Chapter 26

26

André wore a suit that probably cost as much as someone's six-month salary.

And he sat next to Gideon in the helicopter, not knowing exactly where they were headed. But he knew they were going to dinner and who they would be sharing it with. He'd been surprised when Gideon told him they would be having dinner with Ennis.

Fucking Ennis.

He squirmed in his seat beside Gideon and the other man cupped his knee, squeezing him gently. André hadn't said much once he'd gotten dressed in the perfectly tailored suit Gideon had provided for him. He looked good in the oxblood and black combo, he couldn't lie. And Gideon just wore black, all black, but he did look mouthwatering.

If André had a preference, it would've been for them to stay home in bed and never come out until they were both dehydrated from coming too much. He definitely didn't want to have to deal with Ennis and his begging to be a part of André's life or the anger on his face whenever he looked at Gideon.

André could do without that.

But he'd agreed to come because this was important to Gideon. Ennis had information about who killed Gideon's mother, and André would do anything—even break bread with the man who'd denied him—in order to get Gideon the answers he craved.

His eyes widened and he turned, staring out the window to his right. They were over water, in the middle of the ocean somewhere, the setting sun making the blue water glow and shimmer. But it was the massive yacht that they were clearly headed toward that made him turn to Gideon with his mouth agape.

Gideon glanced at him and grinned. "Close your mouth, baby," he said, speaking through the headsets they both wore.

"We're having dinner on a fucking yacht? Whose— Never mind." He was involved with The Gideon Winters . It was easy to forget sometimes about the wealth Gideon possessed.

A yacht.

He shook his head as the helicopter landed. He didn't know if he would ever get used to this. One of the members of Gideon's security team—the only woman, named Will—approached the chopper, and André spotted Ennis standing off to the side.

"He's here already?"

"Yeah," Gideon answered. "I had Will bring him earlier."

André stared at Gideon, eyes narrowed. "You made him wait for us? For how long?"

"For as long as it took. He's not the one in charge here and he needs to know it." Gideon grabbed his hand. "Ready?"

André shrugged. "As I'll ever be."

Gideon paused, searching his face. "Listen, as much as I would like to know what information Ennis has, this dinner isn't all about that. I believe he wants to know you, wants to build a relationship with you, and I think deep down inside you want the same. This could be your chance." He mimicked André's shrug. "But, if the way he looks at you, or the way he chews, or the way he fucking breaths offends you, then I will have his ass tossed overboard in a minute."

André scoffed. "Something tells me you would have done that regardless."

"I might, depends on how this dinner goes." Gideon brushed a chaste kiss to his lips. "Come on." He released André and got out, then turned, offering André his hand.

He put his hand in Gideon's, allowing his lover to help him out of the helicopter. Together they made their way over to where Ennis stood with his arms folded.

"How is he?" Gideon asked Will, jerking his chin in Ennis's direction.

She chuckled. "Pissed that he couldn't bring any of his own security."

André's brow lifted at that. Ennis had agreed to come out into the middle of the ocean, to have dinner with Gideon Winters on his mega yacht, without any kind of protection?

Was his father brave or just foolish?

When they stood in front of Ennis, the older man scowled. "I've been here for two fucking hours!"

"Be grateful," Gideon told him, all nonchalant. "Could've been more." He linked his fingers with André's. "You hungry, babe?"

"I could eat."

"Let's do that then."

Night had fallen by the time the three of them were seated at a table outside, under the stars, the water all around them. Gideon's people were present, but out of sight.

André sipped his wine, feeling Ennis's eyes on him. In his favor, the older man hadn't done much talking since they'd sat down to partake in the five-course meal the award-winning chef Gideon hired for the evening had prepared for them. Bits of stilted conversation about shit that didn't matter had punctuated the entirety of their dinner.

"What was the reason I wasn't allowed to bring my bodyguards with me?" Ennis asked Gideon after the servers had placed their dessert in front of them and walked away.

"I don't trust you." Gideon shrugged. "Besides, why would you need security while sharing a meal with your long-lost son?"

"And I don't trust you," Ennis shot back. "Yet here I am, surrounded by all your armed men."

André sighed around the forkful of delicious confection melting on his tongue. "Well, took you two long enough, huh?" He'd expected them to start going after each other the moment they sat down, but at least they had the decency to wait until after André's belly was full of food he couldn't even pronounce. Both men looked at him. "Why don't we get down to the heart of the matter, hm? No sense in pretending." He paused. "Do you know who is responsible for Gideon's mother's death?" he asked his father.

Next to him, he felt the sudden tension that flooded Gideon's body. He lowered a hand between them, stroking Gideon's thigh in an effort to soothe him, though he wasn't sure if it would work or for how long it would last.

"What do you plan to do with this information?" Ennis asked Gideon, who stared at him as if he'd lost his mind.

"Kill everyone involved," Gideon responded harshly. "That's what I plan to do." His nostrils flared, muscles tight under André's palm. "And don't think I haven't noticed the way you're stalling."

Ennis faced him squarely. "I am here only because I love my son and I want to do right by him."

"Fuck you," Gideon spat. "You only suddenly decided you wanted to do right by him when you found out he was with me."

"Hey." André nudged him with his shoulder. "Let's take it down a notch. Please." He understood Gideon's anger and frustration but didn't want the situation to get out of control. "Tell us what you know and we'll all go our separate ways."

Ennis glanced away briefly before meeting André's eyes. "That's not what I want. I don't want us to go our separate ways." His eyes beseeched André even as he said, "Although, I don't know how that happens after today."

It was André's turn to stiffen. "What does that mean?" He watched Ennis's Adam's apple surge. "Who killed Gabriella Winters?"

"I did," Ennis whispered. "I killed her."

Before that could fully register, Ennis was on the floor and Gideon was standing over him with a gun in his face.

André jumped up. "Gideon!"

Armed men peeled away from the shadows, encroaching on them with their weapons drawn. André froze, his hammering heart plunging to the soles of his feet.

"You killed my mother?" Gideon roared, his body trembling as he pressed the gun harder against Ennis's forehead. "You fucking?—"

"I was given a choice…" Ennis lifted his chin, meeting Gideon's crazed eyes. "Your mother or André. I chose my son."

Gideon's entire body shook. The hate, the anger, the remembered agony of just what he'd lost, vibrated through him. Relief too, that he was finally getting answers. But his hand remained steady. The gun in Ennis's face didn't waver, not once.

Because Gideon knew what he had to do. He knew.

He'd suspected Ennis—just as he'd suspected every single member of The Council—of being behind his mother's death. Behind the second attempt at Gideon's assassination. But hearing it now, knowing the truth, he wanted to toss the gun aside and tear the man on the ground apart with his bare hands.

"They gave me a choice." Ennis wasn't even looking at him. Instead, his gaze was on André, who was making sounds of distress just over Gideon's shoulder.

But Gideon couldn't focus on him.

"I chose you," Ennis told André.

Gideon swung, smashing the gun into Ennis's face.

"Gideon! Oh my God!"

He ignored André's shout. "Don't look at him," he snarled at Ennis. "Don't fucking talk to him."

Blood ran down Ennis's temple, but he still didn't look at Gideon. All his attention was now on the son he claimed to have been protecting.

"I got an envelope one day." Voice shaking, Ennis's eyes pleaded with André. "There were pictures of André inside." He faced Gideon then, with blood running down his face and emotion roughening his voice. Gideon didn't give a fuck about any of it.

"Speak," he ordered. He wanted all the details, and then he would make that motherfucker pay. The way he'd been itching to do for so long.

"Photographs of André and his mother were in the envelope, along with a note. The person said they knew who André was to me and that he and his mother would die if the Winters heir wasn't dead, by my hand, within a week."

André made a forlorn sound, stepping up to stand beside Gideon. Maybe he was seeking comfort, maybe he was offering his own, but Gideon couldn't get past the heat of anger, the rush of pain. It was a tight ball stuffed down his windpipe and he couldn't fucking breathe, couldn't think. He just wanted to spill more of Ennis's blood so the sonofabitch could feel what he felt, could experience what he'd experienced. What no child should experience.

"I tried to find out who was behind it, but I couldn't. And there wasn't much I could do within The Council, otherwise they would find out about André, and I couldn't let that happen. His mother didn't want him exposed to any of that."

"So, you came for me instead." The words were garbled to Gideon's own ears. His fingers flexed on the trigger as he kept the gun pointed at the middle of Ennis's forehead. "You came for me and you took her in-instead." The way his voice cracked as he remembered that day. The terror of hiding and then coming out to find his mother on the floor, shot and bleeding out. The agony of begging her not to leave him, telling her she would be okay when he knew, as young as he was, that it was a lie.

His hands covered in her blood.

Her pale skin.

It took years before he stopped seeing it, stopped crying out for her in his sleep. And when he opened his eyes in the darkness, there'd been no one to comfort him because his father had to send him away for fear of losing him too. All those years he'd spent far from home, alone, and here Ennis sat as if it'd been justified. As if it could be explained away.

"Do you know what you took from me?" Gideon asked him. He stepped in closer, legs on either side of Ennis's body as he stared down at that motherfucker. Voice hoarse, Gideon asked him again, "Do you know what you took from me?"

"Yes." Ennis didn't break eye contact. "I do." There was no remorse. Just like Gideon would feel no remorse for what he would do to him. But first…

"Who was behind it?" If he could even believe anything Ennis had to say in regards to that.

"I never found out." Here, frustration had the older man's features twisted up. "After your mother, there was a second note telling me to finish the job. You remained the target, but I said no. I immediately moved André and his mother to a safe house and nobody but me knew where they were. Then I began searching, but nothing ever came up."

"You tried again," André said. "You tried to kill him again." He sounded as if he were crying, and Gideon ached to touch him, comfort him, but he couldn't. He just…couldn't.

"I didn't." Ennis shook his head. "I was not involved in any other attempts on your life," he told Gideon. But Gideon knew better than to believe him.

"All these years on The Council, you got a front-row seat to my father's grief. You sat in his face and watched as he withered away from losing not just my mother, but me."

"I had to protect my son. If I'd shared what I knew, what I'd done, André would've been in even more danger and that could not happen. I will never allow it to happen."

But he could allow another man to suffer that fate. To bury his wife and send his son off into hiding, not knowing when he'd see him— if he'd ever see him —again.

André let out a sob at his father's words.

But Gideon, the only thing he felt, the only thing he embraced, was the hate. All he wanted was the oblivion of violence because his wounds—the ones he'd thought were scabbed over—were now raw and bleeding, and somebody had to feel it like he did, somebody had to suffer like he did. He'd been trained for this moment. Had been ready for it for a long time. And here it was. He lifted his head, meeting Samir's gaze as his head of security stood in front of him, behind Ennis, his gun pointed at the back of Ennis's head.

"Take him," he told Samir.

"No!" André grabbed his arm. "Gideon, wait. Please."

He looked to his side, meeting André's eyes for the first time since Ennis's confession. His lover's eyes were wet, his cheeks tear-streaked. He looked traumatized.

"Don't." André's lips trembled and his gaze darted from Gideon to where Samir and two others were hauling Ennis to his feet. "Please don't kill him."

Gideon stared at him. The love he felt for this man was monumental, it was special, it was fucking manna to his soul. He released a sigh and cupped André's nape, urging him closer so that Gideon could kiss his forehead before bringing their heads together. "I would give you anything," he whispered as André shook against him. Gideon's voice was unsteady too, his heart thumping hard and furiously in his chest. Because this moment, this moment, could cost him more than he'd ever expected to lose. "You and your sister have my heart, my soul. You can have everything I possess…" He lifted his head and dropped his hand, stepping away. "But I can't spare him. I won't."

André watched him with wide, heartbroken eyes, a tear rolling down his cheek.

"I don't want to."