Chapter 10 - The Rain Outside the Window
Six months later, the rain fell again over Philadelphia, drumming a steady, soothing rhythm against the floor-to-ceiling glass windows of Gabriel’s penthouse.
Inside, the loft was warm, lit by the amber glow of a crackling fireplace and the soft illumination of a Christmas tree in the corner.
Sadie sat curled on the plush velvet sofa, a mug of hot tea in her hands, watching Gabriel as he poured two glasses of aged scotch at the home bar. The old bullet scars on his ribs were entirely healed now, though they remained etched into his skin as permanent reminders of the night their worlds collided.
Gabriel walked over, handed her a glass, and sat down beside her, pulling her legs across his lap.
“You know,” Sadie said, smiling faintly as she leaned her head against his shoulder, “if someone had told me six months ago that I’d be living in a Center City penthouse with a notorious crime lord who used to bleed on my floral couch, I would have checked myself into an asylum.”
Gabriel chuckled softly, pressing a kiss into her hair. “And if someone had told me that a tired bartender in a cheap jacket would walk out of an alley and completely hijack my heart, I would have had them shot.”
“Romantic,” she teased.
“Realistic,” he corrected, his gray eyes softening as he looked down at her.
May you like
He reached out, his fingers gently tracing the line of her jaw—the exact same touch from the alley, the exact same touch from his office desk. But there was no fear left between them now. Only a profound, unbreakable bond forged in blood, rain, and survival.
Sadie smiled, leaning up to kiss him—not out of desperation, not to save a dying man, but simply because there was nowhere else in the world she would rather be.
