Chapter 28

28

And there it was, the truth he'd been too scared to face.

André buried his face in Gideon's neck, squeezing his eyes shut. He'd known it. From the moment he'd felt the distance between them, he'd known the cause. He just didn't know the cure, or if there even was one for what they faced. He could deny everything Gideon just said, about André truly wanting Ennis in his life, but that would be a lie, and he wouldn't knowingly lie to the man he loved.

But he'd believed the words when he'd spoken them back on the yacht. He'd believed that he would be okay with whatever action Gideon decided to take. The Winters family was owed retribution, there was no denying that.

"I'm sorry," he whispered against Gideon's collar. "I'm so sorry." He reared back slightly, taking Gideon's face in his hands and staring into his eyes. He'd missed him, missed their closeness. André didn't think he could survive without Gideon anymore. He didn't think he'd want to. "I love you." He hated that the words came out sounding so broken, so heavy, but that was the way he felt inside. He had to find a way to fix this space they were in.

Gideon stared at him, expression grave. He looked so tired, so worn down, so fucking sad. André wanted peace for him, for the both of them, but mostly for Gideon. He was the one who'd suffered unimaginable loss and tragedy. He was the one struggling.

"It's okay." He smoothed a hand over the other man's head, fingers stopping to caress his nape. "It's okay, I promise." Maybe he was supposed to be the one to believe, the one to have faith. If that were the case, then he would. For the both of them. He pressed his lips to Gideon's. "It's okay." Because one thing he knew for sure was that he refused to lose Gideon.

Gideon's lips softened under his, parting as he wrapped an arm around André, bringing him tighter into his body. Breath left André in a soft gasp, but he smiled against Gideon's lips, eyes closing when they kissed—really kissed—for the first time in what felt like forever. Tongues touching, gliding over and along each other, breaths hitching. André opened wider for him, fingers digging into Gideon's biceps when the other man moved, turning to push André against his desk.

He loved it, his pulse kicking up when Gideon's kiss switched from calm and gentle to frantic and loud, wild and untamed. His hands tugged at André's clothes. Unzipped his pants and yanked them and his underwear down his hips.

"Mmm." Fuck. He bucked when Gideon's palm circled his cock, stroking it, bringing it to full hardness. André just clung to Gideon, breaking the kiss and throwing his head back. Gideon kissed across his jaw and down his neck, tongue leaving wet trails behind, then dropped to his knees.

André stared down at him, taking in the desperate hunger in Gideon's eyes and the way his hand trembled against André's skin. "Gideon." André reached for him, cupping his jaw, holding his gaze.

Gideon turned his head, pressing a kiss into André's palm before burying his face in his groin.

"Shit." He grabbed the edge of the desk for leverage as Gideon took him in his mouth. "Gideon. Damn!" He felt so good, André could cry. He'd gotten used to this, to him, and the few days that he'd been without it had felt like years. Like torture. And now here Gideon was, on his knees with André's dick in his mouth, and it was the purest kind of bliss.

Hot, wet suction.

He fisted Gideon's hair with a groan, hips flexing as he eased in and out. He liked it, the way Gideon maintained eye contact even as his eyes watered and the fingers he'd sunk into André's outer thighs dug deeper and deeper. And he liked the shine Gideon's saliva gave to his shaft. Gideon's tongue—André liked that too, especially when it flicked over his crown and dipped into the hole there.

"Fuck. Fuck." Fist pressed to his mouth, he chanted in time to each thrust as the pleasure swirled in his lower back and belly, toes curled. Too soon. "I'm gonna come," he whined. "Gideon, please." It felt so good. And it'd been too long. He didn't want it to end, wasn't ready to leave the perfection of Gideon's mouth. But his eyes were already crossing, heart thundering. "Shit, swallow me then. Swallow it— Ah, yes! Yes!" He came with a shout, slamming forward. Gideon's throat convulsed around him and André lost speech for a moment there, floundering as he emptied himself.

Gideon didn't budge, sucking him down, taking every drop André spilled, throat and hands massaging in tandem while André panted and his eyes watered. Until he was weak and useless, sagging back on his elbows on the desk, balls empty.

Gideon cleaned him up with his tongue before retreating. But he didn't get up off his knees. André dipped his head, locking gazes with him. Gideon's eyes were red… Hell, his whole face was. His lips were wet and swollen, and as André watched, he licked them.

"I would do anything for you," Gideon declared, voice scratchy.

André swallowed. "I know." He couldn't say he was a man who knew many things for certain, but that he did. And staring down at Gideon, who gazed back with so much love and pain in his eyes, André resolved that he would ensure Gideon held that same certainty about him. About them. He cupped Gideon's jaw, thumb stroking his bottom lip. "Anybody ever tell you how good you look on your knees, Winters?"

Gideon's lips curved slightly, and the sight eased something in André's chest. "Can't say that they have."

"Well, you do. You look like you belong there." André turned serious when he said, "And I want this for the rest of my life." Anything he had to do to get it, he would.

He swore he saw stars in Gideon's eyes at his words. Stars and hearts. Gideon Winters was a romantic. Just a man who wanted love and to be loved. Who wanted peace. And he was André's. He would find a way to give Gideon those things.

"Come up here." He waited as Gideon came up off his knees, the wet front of his pants giving away the fact that he'd gotten his own pleasure while sucking André off. André clasped his face in his hands, kissing him, tasting himself. "We're gonna be okay, Winters," he murmured into the kiss. "I will make sure of it."

Nivea Arceneaux had the eyes of a wounded bird—wide, terrified, and lost. She sat in a rocking chair next to a pair of large bay windows overlooking a pond where ducks swam and frolicked, her fingers twisted around each other in her lap. She kept her gaze on Gideon, never looking away, as if afraid he would move and she needed to know where he was at all times.

She was eighteen years old now, but she'd experienced something no one should. Her life would forever be different, and Gideon wished so much that he could change things for her.

But he couldn't.

He could only ensure that the ones responsible for her having been brutalized and tortured for years would be held accountable. Not that this was anything altruistic. He had his reasons, his own agenda. She didn't trust him much; she didn't trust anyone much, and he didn't blame her. But since her rescue, he'd had one of his guys acting as her bodyguard. Kaleb would lay down his life for her, though she probably didn't know that. Still, from what Gideon had noticed, Nivea had softened the tiniest bit toward Kaleb. She'd gotten used to him being around, and it seemed she at least believed that Kaleb wasn't going to hurt her.

"Are you ready?" Gideon asked Nivea, and since he'd been studying her closely, he was able to make out her tiny flinch when he spoke.

"Yes." She nodded, voice lifting just a bit higher when she repeated, "Yes."

Kaleb stood next to her, his eyes on her. "Your family will be happy to see you," he told her softly. "I'm sure they miss you."

She'd begged Gideon not to inform her family the day she'd been rescued. She hadn't wanted them to see her as she'd been then. But her reprieve was over. Nivea's family was on their way to the facility where she'd been recovering. They didn't know why they'd been summoned, though. Gideon had reached out to his fellow council member personally, inviting Robert Vale to a meeting, insisting that he bring his son and daughter-in-law as well. Like others on The Council, Vale didn't trust Gideon. Robert didn't appreciate being summoned, wondering out loud if Gideon was leading him into an ambush. As if Gideon needed to go through all that if he actually wanted the old man dead. In the end, Vale had agreed to the meeting when Gideon told him he would owe him.

As in The Winters would be in Vale's debt. That was a boon no money could buy.

He peered at the watch on his wrist. "You get to tell your family as much or as little as you want, okay?" He'd already gotten whatever information he needed from her when she'd first been rescued. It wasn't his place to tell her family what happened to her; that was Nivea's choice to make.

"T-the videos." Her voice cracked and she licked her lips. "All the videos he made…"

"Destroyed," Kaleb assured her before Gideon could. "They've been destroyed."

All except one single copy. Gideon had doctored that footage, obscuring Nivea's face and her voice, and sent it out into the public. Not his finest moment, but it was damning evidence. And he needed surety on that final nail in Joseph Morrow's coffin.

Nivea's lips trembled as she fidgeted with the hem of a white dress that fell well past her knees. The dress was sleeveless and all the bruises on her arms were exposed. They were dark purple—new bruises formed on top of old bruises.

"They're here," Will said in Gideon's earpiece. She was positioned downstairs near the front entrance of the million-dollar rehab facility.

"Heard," he responded to her in a murmur, then told Nivea, "Your family has arrived."

She paled instantly, fingers twisting around each other, eyes filling with tears. Fuck, just knowing what she'd been through made Gideon wanted to go find the sick bastard Morrow and gut him. He didn't have a sister, but he had Jules, and he couldn't imagine something like that happening to André's sister. Gideon would level a fucking city for Jules. But avenging Nivea wasn't his place. Morrow wasn't his kill.

"In the elevator," Will shared in his ear.

"You're strong," Gideon told Nivea. "You survived him because you're strong. He's the weak one. And his days are numbered." Being in the facility meant she had zero access to the outside world and no internet, so she didn't know about the campaign Gideon had launched to destroy Morrow.

A knock came on the closed door at his back and he spun around, opening it to find Samir with a phone in his hand and a gleam in his eye. He stepped closer to Gideon and whispered, "Joseph Morrow wants a one-on-one. Says he won't take no for an answer."

Gideon chuckled darkly. Morrow must suspect Gideon as the one behind his abrupt downfall. "Then tell him I accept. He can pick the time and location, as long as it's tonight."

Samir nodded and turned away just as the nearby elevator dinged and the doors slid open. Will exited first, then Robert Vale, as well as his son and daughter-in-law. They were also accompanied by bodyguards who Gideon didn't spare more than a glance. He stepped just outside the room where Nivea waited, greeting Vale with a nod when the man approached. He was shorter than Gideon, reaching to the middle of his chest, but broad, with a full head of shocked-white hair and piercing blue eyes. His fortune came from oil; some he'd inherited from his father, but most he'd amassed on his own. He was a shrewd businessman, calculated with the risks he took.

"We're here." Vale's gaze bounced around, taking in his surroundings. "If you have a mind to eliminate me, Winters, I can assure you, I won't be making it easy."

Gideon grinned and stepped aside, gesturing to the open door. "See for yourself."

Vale didn't budge, but the three armed guards with him stepped forward. Gideon shook his head, stepping in front of them to prevent them from advancing farther. "No. Not any of you." He met Will's gaze, communicating in silence before he turned to Alicia Arceneaux, Nivea's mother. She was a tiny slip of a woman with shoulder-length brown hair that nearly matched her eyes perfectly. She clung to her husband with sorrow deeply etched on her face and embedded in every line of her body. She missed her daughter. No one had to say it for him to recognize that ache. He'd seen it in his own father's eyes whenever they'd been together and especially when they'd parted. "You have no reason to trust me," he told Alicia. "But I would like you to poke your head into that room. There is someone in there who's waiting for you."

"What kind of trick?—"

"No trick," he interrupted Benedict Vale while holding Alicia's gaze. "No trick. Eliminating any of you serves no purpose for me. In fact, it's the other way around. I need you alive. So again, this isn't a trick. Look inside that room, Alicia."

She glanced from him to her husband. She still didn't believe him, none of them believed him. He felt the hostility pouring from the bodyguards who were hemmed up by Will and Samir. But then Alicia stepped forward, taking her husband, Benedict, with her as she eased toward the open doorway. Robert tensed, eyes narrowed to flints, distrust and a promise of retribution burning in his eyes when their gazes clashed.

Gideon was staring at Robert when he heard Alicia's gasp, and he turned in time to watch the woman drop to her knees as she screamed.

"Nivea?" Benedict was the one who spoke first, holding on to his sobbing wife, voice shaking as he laid eyes on his daughter for the first time in three years. "Nivea?"

Robert Vale rushed forward, barging past his son and daughter-in-law and into the room. "Nivea!"

That was the second time Gideon heard a grown man's wail. The family members entered the room and Kaleb exited, closing the door softly behind him, muting the loud crying as the broken family reunited.

Gideon turned away from the others, closing his eyes. He couldn't help but feel resentment that he didn't get to have a reunion. That he would never again see his mother, or have his parents together. That had been stolen from him. He pulled his phone from his pockets, blinking the moisture from his eyes as he called André.

"You did it?" his love asked in greeting.

Before Gideon left the house, he'd shared with André what he'd been about to do. "I did it."

"I'm so proud of you."

Gideon smiled, the pain in his chest easing just a little. "You know why I'm doing it."

"Yes, but that doesn't matter." He paused. "How are you feeling?"

"Angry. Sad. Resentful." The list burst from him.

"I get that and I'm sorry."

He cleared his throat. "Thank you."

"I love you," André told him. "Tell me what's next."

What's next was dealing with Joseph Morrow. He turned toward the room where Robert Vale and his family were reuniting, where Nivea was likely telling her family a harrowing tale. "Next is tying up loose ends," he told André. "Don't wait up."

"I will, though."

Gideon expected nothing less. "Then I'll see you later. I love you." He hung up and nodded to Will, who stood next to the tallest of the Vale's bodyguards. "Take him."

Before the fucker could blink, Will had disarmed him and put a bullet in the back of his left knee. He dropped to the floor with a scream and his fellow bodyguards went for their weapons, but Samir and Kaleb were already on them, weapons pointed at their heads.

"You." Gideon approached the one on the ground screaming and stood over him. "Don't bleed too much. You still have to tell the Vales how much you got paid to hand over Nivea to Joseph Morrow."