Chapter Twelve
MINA
The room fell silent as I greeted Gordon, and everyone leaned in.
“Hello, Mina. How is everything?”
The phone wasn’t on speaker, but my godfather’s deep, aged-in-an-oak-barrel voice boomed through the line and carried across the room.
I shot Roux a glance and touched my eye. “Oh, just fine.”
Marius growled under his breath, and the tiger bit his lip.
Henrik gave the antique clock over the hearth a pointed look, and I followed his eyes. Eleven p.m. Funny time for a social call.
“Hello?” I asked after a long pause on the other end of the line. Had we lost our connection?
“Sorry, still here,” Gordon hastened to reply. “I was just…”
Surprised, his tone said.
“…distracted,” was the word he chose. “And I wanted to check on, er…your guests. Everything all right there?”
I pictured Henrik creeping through the attic. Predators stalking around the obstacle course. Worst of all, that intruder — an enemy vampire — in the garden.
“Nothing out of the ordinary?” my godfather continued.
Ha. Where did I begin?
A dragon, a vampire, and two felines stared silently at me.
Then I frowned. Staring at me…why?
I swiveled away. This was my call, not theirs, dammit. My home, too. I’d had it with these guys getting mixed up in my business—
“Actually…” I started, but Bene sliced the air urgently.
I turned the other way, but that brought me right back to the others. Roux put a finger firmly over his lips.
“Um…” I stalled. Why didn’t they want me to mention the intruder?
“I went for a walk in the garden tonight…” I continued.
Roux winced, and Henrik’s eyes shone red. Bene wrung his hands.
I was ready to ignore all of them, but my eyes caught on Marius’s, and for the first time, I wasn’t catapulted away into a dream world.
Danger! Danger! his stormy eyes warned.
“Yes?” Gordon asked impatiently.
I swallowed hard, keeping my eyes on Marius.
He gave a curt shake of his head. Don’t. Please.
“It was beautiful. All the stars…” I said.
Roux and Bene exhaled. Henrik looked slightly less murderous, while Marius gave me a nod. A teensy-tiny one that somehow made me feel ridiculously proud.
“It was so peaceful. Grandma used to take a walk every evening, and it reminded me of all the times I walked with her.”
Bene gave me a thumbs-up, though I was still confused. Gordon was their boss. Wouldn’t they want to inform him of the intruder?
I frowned at the thought. Not my intruder, dammit. Theirs. I had nothing to do with this.
Except, of course, I did, because the intruder had been lurking in my mess of a garden.
“The garden? At night?” Gordon practically shrieked.
I winced, holding the phone away from my ear.
Gordon was one of the steadiest, least excitable people I knew. He’d been visiting the day I’d told my grandmother I’d accepted a summer volunteer position in Senegal, and while she had flipped out, he hadn’t batted an eye.
The girl has a good head on her shoulders, he’d said, perfectly calmly. Let her go learn about the world.
Senegal was all right, but my garden wasn’t?
“My dear, the world isn’t what it used to be,” he cautioned.
“Gordon, this is rural France. And I have four big, tough boarders now.”
Bene tapped his chest immodestly, while Roux hit a stiff, military pose that said, Damn right, you do.
“Boarders or no boarders, I urge you to be more cautious,” Gordon said.
“On my own property?”
“A very large, very remote property,” Gordon pointed out. “If anything happened there, no one would know.”
Yikes. Now he was creeping me out. Large…remote…no one around to observe what was going on…
The very reason he’d chosen it as a base for his bodyguards, maybe?
“Well, I’ll be more careful from now on,” I said, as if I needed convincing.
“Regarding the boarders…” Gordon switched gears. “I trust they are behaving themselves?”
To a man, they all tensed.
I hesitated, letting them sweat for a few seconds, then chuckled into the phone.
“It’s like I told you. Teaching fifth grade prepares you for anything.”
Roux and Henrik looked affronted. Bene stifled a laugh.
Marius quirked his lips, and I grinned. Boy, would I love to see him flash a full smile.
But he wrestled it back, whispered something to Roux, and disappeared down the hallway. A mournful wolf howl went up in a corner of my soul, as it always did when he left the room.
“They’ve settled in,” I continued, trying to concentrate on Gordon. “I think they have everything they need.”
“And what about you? Do you have everything you need?”
I looked at the door Marius had exited through.
Yes? No?
“All fine,” I fibbed, fiddling with the upholstery of my chair.
“Well, I’m happy to hear that,” Gordon proclaimed.
Relieved was more like it. Did he have such low expectations of my boarders, or did his relief have something to do with the intruder?
Henrik made a cutthroat motion. I rolled my eyes. Only a vampire would hint at ending a call in the same way you’d hint at ending a life.
Still, I decided he was right.
“Well, thanks for checking in,” I said, faking a yawn. “It’s a bit late here, so…”
“Sorry to disturb you, sweetheart. You take care.”
“You too. We’ll talk soon,” I assured him. “And thanks again. For everything.”
I owed him so much. More than I could ever repay.
“It’s my pleasure, sweetheart,” Gordon said, sounding more like the man I knew.
“Good night,” I said.
“Good night,” he echoed.
I clicked off the phone and looked around.
“Well?” I finally demanded.
“Well, what?” Bene asked innocently.
I gave him a look, then shifted my gaze to Roux. “What was that all about?”
He looked at the floor in the manner of a man composing a full report. I glanced at the clock, then twirled my hand impatiently.
“The short version, please.”
“Short version…” He rubbed his jaw.
“How much do you trust Gordon?” Bene filled in for him.
“Too much,” Henrik grumbled, filling in for me.
“Says the night crawler,” I muttered back.
Bene laughed. “Good one.”
Henrik did not look pleased, but I was too annoyed to care.
“I trust Gordon with…everything,” I said, just as Marius reappeared with a cookie tin in his hands.
“Maybe that’s why Gordon chose you,” he said, munching thoughtfully.
“Oh! Are those macarons?” Bene grabbed for one.
I laughed. “And here I’d been thinking comfort food was a girl thing.”
Marius scowled. “Food for thought.”
Ha. I bet.
I grabbed one the same color as his and made a mental note. Raspberry flavor. Marius’s favorite?
Then my mind jumped back to what he had just said.
“What do you mean about why Gordon chose me?” I asked. “He’s always been good to me. He stood by my family after my father died. He helped me get through college, and he even paid for Christmas flights for me to visit my grandmother here when I couldn’t afford it.”
“Why?” Henrik asked, clearly suspicious.
I snorted. It was sad, how some people lived with such a depressing world view.
Then again, he was a vampire.
“My father and Gordon were best friends,” I explained. “I was fourteen when my dad died, and Gordon stepped in to help with a lot of things.”
Bene’s throat bobbed, and even Henrik’s expression softened a little.
“If it weren’t for him, my family would have struggled with so much more. He did me a big favor by renting the west wing for you four.” I shook my head emphatically. “Gordon would never do anything to endanger me.”
Marius snorted. “He sent us, didn’t he?”
“Well, you haven’t hurt me yet.”
Bene snorted. “Other than the black eye Roux gave you…”
“It was the vampire’s fault,” Roux grumbled.
“Not to mention the night crawler here, sneaking through your attic,” Bene pointed to Henrik, who huffed.
“Vampires do not crawl.”
They did sneak, though.
“The point is, you wouldn’t hurt me purposely, right?” I asked, then chilled. Maybe they would.
Never, Marius’s eyes blazed.
“Of course not,” Roux said. “But having us here puts you in danger.”
“Wouldn’t having a bunch of bodyguards here keep me safer?” I reasoned.
Roux and Henrik stared. Bene guffawed.
“Bodyguards? Is that what he told you?”
Now, that didn’t bode well.
“Er…yes,” I peeped.
Marius cursed under his breath. “Fucking Gordon…”
“Lady, we ain’t no bodyguards,” Bene quipped.
My mind spun. Not bodyguards? Then why did they train all day? Leaping over obstacles, practicing hand-to-hand combat, rappelling from the roof, working out various ways to force entry…
Then it dawned on me, and I yelped. “You’re mercenaries?”
“I prefer security contractor,” Bene said. “Mercenary sounds so…”
“Unethical? Illegal?” I supplied.
Roux and Bene looked chagrined, while Henrik and Marius showed little remorse.
“Who’s unethical — us or the man who hires us?” Henrik asked.
“Both!” I blurted without thinking.
“Bingo,” Bene pointed at me.
And, yikes. He meant my godfather.
“But… But…”
Bene patted my arm. “I’m sure he’s a very nice guy…”
Henrik snarled, and Roux shifted uncomfortably in his seat.
“…to you, at least,” Bene continued with a major qualifier.
“Why would Gordon need mercenaries?” I demanded. “He runs an import-export business—” I stopped short, then broke into a long, drawn-out, “Ohhh.”
Bene handed me a macaron.
I’d never asked Gordon much about the business. All I knew was that he focused on rare cars and other luxury goods.
I winced, because luxury goods could encompass all sorts of things.
And, huh. I’d always wondered why, for all Gordon’s unwavering support, he hadn’t offered me any of the internships he mentioned from time to time.
He hadn’t asked my sister or cousin either, though he’d supported us in every other way.
I gulped and clutched for straws. “Gordon has always been kind and generous. He wouldn’t get me involved in anything bad.”
Marius pointed toward the garden. “He has now.”
“Strange that he chose to call at precisely this moment,” Roux added quietly.
“Gordon often calls to check in!” I insisted.
“At this hour?” Roux pointed to the clock.
“No, but…” I ran out of steam there, and not even the macaron Bene pushed toward me helped.
The men looked around, daring one another to speak up.
What? I wanted to demand. What weren’t they telling me?
“Here’s the thing,” Bene finally spoke — gently, like he was breaking bad news to a child. Something along the lines of, the tooth fairy doesn’t exist. “Gordon sounded like he was expecting trouble. Like he was surprised you had nothing to report.”
True, but why? And why had the guys been so adamant that I not divulge the truth?
“If he knew about an intruder, he would have warned me. Right?” I declared.
Bene scratched his temple. Marius looked out the window.
“He would have told me,” I insisted, growing louder.
“Would he?” Roux asked gently.
I gaped. “Why wouldn’t he?”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Roux admitted, reaching for another macaron.
I snatched the tin away. My macarons, my house, my godfather. I would not let these men malign any of them.
“I can’t believe you suspect him of…of…” I stalled out there. “Of what?” I asked, genuinely perplexed.
No one spoke — par for the course with those four, especially when it came to touchy subjects — so I was left to puzzle it out for myself.
“You think Gordon knew the intruder was coming?” I tried.
Their expressions said no, and I threw up my hands. “Honestly. I would really appreciate a little up-front information for a change.”
“Sorry. We don’t do up-front information,” Bene said. “Comes with the job.”
Right. His mercenary job.
I put my face in my hands. I was harboring criminals. Murderers, for all I knew. Men who claimed my godfather had hired them and—
Then it hit me, and I jerked my head up. “You suspect Gordon of sending the intruder? That’s ridiculous.”
“Nah, but I’d bet the farm he knew someone was coming,” Bene said, helpful as ever.
Henrik nodded, and Marius did too.
“I agree,” Roux said, all matter-of-fact.
“An intruder sent by whom? To do what?” I demanded.
Marius crossed his arms and sent Roux a significant look. The tiger shifter nodded, and his words came in a clipped, military tone.
“That’s what we’ll find out. I promise you.”