“Nora will come around for tea any moment, if you’d like to stay. She’d love to visit with you.” Titus gathered up his white coat and punched his arms into the sleeves, indicating that he was going to the surgical theater.
“Yes, I’ll— I’ll go upstairs and wait, with your permission.”
Titus and Nora Conleith resided in a lush penthouse above the hospital. Their home was one of Felicity’s favorite places in all the world.
“You know our home is always open to you.” Titus’s face softened as he gave her shoulders a fond squeeze before releasing them. “It can’t be easy, what with Mercy absconding with Raphael to the devil knows where, and your parents indefinitely retreating to the Riviera.”
At this, Felicity gasped. “Oh Lord. Does Raphael know about his brother?”
Titus’s lips tightened. “He and Mercy do know what became of him, yes.”
“Poor man must be heartbroken. I understand they were close.”
“Indeed.”
“I’ll write him my condolences when Mercy sends me a postcard from whatever port they next find themselves.”
“That would be kind of you.”
“Well…” Felicity’s restless hands adjusted her spectacles, plucked at her collar, at the cuffs of her sleeves, at the watch dangling from a broach over her breast. “Good afternoon, Titus.”
“Always a pleasure.” He lifted her hand to kiss it.
The news of Gabriel Sauvageau’s demise felt like a tragic end to an even more unfortunate life. He’d been so strong, so utterly large and impenetrable that it was almost impossible to imagine something so small as a bullet taking him down.
Though he’d been a smuggler and a criminal, even a man she’d once seen as a threat, he’d ultimately been her savior. After her assault, he’d held her like a child might cradle a porcelain doll.
One they were afraid of breaking.
He’d crooned gentle things into her ear in his native French, soothing her. He’d been frightening. He’d been criminal.
But… Someone had hurt him so abominably.
Someone had done all that terrifying damage to his face.
Felicity didn’t allow her tear to fall until she’d turned away. Dashing it from her eye with her gloved hand, she fumbled with the door latch and slid back into the hospital’s hallway.
Gabriel Sauvageau may have looked like a monster, but he’d always be a hero to her.
* * *
Titus’s reverent words found Gabriel where he’d ensconced himself behind the gently scented drapes. “I’m not a religious man… However, I can’t help but believe you were meant to hear that.”
Pushing the heavy velvet aside, Gabriel ventured back into the office, pathetically aware that he displaced the air Felicity Goode had only just occupied.
He took in lungsful of it, hoping to lock it away. Imagining that somehow, she’d become a part of him.
His heart felt two sizes too big for his chest, and it hurled itself against his rib cage as if seeking to escape and go after her.
All because he’d chanced a bold peek at her as she’d turned to leave.
And he’d watched a tear form like a gem on her fair lashes and slide down the perfection of her cheekbone.
For him.
Her grief, however slight, was both a waste and a miracle. It humbled and distressed him. And for her own sake, he could do nothing to assuage it.
He must stay dead to her, or all his plans would be for naught.
No one knew that everything he’d done since they’d met was for her…
Gabriel Sauvageau had been born to a ruthless, evil gangster. As much as he’d hated his father, known as the Executioner, he’d been in danger of becoming him.
He was the heir to the Fauve dynasty. Fauves meaning “wild beasts” in the language of his homeland of Monaco. His father, however, had been an exile from England.
Gabriel had been content to watch the empire that’d spawned his father burn to the ground with his help. He’d wanted to disassemble the city brick by brick, then light the spark that immolated everything.
Including the Fauves.
He’d been close to achieving his goal, too, until several months ago when the Goode sisters had found a cache of gold that’d been stolen from him.
He and Raphael had meant to take the gold back, but Mercy and Felicity Goode had proven themselves the better thieves.
Because they’d stolen the Sauvageau brothers’ beating black hearts right out of their chests.
That night, Honoria Goode, Dr. Conlieth’s bride, had been intent upon redemption.
Mercy Goode, the woman Raphael had recently eloped with, had been intent upon justice.
But Felicity, she’d only cared about those she loved.
She’d been shy, panicked, and yet she’d fought the most valiantly for a happy ending. Not only for Nora and Titus, but for everyone who’d been a part of that tense standoff between the Fauves and the law.
It was her impassioned plea for benevolence that’d melted some of the fortress of ice around Gabriel’s heart. He’d made the decision then and there to give the gold to Titus and Nora in exchange for a favor.
A favor he currently collected upon.
Although most men joined a gang such as the Fauves for their own selfish or desperate reasons, Gabriel and Raphael Sauvageau never had that luxury. They’d been born to inherit their father’s power, his fortune, and his enemies. What they hadn’t realized until after their father had died, was the biggest threat to them was posed by their own men.
Beasts only followed whom they deemed worthy to lead.
A leader, once overthrown, was almost always devoured by the pack. Ripped apart by teeth and claw, or blade and bullets.
The Fauves were no different.
And so, Gabriel and his brother hatched a plan to fake their own deaths and abscond to distant shores with new identities, to enjoy the fortunes they’d amassed from profiteering off of the evil and the elite.
Who were, more often than not, one and the same.
Because Raphael had one of the most recognizably handsome faces in London, and Gabriel was possessed of equally identifiable but lamentably hideous features, staying in England was deemed too dangerous.
Establishing new identities and an escape plan
