Page 72 of The Price of Power

For a second, I couldn’t find the words to express my shock. All I could do was blink.

“Did Gabriel know that when he gave the order to kill his uncle?” I finally asked, leaning so far forward in my seat I risked toppling over onto the floor.

“Of course, he knew,” she answered with an indignant huff. “How can you even ask that?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head, rethinking everything I thought I knew. “I was only going by what I’d seen in the news.”

Another eye roll.

“Rumors and trash—all of it,” she declared. “Gabriel only did what he had to do. It was justice, pure and simple. And I won’t listen to anyone say otherwise.”

“I…I didn’t know,” I admitted, suddenly feeling bad for having thought the worst of him for so long.

“That’s because Mr. Gabriel isn’t the type to share a shameful story about his family, not even if it would benefit him,” she said. “He’s a man of honor, far more like his father than his uncle, thank the Lord. And you, my dear, are lucky to have him.”

She was right.

I was lucky.

Luckier than I ever realized.

Chapter Twenty-Three

OLIVIA

All day, I sat with the knowledge the housekeeper had dropped on me. All my past judgments and doubts weighed heavy on my shoulders, pulling me down.

I didn’t get a line of work done. I only stared down at the pages in front of me, looking at but not really seeing any of the numbers in the neat rows and columns before my eyes.

And even when Gabriel finally came home and picked me up, ready to take me out on our usual night out on the town, I still couldn’t seem to pull myself out of the guilty funk I’d been languishing in.

It wasn’t until we were in the car, driving across town to dinner, that I was able to find the courage to turn to him in the silence of the car.

“Mrs. Tarolli explained what happened to your father,” I said, finally finding the words. “She told me what your uncle did.”

I watched as, one by one, the muscles in his body started to stiffen. His spine and neck and arms all went ramrod straight. His hands gripped the steering wheel so tightly that his knuckles turned white.

“She shouldn’t have done that,” he said a moment later through taut lips.

But I shook my head.

“I’m glad she did,” I said. “Because I don’t think you ever would have, and I needed to know.”

“It wasn’t her business.” His expression radiated anger as his eyes fixed on the road.

“Of course it was,” I replied. “It happened in a house that’s as much hers as yours.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said tersely.

“I know.” I nodded, hoping he could see me out of the corner of his eye. “And you don’t have to—but I do.”

He turned away from the traffic for just a fraction of a second to look me in the eye. “What could you possibly have to say about that?”

“Just one thing,” I told him. “That I’m sorry.”

Immediately, he shook his head. “I don’t need your pity.”

“This isn’t about pity, Gabriel,” I told him. “This is about me judging you unfairly. After we made our deal, I just assumed everything the news said about you was true. I took the fact that you were threatening to kill my brother as proof that you’d murdered your uncle.”