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 had been effortless.
However— in the meantime— leaving Mercy and Felicity Goode had become an impossible task.
Raphael— now living as Remy Severand— was dashing and deviant enough to be able to sweep the adventurous Mercy onto a sapphic duchess’s yacht to travel the world in luxury.
Whilst Gabriel stayed behind, lurking in the hospital as the genius surgeon crafted him an entirely new face during several complicated— and often experimental— procedures.
The plan was to meet his brother and sister-in-law in the West Indies, bringing the rest of their hidden fortune along with him by way of America.
But first… Gabriel had some unfinished business to take care of.
Finding the villain Marco Villanueve was paramount, as the man was the only one capable of keeping the Fauves at all organized in a way that might threaten the Goodes and their futures.
Eventually, Mercy and his brother might return to England, revealing the secret identities to Felicity.
He’d be long gone by then, having discharged his duty.
Gabriel caught a glimpse of his head in a decorative mirror on the office wall and winced. His healing flesh punished him with stabs and throbs of electric pain at the slightest motion.
After his third surgery, the bandages surrounding most of his head made him appear like a mummy… one who leaked blood and fluids from beneath his wrappings.
A secret fear spiked deep within his chest.
What if he was never anything but a horror to behold?
Dr. Conleith’s voice broke through his bout of uncharacteristic anxiety.
“Like I was saying before, once the grafts above your brow and along your cheek are healed, speaking should be a great deal easier and exponentially less painful. Then I believe we’ll finally be able to move on to crafting you a new nose.”
He approached Gabriel cautiously, his brow furrowed. “It’ll be the most painful procedure yet. I’ll mold the skin from beneath your arm where, blessedly, you haven’t any tattoos. But the skin will have to remain attached to your arm for blood flow. This means you’ll spend weeks in bed with your head trapped to the side and your elbow lodged behind your head. I won’t lie to you. The process will be— well— nothing less than excruciating.”
Gabriel stared at the door through which Felicity had departed. If he’d been a kettle this morning, boiling with the pressure of boredom and unrelenting, agonizing pain, stress over the lack of news from his brother, and rage at Marco’s betrayal…
He found himself quite distorted by her unconscious expression of gratitude. Instead of boiling over, he’d felt infused by fragrant tea leaves and rich cream to become something else entirely.
Her voice made him forget his throbbing head and itching flesh as it knitted together. The sight of her cooled his rage.
Her mere presence… soothed him.
What sort of woman could wield such magic?
“Mr. Sauvageau—” Conleith’s patient prodding broke the spell, bringing him firmly back to the moment.
He’d murdered men for less.
Good thing he liked the doctor.
“I suppose I should start addressing you by your new identity, Mr. Gareth Severand.”
He nodded his assent, as it would be good to practice being an entirely new person before he had to trot the man he’d become out in the world.
“I want you to listen,” the doctor said with indisputable gravitas. “I do my utmost to save every life that comes through that door, though I’m patently aware that not every life is worth the effort. I am sworn to not consider myself the judge of that. However, I’m convinced that no matter what your sins are, your life is easily one of the most important that I’ve spared…”