~ Liach POV ~~
Cisco Estate — 8:40 AM
The doors close behind me with a finality I feel in my bones.
Gabriel doesn't turn from the window. His sleeves are rolled. His jaw tight. The room is quiet, except for the slow, deliberate sound of his pen dragging across paper. A report sits open, slashed with red ink.
"You failed."
I don't move. "Yes."
"No excuses?"
"None that matter."
He turns slowly.
And the look in his eyes makes me colder than the night I stood over Lucan's body.
"This was your second opportunity," he says. "You got inside. You had his schedule. His habits. His trust. You were close enough to feel his breath on your skin."
He steps closer.
"Instead, you came back smelling like him."
My throat tightens.
He saw it.
He smelled it.
Gabriel studies me, eyes scanning like he's dissecting me molecule by molecule.
"You're wet," he says.
I blink.
"What?"
He leans in, a breath from my ear. "Not now. Then. In his bed. On his lap. Wherever the fuck you were when he had his hand between your legs."
The words slap harder than his fist ever could.
Still, I don't react. Not visibly.
But he knows me too well.
Gabriel steps back, slow and deliberate.
"I made you," he says. "I carved you from bone and fire. You weren't built to be seduced, Liach. You were built to kill."
"I know."
"No. You don't." He crosses to his desk, opens the drawer, and pulls out a small velvet box.
He tosses it at my feet.
"Open it."
I kneel. Open it.
Inside is a silver blade.
Lucan's.
"I took it from your brother's body the night you proved yourself."
My stomach knots.
"You're going to use it again," Gabriel says.
I look up. "On who?"
"Yourself."
Silence.
"I want one inch," he says coldly. "One inch of skin. Carved by your hand. You want to prove to me you're still mine?"
I stand. "You're out of your mind."
"No," he replies. "You are. If you think I'll let you give my name to a De Luna between your thighs."
The silence stretches.
Then I say it.
"Then don't send me back."
He smiles. It doesn't reach his eyes.
"You're going back. Because now you owe me a body."
I don't answer.
"You fix this," Gabriel says, voice flat. "Or next time, I won't pull you out. I'll bury you inside it."
With his final words. I want to his red room and cut myself.
Carve out a flesh from my tight.
"Here" I said, stretching out the box to him.
"Good. This will remind you of your mission."