Chapter 18
I parked the Audi two blocks from the cemetery entrance, where there were no security cameras. I'd verified that detail personally. Twice.
My fingers tightened around the tablet resting on my lap. The device had rarely left my possession since I began working for Algerone. My lifeline.
Powering it down was almost sacrilegious.
The screen flickered beneath my fingers.
The subtle electronic hum I'd grown accustomed to fell silent, leaving me momentarily disoriented.
Without data flowing through my hands, I existed in a vacuum, disconnected from the corporation that gave my life structure.
I placed the tablet in the glove compartment alongside my silent phone. My fingers lingered on the metal edge before I closed the compartment. For the next hour, I would exist unmonitored, the closest thing to invisible I ever managed to be.
From the backseat, I retrieved a simple black wool coat.
Nothing like the tailored pieces that comprised my usual armor.
It was deliberately anonymous, purchased from a department store three years ago and altered just enough to fit without drawing attention.
I slipped it on over my suit. The Glock's weight settled against my ribs.
Two pounds, four ounces. Fifteen rounds in the magazine, one in the chamber.
Not that I was expecting trouble, but preparation was its own form of prayer.
I buttoned my coat against the autumn chill as I stepped out. The street was empty, not a single observer to witness where Maxime St. Germain disappeared to when he vanished from the digital grid.
The lilies waited on the passenger seat, wrapped in brown paper from the florist on Eighth Street who never asked questions.
I gathered them, the paper crinkling under my fingers while waxy stems pressed cool against my palm.
I’d used the same florist, the same order, the same route for twenty-three years.
My breath fogged the air as I approached the cemetery. The wrought-iron gates stood open. Just me and the dead and the weight I carried.
Left at the marble angel with the chipped wing. Right at the ancient oak that had been struck by lightning in 2019 but somehow survived. I’d memorized the route after countless monthly pilgrimages.
Headstones emerged from the mist. Names and dates blurred as I passed. Birth years, death years, the inadequate hyphens between them. I knew what those dashes contained. First steps, graduations, weddings, children. All the markers of lives properly lived. All the milestones I'd denied her.
My stomach tightened as I approached the eastern corner. The lilies suddenly felt absurd. What offering could possibly matter to the dead?
Yet I continued forward. The headstone came into view gradually. It was black granite, eighteen inches wide, twenty-four inches tall, smaller than the monuments surrounding it. I'd paid for something larger, but she'd specified modest in her will. One of the few wishes I'd honored.
IMOGEN MARIE DUCHAUCIS
1972 - 2000
"Emily Dutch"
Beloved Daughter, Mother, Artist
"The flame that burns twice as bright burns half as long"
I stopped before it. Cold shock rippled through my body at the sight of her name carved in stone. All these years, and still the impact never diminished.
The grass beneath my feet was damp with dew as I lowered myself to my knees. The wet immediately soaked through my Valentino pants.
I brushed away fallen leaves from the base of the headstone and adjusted the bronze vase before arranging the lilies.
My throat tightened as I stared at the name. "Hello, Imogen Marie."
I waited, as I always did, for a response that would never come.
"I know. I'm late this month." My voice sounded different here. Softer. No trace of the man who commanded boardrooms and crushed opposition. "It's been complicated."
Wind stirred the branches overhead. Dappled shadows danced across her name.
"Things have changed." My fingers traced the fading marks on my thigh, hidden beneath expensive fabric. "He knows everything now. What I did to you. What I kept from him."
Another pause.
"He hasn't forgiven me. He may never forgive me.
" My voice cracked. Here, there was no need to hide it.
"But he's let me stay. Let me kneel. Let me be his, even if it's not the way I imagined.
" I swallowed. "He said he wants my submission, but not my guilt.
That I don't get to use penance as an excuse to disappear into service.
" I exhaled roughly. "I'm still trying to understand what that means. "
My hand trembled against the stone. For so long, I'd hidden behind rationales about business necessities. Protecting Algerone's focus. Building the empire. But here, with only the dead to witness, the ugliest truth demanded naming.
"I was jealous. Not just of his attention. Of the possibility of you. Of what you represented that I could never be." My jaw tightened. "I told myself I was protecting what we were building. But I was afraid of losing my place. My purpose."
A tear slid down my cheek. I wiped it away roughly. Tears were inefficient. They solved nothing.
"Your children should have had their father. You should have had your chance. Instead, you had me. The errand boy who decided your fate because he couldn't bear the thought of sharing what was never his."
I traced the carved letters of her name.
"Your children..." Something caught in my throat. "Xavier protected the prototype with security measures beyond anything I could have imagined. You'd be proud. Algerone is, though he'd never say it directly."
A swell of pride rose in my chest. Stupid. These weren't my children to claim. I pressed my palm against the cool stone.
"And Xion." I sighed. "He wants nothing to do with any of us. Can't say I blame him. Sometimes I think he's the smartest of all of them."
My fingers traced the date of her death.
"And Xander." A small smile formed despite everything.
"They share your love of theatrics. Would have made a fine actor in another life.
Their wardrobe costs a fortune. Designer pieces in the most provocative combinations.
Never subtle. Always a statement." I adjusted a lily stem that had shifted. "You would have approved."
I shifted position. Damp ground seeped cold through my pants.
"I still remember that hotel room. Cigarette smoke embedded in the wallpaper. The rattling air conditioner cycled every few minutes." I swallowed. "The hope in your eyes when you opened the door. The way it died when you realized Algerone hadn't come himself."
Wind stirred the lilies. Their perfume overwhelmed the scent of wet grass.
"'He sent his errand boy instead.'" I quoted softly. "That's what you called me."
My fingertip traced the curves of her name.
"You were clutching their photo. Three tiny bundles in hospital blankets.
Your nails bitten down to the quick. Purple polish chipping off.
" Details I'd replayed countless times, searching for the moment I could have chosen differently.
"I should have recognized the signs. Your eyes darted to corners where nothing stood. But I was too focused on the mission."
"I told you he had no interest in being a father." My voice dropped. "That was a lie. If I'd given him the opportunity, he'd have loved it."
The Algerone of back then would have dropped everything for those children.
I knew it even as I lied to myself. He would have embraced fatherhood completely.
I made the decision for him because I couldn't bear to lose what we were creating.
I couldn't bear to lose him to a family I wouldn't be part of.
"I didn't choose the kindest path. I chose the one that left him free. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't choose it again."
That was the truth that brought me to my knees each month. Not just that I'd driven her to take her own life, but that I couldn't bring myself to truly regret the choice that had led me here.
"You slit your wrists in that bathtub while your children were with Annie. And I got what I wanted. Not because of your death, but through it." I pressed my palm flat against the granite. "That's a debt no grave can swallow."
I traced her name one last time. My confession was complete, with no absolution coming.
The air carried the scent of wet grass and earth, clean and alive against the backdrop of death. Guilt lay metallic on my tongue.
A subtle shift in the quiet caught my attention—a whisper against wet grass that wasn't wind or birds.
"What the FUCK are YOU doing here?"
I twisted to look over my shoulder. Pain shot through my knees as I moved. I kept my hands in plain sight and stood, facing the voice.
Xander Laskin stood ten feet away in a pair of studded leather pants and black eyeliner. He clenched his fists so tight the knuckles turned white. The small bouquet of wildflowers in their hands fell to the ground.
"Xander." My voice rasped.
"This is my mother's grave." They jabbed a finger toward my lilies. "What are you doing here? With those?"
"I owe you an explanation,” I started to say.
"You owe me nothing." Three quick strides and they were in my space. Expensive cologne and leather filled my nostrils. "Except maybe your life in exchange for hers. What sick game is this? You drove her to kill herself, then tend her grave like some fucking mourner?"
He was inches away now, close enough to see the intensity in his green eyes. The same shade as Algerone's. Their jaw clenched and unclenched rhythmically.
My muscles tensed, palms tingling. I uncurled my fingers and kept them open at my sides.
"You think because he's fucking you that you have the RIGHT to be here?" Spittle hit my cheek. "You don't. She should still be alive. Dad’s lucky card didn't save our mother, did it?"
"No." My voice came out flat. "It didn't."
Xander's eyes widened at the admission. Then narrowed with fresh fury. "How long have you been coming here?"