Dagger #2
Maelle brought the team up to speed in under three minutes. She covered the invoices, the union deal, the bonuses, that Rémy was warned and likely scrubbing the books since breakfast, the copies of everything already in our files, and the coup de grace—tomorrow’s VIP guest.
“Géraud?” Beacon asked.
“That’s who we’re anticipating,” I said.
“One rule above everything,” Beacon continued. “Do nothing that makes him look at either of you twice for the wrong reason. If he leaves that party comfortable, we keep every advantage we have. If he leaves it suspicious, we lose them all.”
“Understood,” I said.
“Preacher and Cassidy—you’ll remain in France until this is finished,” Blackjack added.
“Roger that,” they both responded as the videoconference ended.
Maelle laid out a schematic of the cuverie, marked their positions upon arrival, and added all door codes.
“Any questions?” she asked.
“All good,” said Cassidy.
“Deployment time?” Preacher asked.
“In position by nineteen hundred,” I answered.
After testing the comms, Maelle and I stood.
“One more thing,” she said. “My duress word is Provence.”
“Copy that,” said Preacher. Cassidy nodded.
Dinner that night was quieter than it had been since Maelle and I arrived. Bertrand held Chantal’s chair, filled her glass before his own, and asked twice whether she was warm enough.
“Who are you?” Chantal teased. “And what have you done with my husband?”
He didn’t answer. Maelle, who was seated across from me rather than next to me, caught my eye across the table but didn’t speak.
Later, once we were in bed, she fit herself against my side.
“Are you awake?” she asked.
“I am, as are you.”
“I don’t know how I’ll stand next to my father for four hours and smile,” she confessed.
“Sure you do. It’s an op, Maelle. Look at it that way instead.”
“That is not comforting, Killian.”
I turned and nuzzled her neck. “It wasn’t meant to be. It was meant to be true.”
She was quiet for a while. “If Géraud does show up, how do I stop myself from killing him?”
“Remind yourself he might not be the man at the top. We want to know who Vasiliev worked for or with. The best way we can do that with the information we currently have is to get as much out of Géraud as we can while he’s still useful.”
“And when he no longer is, then I can kill him?”
I smiled against her hair. “Yes, mon feu.”
She fell asleep holding my hand.
By noon the following day, the cuverie was unrecognizable. Marthe ran three crews and put me wherever lifting was required. Chantal took Maelle somewhere after lunch, and I didn’t see her again until seven.
“In position since nineteen hundred,” Preacher said in my ear while I knotted my tie. “This winery is colder than Vaduz.”
“It’s called a cuverie, and put on a jacket,” Maelle said, smiling as she fastened an earring.
She wore a dark-green dress that hugged her curves so perfectly. I wanted to call off our appearance, strip her naked, and fuck her senseless. That, sadly, would have to wait.
At half eight, we crossed to the cuverie and stood beside Bertrand and Chantal as requested.
Chantal kissed cheeks, laughed in all the right places, and even when she wasn’t laughing, her smile never left her face.
Families whose names were printed on half the labels in Burgundy came through the doors, and every one of them had known Maelle since before she could walk.
Without fail, they mentioned it had been too long since she’d last been home and how pleased they were to see her.
And, as they walked past her “friend from London,” both the men and women looked me up and down.
Bertrand shook every hand and said all the right things while looking over the shoulder of whoever he was speaking to, clearly watching for his guest of honor.
By a quarter past, no one else came through the doors. Bertrand remained where he was, waiting.
Chantal put her hand on his sleeve. “You should make an announcement.”
He let her take his arm. Twice on the way into the room, he turned and looked at the doors over the head of whoever was speaking to him.
I stayed where I was and listened through the comms when Maelle followed her father.
“Papa?”
“Chérie.”
“What about your special guest?”
“He hasn’t arrived.”
“Who is he?”
“Aristide Géraud,” he said. “He’s with Maison Fontenay. Our biggest customer. Not only Valais’, but all of Burgundy.”
“You’re disappointed.”
“Oui. Come with me. We’re celebrating anyway.” Bertrand stepped around her, went to the middle of the room, and motioned for me to join them.
When he raised his glass, all conversation stopped. “I’d planned to keep this until midnight,” he said, “but I find I cannot wait any longer.”
Several servers walked through the room, carrying trays of champagne. They arrived far too quickly for an idea he’d had that moment.
“Clearly, he had no intention of waiting until the stroke of twelve,” I muttered.
“He would never miss the chance to be the center of attention,” she whispered in response.
“Tonight, I have the honor of announcing the engagement of my daughter, Maelle, to Monsieur Killian Rourke.”
Those in the room clapped and murmured their good wishes.
“Congratulations to Rourke, who had the sense to ask her. And to my Maelle”—he lifted his glass to her alone—“every happiness. Your mother and I are proud of you. That you will be staying on with us these next months is the finest gift we’ve been given in years.”
Their eyes met over a hundred raised glasses. She didn’t look away, and neither did he. I stood a half step behind her and hoped to God she could see the same thing I could.
Behind him, Rémy stood in a corner, with his glass at his chest. He didn’t raise it, and he didn’t clap.
The receiving line dissolved into the party, and for an hour, Maelle worked the room. Growers, cellar masters, multi-generational owners, and in some cases, the widows who ran the estates their husbands’ names were still on, all had a story about her at six years old or as a teenager.
An older man grabbed my sleeve and told me I was marrying into the finest family in Burgundy.
When Chantal leaned into him, Bertrand walked her to a chair at the quiet end of the room and stood behind it with his hand on her shoulder.
Rémy hadn’t left his corner. He answered whoever came to him in three words and returned to his glass.
“Preacher, Cassidy,” I said into the comms. “Stay on Rémy.”
“Roger that,” Cassidy responded.
“He’s got a call coming in,” she said at twenty-two hundred.
A second later, I heard Rémy through her mic.
“Where the fuck are you?”
There were a few seconds of silence, followed by, “I’m on my way.”
“If there’s a chance he’s meeting Géraud, I’m going with him,” said Maelle.
I shut off my mic. “Be careful, mon feu.” I turned it back on. “Find out where he’s going, then give us time to get ahead of you.”
She put her glass on a passing tray and crossed the room. I turned to face away from the crowd and listened.
“Where are you off to, cousin?” she asked him.
“There’s an alarm going off in the fermentation room.”
“I’ll come with you. You know how I hate crowds like this.”
“I’d tell you to stay and enjoy yourself, but you’re right. I know you won’t,” he joked.
“Stall him for two minutes,” I said. “Preacher, you’re with me. We’ll go in at the far end of the vat house. Cassidy, come in through the other door.”
“Roger,” they both said.
Preacher and I went out through a side door and crossed the yard. The roll door was down. The service door beside it opened with the code Maelle had given us at the cottage.
Inside, the tanks stood in two rows under a catwalk. No lights were on, and no alarms sounded, but they could be through a mobile alert instead.
A man stood between two of the tanks, with his hands at his sides, facing away from us. He turned as if he’d heard a sound. Preacher and I remained still, giving me a chance to get a good look at him.
“It’s Géraud,” I said.
I moved up the far side of the row, keeping the tanks between him and me. Preacher hid at the other end of the space. Cassidy came in through another door silently.
“I’m in,” she said.
“Take position behind the third vat from the back,” I told her.
“Roger.”
“Maelle. He’s standing between the fourth and fifth tanks, with his back to me. I don’t see anyone else in the building.”
“Copy,” she whispered.
“Nobody moves unless I signal.”
“Copy,” said Preacher.
When the latch on the yard door lifted, I crouched in the dark between the tanks and waited.