The Don's Daughter He Left to Bleed novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: What He Owes

Gabriel was sitting on the bottom step of the brownstone with his elbows on his knees.

He had been there long enough that the four Castellane men on the sidewalk had stopped watching him.

He wore yesterday's suit, and his eyes were red.

When he saw me he stood up too fast.

"Nina."

"You have one minute," I said, from the top step.

Giacomo stood a pace behind my shoulder, saying nothing.

"I can't walk into my own tower," Gabriel said. "He had the guards take my badge in front of the whole newsroom. My assistant cried."

"You came to tell me that."

"No." He dug into his coat pocket and held out his fist. "I came to give you this."

He opened his hand.

It was a brass key on a plain ring, worn smooth.

"What is it?"

"Master control. The room where every picture in this city leaves the building. Dad has the cards turned off in a second, but he forgot this door. It's older than the cards. My grandfather put the lock in."

"And what does it do for me?"

"If he tries to cut the feed when you start to speak, whoever holds that room decides what four million people see."

I looked at the key.

It was the first useful thing my husband had ever handed me.

I did not take it.

"Put it on the step," I said.

"Nina, please."

"On the step, Gabriel."

He crouched and set it on the stone, and when he straightened he held out his other hand, palm up.

I looked at it for a long moment.

"No," I said.

His hand stayed in the air.

"I'm not asking you to forgive me. I just want..."

"You want me to touch you, so that something has changed. Nothing has. You'll pay by doing things, and I'll tell you what, and when."

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