Chapter 14 - “I DON’T WANT A CAGE”Their relationship took months.
That surprised everyone except Norah.
Sophia Rossi—Gabriel’s widowed aunt who considered herself his substitute mother—asked after three weeks:
“When are you moving back?”
Norah nearly choked.
Gabriel said:
“She isn’t.”
Sophia looked horrified.
“Why?”
“Because she has an apartment.”
“So?”
Gabriel and Norah exchanged a look.
Progress clearly had generational limits.
Norah kept her job.
Kept her apartment.
Kept paying down the legitimate portion of Gabriel’s original expenses because she wanted to.
Eventually he stopped objecting.
He visited her.
She visited him.
Sometimes she slept at the estate.
Sometimes she left before breakfast.
No one questioned it.
One winter night, Norah woke from a nightmare.
Ray’s hands.
The snap.
Then gunfire in the kitchen.
She sat upright.
Gabriel woke immediately.
“Norah?”
“I’m fine.”
He reached for her.
Then stopped before touching.
“Can I?”
That nearly made her cry.
“Yes.”
He pulled her close.
After a while she whispered:
“You know what frightened me most about you?”
“What?”
“When you told me I belonged to the house.”
Gabriel became still.
“I remember.”
“I almost liked it.”
He looked down.
“Because I was exhausted from being afraid.”
Norah rested her palm over his chest.
“But exhaustion can make captivity feel like safety.”
“Yes.”
“I don’t want a cage.”
“No.”
“Not even a beautiful one.”
“You won’t have one.”
She studied him.
“What if I leave someday?”
The question hurt him.
She saw it.
Gabriel answered anyway.
“Then I will hate it.”
Norah waited.
“And?”
“And you leave.”
Her throat tightened.
“That simple?”
“No.”
His arms tightened slightly.
“But still your choice.”
Norah kissed his chest.
That was the moment she truly understood she loved him.
Not when he found her fracture.
Not when he removed Ray.
Not when he took a bullet.
Those things were dramatic.
This was harder.
He loved her enough to accept the possibility that love might not give him the outcome he wanted.
The following morning, Norah made coffee.
Gabriel took one sip.
“This is terrible.”
She stared.
“You survived three gunmen and you’re criticizing my coffee?”
“I have standards.”
Norah threw a towel at him.
He laughed.
And somewhere between fear, arguments, bad coffee and ordinary mornings—
May you like
the Rossi estate stopped feeling like a cage.
It became simply one of the places she could choose to go home to.
