If this person—this ghost from Gabe’s past—wanted to hurt him, there were other ways he could do it.Other people he could target—family, friends.He had to be stopped.
And Nica wasn’t about to lie in a hospital bed waiting for someone else she loved to get caught in the crosshairs.She didn’t know what she could do yet—but she’d find a way to keep this monster from taking her husband away from her.
Because now it wasn’t just about surviving.
It was about protecting the man she loved.No matter what it cost.
The silence stretchedbetween them like a taut wire, ready to snap.Standing at the hotel room’s window, his reflection ghostlike against the city lights of Houston far below, he frowned.The phone pressed against his ear felt cold, but not as cold as the rage building in his chest.
“Say that again.”His voice was deadly quiet, each word measured and precise.
The male voice crackled through the connection.“I said I took the shot.Everything was working, step by step.Clean line of sight, just like I always have.I never take a shot unless I know I have every single centimeter mapped, planned.But she moved at the last second—turned and reached for her purse, if you can believe it and—”
“She’s still alive.”It wasn’t a question.He could feel his carefully constructed world tilting on its axis.He hadn’t felt anything like this since the day Melissa died.
“Yeah, but barely.I hit her.They rushed her to the hospital.There’s a chance she might not—”
The phone exploded against the wall, plastic fragments scattering across the plush carpet like shrapnel.Staring at the destruction, hands trembling not with fear, but with pure, unadulterated fury, he fought back the primal scream building in the back of his throat.
Months.Months of planning, of watching, tracking every move to systematically dismantle Summers’ life piece by piece.The WHO job offer loss had been beautiful—listening on the cloned phone when they’d withdrawn the offer, knowing he’d never understand why his dream had crumbled.Even when the FBI agent had pleaded with her to give them time to prove the documents were forged, he knew the job offer was as good as gone.Each calculated move had been a work of art, a symphony of suffering designed to make Gabe understand what it felt like to lose everything.
But this—this had been meant to be the crescendo.The moment Gabe would know true agony, the same soul-crushing devastation that had consumed him when he’d cradled Melissa’s lifeless body at the funeral home.
Summers had killed her.It didn’t matter what excuses the hospital gave for the botched surgery.Didn’t matter that Summers hadn’t been the surgeon who was supposed to do Melissa’s surgery; he’d been the one holding the scalpel.His arrogance, his hero complex—rushing into that operating room when he’d been high on drugs.Playing God with the woman he loved more than his own life.
He swept the contents of the mahogany desk onto the floor, papers fluttering like dying moths.The crystal paperweight—a gift from Melissa—shattered against the wall, each shard catching the light like tears.
“She’s alive,” he said aloud, testing the words, hating their taste.“She’salive.”
But not for long.The plan had been elegant in its simplicity—take away what Gabe treasured most, let him live with the knowledge that his love was gone because of him.Just like he had to live with Melissa’s absence, the phantom weight of the wedding ring he still carried in his pocket.
Now Nica Boudreau-Summers was lying in some hospital bed, probably with Gabe holding her hand, whispering the same promises he had whispered to Melissa before they’d wheeled her to the operating room.The irony wasn’t lost on him—both women fighting for their lives because of Gabe’s choices.
Except this time, Nica might actually live.
His reflection caught in the bathroom mirror as he splashed cold water on his face.The man staring back looked like a stranger—hollow-eyed, gaunt, consumed by a hunger that no amount of revenge seemed to satisfy.When had he become this?When had love transformed into something so dark it barely resembled its original form?
It didn’t matter.Nothing mattered except making Gabe Summers suffer.
He pulled out his backup phone, the burner he used for specialized contacts only, fingers steady now as he dialed.The anger had crystallized into something harder, more focused.More dangerous.
“It’s me,” he said when the line connected.“The woman survived.We’re moving to Phase Three.”
“What do you want me to do about the woman?”
He smiled, but there was no warmth in it.“If Gabriel wants to play savior so badly, let’s see how many people he can actually save.”He paused, closing his eyes and picturing Melissa’s face, and the faces of the children he never got to see anymore.“Starting with himself.”
The plan had been elegant.Now it would be brutal.
Gabriel Summers was going to learn that some debts could only be paid in blood.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The fluorescent lightsin the FBI field office hummed overhead as Gabe spread the case files across the conference table, his hands steady despite the rage burning in his chest.Forty-eight hours ago, his wife had been fighting for her life in surgery while he’d paced the hospital corridors like a caged animal.Now Nica was stable, breathing on her own, but the hollow-point bullet that tore through her lung had been meant for her heart.Just the thought of losing her sent him into a grief spiral, and if he allowed himself to dwell on the thought, he’d be useless—to her and to anybody else in his circle of friends.As long as this monster was out there walking the streets, nobody was safe.
“Walk me through it again,” Mike said, settling into the chair across from him.The FBI behavioral analyst’s weathered face was grim as he studied the profile Gabe had compiled.“I know we’ve gone over it a hundred times, but let’s go for a hundred and one.”
Gabe pointed to the timeline he’d constructed on the whiteboard.“The escalation pattern.When I started thinking about things unemotionally, looking back at when this all started, a pattern started emerging.First after the Carpenter incident, there were the anonymous complaints to the California medical board—nuisance level harassment designed to create doubt about my competence.Then the malpractice suits from patients I’d never treated, all settled because the complaints disappeared as soon as investigations started.The media leaks about my ‘questionable’ surgical decisions.”His jaw tightened.
