28. Remy
Chapter twenty-eight
Remy
“Are you back, little brother?” Wes says, snapping his fingers in front of my face. When I blink, he nods approvingly. “Good. Thought I’d have to throw you in the looney bin for a moment, there. It’s like your brain just… snapped.”
I blink again, breathing through my nose as I try to process what the hell is going on.
Kent’s still got me pressed tight against him, and for a moment, I think I’ve been betrayed. I think he’s helping Wes, that maybe everybody is helping Wes, and that Moose gave Claire over to him months ago and has been stringing me along all this time.
And then Kent’s grip on me eases, and he steps away. “You good?”
Good ?
I’m not good.
The woman I love is wrapped in the arms of the man who tried to fucking sell her to monsters. No, the man who did sell her to fucking monsters.
“What the fuck ?” I growl at him, seeing that there’s no way to appeal to her right now. She trembles even in his arms, her face buried in his shirt and her fingers curled around his neck, like she’s terrified of being separated from him.
“You must be terribly confused.” Wes laughs. “I’ll be honest, I loved watching you have a mental breakdown right in front of me. I’d have let it play out longer, if it weren’t at the expense of my wife. ”
“Your… wife?” I pant, trying not to throw up as the bile churns in my stomach.
Kent’s got the barrel of the gun trained on Wes, and I know he’s a good shot, but there’s not a chance in hell I’m letting him take it when Claire is in his arms. If he hurts her, even by accident, I’ll have to kill him, and then I’ll have to contend with Rich, too.
“God, I would relish this moment so much more if you hadn’t just terrified her.” Wes shakes his head, reaching down to place two gentle fingers under Claire’s chin and tip it up. Her hair falls backwards, cascading down her back, and I realize it’s longer. And the way she’s looking at Wes, like she’d die at his feet if he just asked, makes me nauseous. “Remy, meet Violet. Violet, meet my brother… Remy.”
Claire turns to me, her eyes sweeping quickly over me, and then faces back to Wes, and my whole world shatters this time. I think I’m choking on the shards; my lungs feel like they’re full of glass.
“Claire!” I beg her to look at me again, just long enough so that I can appeal to her sense of logic before he destroys her again. In a dozen tiny ways, she already looks so different from the woman that I remember… the woman who stabbed him through the hand with my kitchen knife, the woman who wanted him to live even after all he did to her.
“Jesus, Boudreaux. How else can I say this to get through to you?” Wes chuckles. “It’s not her.”
When my eyes snap to his, he’s shaking his head. “This is Violet… not Claire.”
Violet opens her mouth hesitantly, glancing from Wes to me. When she speaks, her voice is halting, unsure. “Is Claire… her ?”
“Yes,” Wes presses a kiss to her forehead as he swipes a strand of blonde off of her scarred cheek, and then disentangles himself from her, though he doesn’t drop her hand. She moves with him, at a respectable difference, as Wes approaches me and drops his weight onto the balls of his feet. “This isn’t Claire, brother. Call your girlfriend and find out for yourself. ”
I stare at him, wondering what the hell kind of game he’s playing. “What is this?” I demand, looking between the two of them.
He presses a button on his phone and then hands it to me. I look down to see the name on the screen Claire Monroe , and take it from him without daring to look away from him in case this is some sort of trick to run off with my girl.
When I press the phone to my ear, it’s already gone to voicemail, so I hang up and try again, only to get the same result.
Wherever Claire’s phone is, it’s off… or dead. And the woman in front of me is looking at me with such pity that something in me finally clicks slowly into place.
I stand, passing the phone back to Wes, and then raise my hands to my sides, showing they’re empty. I did this with Claire when I first met her in my bedroom, all dolled up in her black lingerie.
She flinches as I get close, like she’s thinking of running, so I stop moving and appraise her from the distance. “Claire…?”
Her eyes are sad—so perpetually sad—as she shakes her head. When she speaks, her voice cracks. “N-no. My name is Violet… Violet Davos.”
“Davos?” My eyes flick to Wes for a moment before returning to her for the explanation on the tip of her tongue.
“I married Wes months ago, so I took his last name. I didn’t have one before that… I didn’t have a name for a long time.”
Her voice is softer, lacking the confidence Claire found in her time with me.
“Violet?” I say, testing the name on my tongue and looking for anything else that betrays a difference between her and Claire.
“I think… Alexandre told me that Claire was my sister. He told me when he saw her that he was going to get her for me, that she would be my present. But that never happened.”
I blink, considering her words.
Alexandre Davos told her that Claire was her sister.
There may be truth to that—they look identical, apart from the minute differences in their looks, the scars and the light of their fires. “It’s a mindfuck, isn’t it?” Wes chuckles. “That’s how I felt when he gave her to me. It’s why he wanted Claire so bad… my father is a collector. He already had her mother, her sister… all he needs is Claire to finish the set.”
“What do you know about her mother?” I demand, turning my gaze on him. Behind me, I hear Kent getting closer, joining the fray.
“Just what my father said. She was a real hit, I guess… And a gift from your father, believe it or not.” Wes chuckles. “I don’t know if you wanna call that fate or karma or maybe just irony. Maybe it’s just the nature of the business. Either way, she was a hit. Everybody loved her tight cunt, apparently even when she was clearly pregnant with twins. But no one lasts forever in this business, so they kept her around just long enough to take the babies out of her, and then they disposed of her.”
I feel like Wes has just smacked me on the head with a cast iron pan, my thoughts jarred and fragmented. There’s too much in that statement to contend with, but only one word makes it past my lips. “Babies?”
Wes nods. “Twin girls. That’s a treasure trove, you know? People will sell their soul for babies… and baby girls? Forget it.” He shakes his head. “Two baby girls, the spitting image of their mother, who by all accounts was one of my father’s most lucrative captives. He wanted to keep them, but the twins got split up, and years later after my father found Violet again, he stumbled upon Claire entirely by accident when your bumbling bodyguard tricked my men into believing she was Rhea. He was so excited when I told him I had your girl, but when he found out your girl was the identical twin of his favorite concubine? Well, I’m sure you can imagine. What man doesn’t want to fuck twins?”
I haven’t entirely figured out what he means by his father finding Violet, but I have a decent understanding of how fucked Davos is, so I can take a guess.
“Hitler had a thing for twins, too.” Kent says at my side, his eyes sweeping over Wes like he isn’t yet sure whether he’s a threat or not. They turn to Violet, and he manages a small smile for her. “You okay, Miss?”
“I…” Violet looks at Wes, almost like she’s asking permission to answer, and then back to Kent, only giving him a small nod.
“My father gifted Lauren to yours?”
“Lauren?” Wes arches an eyebrow. “That’s her name?” He shrugs indifferently as if deciding it doesn’t really matter. “Yeah, apparently, he tested her himself and knew she would bring in the big bucks. Say what you will about your father, but he was a savvy businessman.”
“He was a fucking monster.” I gasp, sure I’m going to be sick in a minute.
I still have so many questions, but I feel faint, and my head is ringing… no, not my head. My phone.
I slip it out of my pocket and glance down at the caller ID, seeing the missed call icon next to my sister’s name. “Rhea?” I answer it despite my dry throat, not taking my eyes off Wes and his wife.
She doesn’t offer me a greeting, doesn’t ask whether it’s me. There’s a worried sob that makes my own chest tighten again, and then she speaks.
“Claire’s missing!”