Groom Under Fire ✅

11.

Did her laughter have an edge of hysteria to it? Had his admission struck her too hard?

Axel studied her face for signs of distress. But he only saw the beauty of her flushed skin and sparkling green eyes. Maybe he wouldn't have had so much trouble in school if she hadn't been in so many of his classes.

"You don't believe Gabriel could do this," Did she love him that much that she couldn't see him for the man he must have become?

"I would sooner believe you were trying to kill me."

He sucked in a breath, as stung as if she'd physically slapped him. "You could actually believe that I would try to kill you?"

"You've been gone a long time," she reminded him. "I don't know you anymore. I know Gabriel. We've stayed friends all these years."

"Obviously you've been more than friends," Axel said, trying to keep any bitterness from slipping into his voice—he had chosen to leave; what they'd done in his absence was none of his business. And it wouldn't have been even if he'd stayed.

But now Annabelle as his wife. So she was his business.

Annabelle's face flushed an even brighter shade of red. But all she said was, "Gabriel has always been there for me."

"Until the wedding."

"That wasn't his fault."

"I'm not so sure about that," Axel said.

Her brow furrowed with confusion. "How can you think that? You saw the blood. The signs of a struggle."

"If there was really a struggle, why didn't you or Mom hear it?"

She jumped up from the couch as if unable to sit still at his accusations. While she paced the small space in the living room of the suite; she kept her distance from the window. She obviously didn't feel safe.

And she wouldn't until they caught whoever was trying to kill her. But in order to do that they had to consider all the viable suspects.

"Your mom was in the basement," she reminded him, "talking to the minister. And I was in the bride's dressing room? Which was on the other side of the church. Someone must have hit him on the head while he was distracted and knocked him out in the groom's dressing room. That's why we didn't hear anything."

"We don't even know yet if the blood that was found is his," Axel reminded her. DNA results didn't come back as quickly as they did on television shows.

"Now you're saying he hurt someone else?"

If Axel was right, Gabriel had hurt her—physically—a few times. And now emotionally...

"It might be his blood," Axel amended. "But he could have drawn some earlier and sprayed it around the room."

She shuddered at the gruesome idea. "Why would he do that?"

"So you would think he was dead or hurt..."

And then she wouldn't marry, forfeiting her inheritance to her sister.

Obviously still in denial, she shook her head.

"He wouldn't do that. It wouldn't have even occurred to Gabriel to do something like that."

"He might not have been acting alone," Axel pointed out.

She stopped in her tracks and stared at him.

"Do you think he hired someone?"

"I don't think he had to hire someone."

"Someone was willing to help him?" She stared at Axel for a few moments and sighed.