Raphael (Deadly Virtues #1)(32)

How could she be working with the Brethren? Or was she just a pawn they used to lure and trap Raphael? Gabriel didn’t think her meekness was a ruse. Too many thoughts clogged his brain, making it ache.

“They knew of your predilections, Raphe. They must have discovered where you were hunting and laid their trap.” Gabriel looked at his brother, who was pacing the ground of the cell. “But you discovered their trap before they could get to you.”

Raphael stopped. His face had lost some of its anger and he seemed to have regained some of his sanity. “She wanted to play.”

“You had another target,” Gabriel reminded him. Raphael had been sent for the trafficker. The Fallen had been paid handsomely to ensure that kill would be made.

Raphael’s eyes lost focus. “Not after I saw her, I didn’t.” Gabriel felt nauseous at how quickly Raphael had forgone his self-restraint and thrown himself into the path of the Brethren’s bait. “I found the rosary in her bra. Hidden, until it fell to my feet.” He didn’t smirk when he said, “Maybe your God wanted to save me after all.” Gabriel believed that, but that was by the by right now.

“And you thought to bring her back here?”

Raphael glanced down at his hands, then wrapped them around one of the metal bars. He began to squeeze, and his eyes seemed to lose focus again, taking Raphael out of the Tomb and to somewhere else in his complex mind. The metal groaned under his hands as he squeezed the bar tighter and tighter and tighter, his fingers turning white. “I wrapped my hands around her throat,” Raphael said, voice deepening and growing hoarse. “I squeezed her slim neck, felt her pulse slowing under my thumbs.” Raphael’s breathing grew more rapid. “I stared into her eyes as I watched her drain of life.” Gabriel ignored the shameless sexual gratification Raphael was obviously gaining from the replay. Raphael pushed himself against the metal bar, hissing as it pressed against his bulging groin. “She fought me. She clawed at my arms.” Raphael’s pleasured tone quickly turned into anger. “It wasn’t how it was meant to be. She isn’t meant to fight back. She gives herself to me willingly. When I’m deep inside her, she whispers my name. Loving me. Needing me. Obsessed and consumed by me. I’m the only thing that exists in her world.” Raphael’s eyes snapped to Gabriel, fully present again. “I have to complete it the way it was meant to be. I have to have her in the right way.”

“You can’t kill an innocent, Raphe. I won’t allow it.”

“She’s not an innocent.” Uriel stepped forward from his place against the wall. His arms were folded over his chest. “She’s with the Brethren. She’s anything but innocent.”

Something pulled in Gabriel’s gut. Something that wanted to agree with Uriel. But Gabriel had looked into the woman’s eyes. He’d seen her confusion when she discovered the Fallen. The fear. He’d seen her staring at Raphael’s back, at the scars they all shared. There was shock and sadness in her eyes, not recognition of the Brethren’s punishments. He didn’t know how they did it, but he was sure the woman had been deceived by the Brethren. The way he had been as a child. Fooled by their masks of good. She’d had no idea about the predators she would be facing in the Fallen. She couldn’t have. No one would willingly put themselves into a killer’s path.

“The Brethren don’t allow women into their fold. They’re a modern extension of the Spanish Inquisition. They see women as temptresses and weak, as witches susceptible to sin. They wouldn’t take one into their employ. They may be a modern version, but their ideology isn’t.”

“She can’t be allowed to leave, Gabe.” Sela came to stand next to Uriel. He knew the Brethren more intimately than the rest. He had ties to them none of the other Fallen did. “She’s seen where we live. She’s seen us all. She’ll leave this place and go running back to Father Quinn and tell him everything. Believe me. I know first hand. She’ll betray us, and they’ll come for us. You know this.”

Gabriel’s brothers nodded in agreement with Sela. Gabriel faced Raphael, who was watching him just as closely as the stained-glass window of Mary had always done in Holy Innocents Church. He knew they were right. But the thought of allowing the death of an innocent . . . Gabriel couldn’t breathe. Phantom hands wrapped around his heart and squeezed.

But what was his choice? When he had plunged himself into Purgatory years ago, following the dangerous path of his little brother, he had unknowingly signed himself up to being who he was now—the Fallen’s leader. His allegiance lay with them. Their protection was everything.

Gabriel felt a flicker of the light he held dear dim into darkness. A candle snuffed out in a thunderstorm of immorality.

“You get no Revelations for six months,” Gabriel heard himself saying. He felt detached from his body, as though it wasn’t him giving the order to Raphael. His mouth was speaking words he didn’t want to serve. Gabriel could practically feel the uncontainable excitement pulsing from Raphael in his cell. “She isn’t to be allowed out of the manor . . . ever again.” Gabriel felt a spear pierce his side and cut right through his heart. “You keep to your rooms. And when it’s over, you never betray us again.”

“I won’t,” Raphael said. “I promise.” Gabriel finally let himself meet Raphael’s eyes. They were dilated. Uncontained excitement beamed from his brother’s face, Raphael’s cheeks were flushed and his eyes were bright—Gabriel had never seen him so happy. Ever. Gabriel felt physically sick. Raphael was elated at being permitted to take another’s life. Gabriel couldn’t stand it. Couldn’t stand in the vicinity of Raphael’s triumph. Gabriel turned to Bara. “Make him stay for another few hours, then take him to his rooms. I’ll see she is brought there afterward.”