9

Raphael was a middle-aged man with short hair sprinkled with gray. He was thin and in shape, looking like an American businessman in his blue suit. He served the president of France and ran the Senate and the National Assembly—as well as the French Emperors—a secret society within the Senate that did all the dirty work so no one else had to. We weren’t a group of vigilantes who wanted to punish crime. We wanted to run it—by our rules. We maintained crime, kept it healthy, and protected the innocent. Without us, the French Republic wouldn’t have the most romantic city in the world.

“I’ll handle it, Raphael.”

“You said that six months ago.”

I gave him a cold stare. “You want me to keep every criminal in this city in line. And you want me to capture the largest trafficker France has ever known at the same time. I know everyone worth knowing, and no one is saying shit about Godric. That says something…or the lack thereof does.”

Raphael had just put out his cigar, but he grabbed another from his drawer and lit up right in his office, in the place where royalty had once sat. “Figure it out, Bastien.”

I arrived at the private estate outside of Paris, armed guards behind the gate like they always expected trouble. I checked in with the guy in charge, and they radioed in my presence to the man of the house—Fender.

I sat in the car for a while as I waited for an answer, unsure if he would agree to see me without warning when we barely knew each other. It was at least ten minutes before the gates opened and they allowed me through.

I’d never waited for anything, but I waited for Fender because he was the best lead that I had.

The valet took my car, and the butler escorted me into the study, a place that smelled like cigar smoke because the scent had been absorbed by every piece of furniture and the curtains for decades.

I sat there, a copy of The Count of Monte Cristo on the coffee table next to a small vase of pink roses. The house was quiet like no one was there, but the place was three stories and probably full of staff.

A moment later, Fender walked inside in jeans and a long-sleeved shirt, his pissed-off expression reserved for me. He was a man in his forties, on the precipice of fifty, but he was still built like a brick shithouse, a man who lifted every morning without exception, who let his hair sprinkle with a hint of gray because he didn’t give a damn to cover it.

He faced me on the other side of the coffee table, sizing me up with those coffee-colored eyes. “If this isn’t important, I’ll shoot you between the eyes.”

He was deadly serious, and I liked that. “Fair enough.”

He dropped onto the couch, arms on his knees, his palms together.

I sat across from him, the doors to his study open but the house quiet. “I spoke to Magnus the other day, but that was a dead end.”

“He is a dead end.” He was still dead serious.

“I’m sure you’ve heard women have been disappearing from Paris.”

“I don’t watch the news because I don’t give a shit about anything outside my world. I keep tabs on my wife and children, and the rest can burn for all I care.” His hostile eyes stared me down like bullets from a gun. “You wasted your time coming here.”

“You operated the most expansive trafficking scheme in Paris fifteen years ago.”

“Yes—fifteen years ago. And if the Butcher thinks he’s gonna carve my flesh off the bone, I’d like to see him try.” His hostility burned even hotter, like he’d jump across the table and strangle me right there on the couch.

“Statute of limitations,” I said. “You’re pardoned.”

He still looked pissed off as hell. “I have nothing to offer you, Bastien.”

“You must know someone I can ask.”

“Fifteen years is a long time. Most of the people I knew are probably dead. Bartholomew from the Chasseurs settled down and moved to Tuscany. I don’t know where Benton and Bleu ended up. Some LSD freaks took over the camp a decade ago, but I think they’re all dead now.”

I nodded in understanding. “Magnus said more of the same.”

“Then you wasted your time—and my time—coming here.”

“Are you always this hostile?”

His eyebrows rose slightly at the audacity of my question.

“President Martin may be the president of the Republic—but I’m the Emperor of France. Under my rule, Homines ex codice applies, which is in your best interest as a father and a husband. Crime is regulated, just the way our food and health care are regulated by the laws that govern this land—and I’m the one in charge of it. If you want your daughter to live in a place where she can walk the streets alone at night, where your wife can shop alone without fear of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, then you should help me in whatever way you can.”

He cocked his head slightly as he looked at me, and slowly the hostility drained from his expression the way water drained from soil. Several beats passed, and his stare remained locked hard on my face. “I’ll see what I can do.”

It’d been a week since I’d walked into Silencio and met Fleur. I’d made it clear I wasn’t a one-woman kind of guy, so I doubted she’d expected me to be there when she woke up, but I still felt obligated to explain my absence.

But I guessed the gesture meant nothing to her because she didn’t text me back.

That was a first.

My driver pulled up to the bar, and I hopped out. It was midnight, just a few hours from closing, and a couple was outside on the sidewalk enjoying their cigarettes. When I looked through the window, I saw her standing at the bar and making a drink, an old-fashioned for the guy sitting at the very end.

I walked inside and saw that the tables were full of people having a late-night drink even though it was a weekday. But the bar itself was mostly empty because no one wanted to sit on a stool for hours on end, and they chose to gather at a table with a leather armchair.

She wore a tight long-sleeve black shirt, a deep V in the front to show the tops of her perky tits. A necklace sat in the center, a single pendant in rose gold. The details were too faint for me to read. The last time I’d seen her, her long hair had been straight and almost to her waist, but now, it was curled and shiny. Her makeup was dark, a smoky eye look that reminded me of a sexy cat, exactly the kind of shit I was into.

I took a seat on a stool, choosing the side where no one else was seated.

She didn’t notice me right away, doing her nightly cleanup since it was slow.

I wasn’t sure if I was impatient for a drink or her attention. “Want to make me a drink, sweetheart?”

She didn’t turn at my voice, but she stiffened like she knew exactly who it belonged to. She folded up the towel she’d been using and turned to me. “The usual?” She recovered from the shock in just a second, and now she had the kind of confidence that implied she’d known I was there the entire time. She was quick on her feet, just the way she’d been when that idiot had come at her with a machete, having far too much pride to admit she’d been caught off guard.