor bastard couldn’t give us anything useful given the state of his jaw, or rather the lack thereof, anyway,” Lucifer says, inclining his head.
Then he turns back to Alexei and gives him another, though harder, nudge with his toe.
Alexei lets out a weak, bubbling moan and Lucifer snickers.
“Can I enter now?” Andrew asks from the hallway as I bury my face into Gabriel’s chest.
“Yes, Andrew, please do,” Lucifer answers.
I sense someone approaching, and after the ordeal I’ve gone through, my body immediately stiffens with apprehension.
A bag drops on the table and I nearly jump out of Gabriel’s lap.
Gabriel lets out a warning growl. “Watch it.”
“Sorry,” Andrew says, sounding sincere, and I force myself to relax a bit.
My anxiety only seems to be putting Gabriel on edge.
“Let’s see what we have here…” Andrew murmurs thoughtfully.
Gabriel grunts in pain and I decide to finally lean back to see what’s going on.
“It’s not as bad as I thought,” Andrew says as he examines Gabriel’s right shoulder, “though it’s nasty enough that I’ll have to stitch you up right here.”
“How long do you think it will take?” Lucifer asks.
Bending down and rummaging through his bag, Andrew answers, “Only a few minutes.”
“Good,” Lucifer says. “Simon has given us a fifteen-minute window to depart.”
“I should be done in time,” Andrew says in acknowledgement, and straightens with a pair of pliers in his hand.
My stomach clenches at the sight of the pliers and I look away, only for my gaze to fall once again on Alexei’s mangled and broken body.
Fifteen minutes… Sometime within the next fifteen minutes Gabriel is going to expect me to kill him.
And I seriously don’t know how I feel about it. I can’t even begin to figure it out with Gabriel hurting.
“This is probably going to fucking hurt,” Andrew warns Gabriel.
“Just get it fucking over with,” Gabriel says impatiently through clenched teeth.
“Alright then,” Andrew chuckles.
Gabriel’s hand finds mine, his fingers squeezing gently around my fingers. I squeeze back, offering him some comfort, though I doubt he needs it.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re a big motherfucker?” Andrew asks casually, as if he’s trying to make small talk.
“Yeah, a time or two…” Gabriel starts to chuckle, but then the chuckle turns into a groan.
Alarmed, I tear my gaze away from Alexei to look at him.
There’s this strange expression on his face, a weird mixture of pain and euphoria.
“Shit,” Andrew grunts and then he goes stumbling back as he yanks the chunk of metal free from Gabriel’s shoulder.