Episode 15 #3
Ellisandre’s eyes unfocused, clearly contemplating.
Their hair was long and white for the week, streaks of gray layered in.
They were wearing a matching pale gray pinstripe suit and an icy pale pink silk shirt with large knots at the throat and sleeves that billowed at the wrists and ended in buttoned cuffs.
Their mascara was white, as were their lips.
“You know white is the color of mourning,” Damian said.
Ellisandre’s lips lifted in a smile. “All things must end.” They tilted their head.
“I’ve alerted security of the potential threat.
Holden is passing Sahyuk’s image around to those we trust. We can’t tip our hand to knowing.
The Merchari left a replacement in Sahyuk’s place.
The U.S. system still thinks he’s in custody. ”
“Seems unlikely a replacement wouldn’t be recognized.”
“They have their ways.”
Damian nodded. He didn’t need to know.
Ellisandre held up an earring. It was identical to what Jun was wearing on stage at that very moment. Damian had ordered specialized tags to match Jun’s outfits for the show. “I know you tag your boy. Perhaps use this one instead. If you give me his others, I’ll add trackers to them as well.”
“You think they may take him.”
Ellisandre’s lips thinned. “Not them. Sahyuk. I’ve studied his dossier.
Classic narcissist. Calm when in control and receiving adoration, even generous when feeling on top.
Cruel and desperate when stripped, prone to irrational behavior and short-term satisfaction when suffering emotional injury.
No one has stripped more from him than Jun. ”
“You think he may defy the Merchari, after they broke him out.”
“He’s not stable. Not right now. The Merchari are motivated by profit.
They’re eating out of Jun’s hand with these ticket sales.
” Ellisandre motioned to the large venue around them.
“They’re already calculating their cut of this event, and all the rest. Money for practically nothing.
A famous figure in their pocket. Everything they live for.
Sahyuk’s needs and the Merchari have diverged.
They just don’t know it yet. They want him to take a lower level, quieter position for a few years, do the grunt work it takes to set up new networks, things he did in his late twenties that built his reputation.
Sahyuk, now, sees that as below him. Since Jun started working he hasn’t needed to build up his base.
He’s had Jun’s bank accounts to open doors.
Standing on his own criminal merits without slave labor terrifies him.
The fact he hasn’t sold his daughters or his wife already is only because Jun has stayed in the news, thus keeping them there.
It’s good you moved them. It may not be enough. ”
“They left for Ireland this morning.”
“He’ll likely focus on Jun for the moment, or work to manipulate someone close to him. His opinion of women is low.”
“We should put trackers on the entire team. Gigi and Mi Hi, too.”
“On it.” Ellisandre stood up. “Keep that one. Put it on him as soon as possible. Tell him. He should mentally prepare for facing that aberration.”
Damian nodded. “How are you?”
Ellisandre paused, fingers brushing the top of a chair. “I—we—have a mission.” They met Damian’s eyes, a firmness and a coldness that went beyond the icy sheen of the highlighter across their cheekbones. “We’ll find out the rest after.”
“You’re ours, too, you know that,” Damian said.
Ellisandre’s lips widened slightly. They lowered their eyes, then raised them again. “I’m not Residency.”
“No, you’re Linda’s Menagerie, sister duchy to the Residency and sworn allies in all things sacred and profane.”
Ellisandre laughed, surprise and amusement flitting over their face. “I’m going to tell her you said that.”
Damian ticked names off his fingers. “You, Linda, Ash, Alice, Dana, Maribel. Don’t tell me it’s not a menagerie.”
“I can think of no better term, other than family, though the Residency is within that circle. We accept. Her ladyship shall be informed.”
Damian smiled. “Perhaps you will add names to that list soon.”
Ellisandre inclined their head.
Jun came out of the bathroom into their room with a towel over his head, rubbing his hair dry. Water ran down the side of his thigh and back behind his knee. Gorgeous . And no time to take advantage of all that naked skin. “We need to have a hunt when we get back.”
Jun groaned. “It’s been forever since we had anything.” He dropped the towel over the back of a chair and reached for underwear.
“Wait.”
Jun turned around. “What?”
Damian held up the new tag Ellisandre had delivered. “I need to change out your tag.”
“Oh.” Jun crossed to the bed and dropped to his knees in front of Damian, tilting his head to the side. “Why? They look the same.”
“This one,” Damian said, unscrewing the tag in Jun’s ear and swapping it out, “has a tracker.”
“Kinky.” Jun layered as much innuendo as possible into the word, but stayed still until Damian was done. “It feels heavier.”
“We’re giving everyone a tracker. Ellisandre stopped by to talk. They have word from Sevastyan. Your father’s been broken out of prison.”
Jun grimaced, still on his knees. He fiddled with the tag, turning the tiger eye jewel and silver and gold dangles this way and that. “You’re worried he’ll come here.”
“Ellisandre gives it good odds. They’ve profiled him: charming as long as he gets his way, desperate and revengeful when crossed.”
“I’ve more than crossed him.” Jun touched Damian’s knee and stood, going back to getting dressed. “Is everyone being tracked?”
“Everyone we legally can. Mi Hi and Gigi as well. We even have trackers on Maribel and Artemis back home.”
“Our security bill is astronomical.”
“Fortunately, Richard has a hero complex and is not overly attached to money.”
Jun snorted and smiled. “Should start calling him Batman.”
While Jun prepared for the dinner that night with sponsors and celebrities, Damian filled him in on the rest of Ellisandre’s analysis.
Jun grimaced here and there. Damian came and stood beside him while Jun applied his makeup and styled his hair.
It was getting long and Jun refused to even consider cutting it.
He’d decided to grow it out to at least his shoulders.
But it did make styling take longer. Damian approved. More to grab.
As Damian explained Sahyuk’s resentment towards starting over and his reliance on Jun’s income, Jun paused in his work.
He straightened up to be eye to eye with Damian, a wrinkle in the middle of his forehead.
“I wonder, sometimes, if he’s the reason Mama never came back.
If he had gotten used to the money, there wasn’t any good reason for him to let me go, so did he… just make sure…” Jun shrugged.
Who would want to have to say what they were both thinking?
“I think it’s a possibility we have to consider.” Damian said.
“I’ve been considering it for months. When I saw Rei—when I realized they all were connected. It just…it would have been easy for him to make her disappear, to even make money off it.”
Damian shoved his hands in his pockets. “He’s evil.”
“Yes, he is.” Jun went back to doing his makeup.
They entered the restaurant for the meal an hour later, side by side, walking in front of Richard and Collin.
émeric and Linda were hosting a dinner elsewhere for a different set of people.
Ellisandre, for once, had chosen to accompany Richard and Collin, but they were playing assistant for the evening, not host. Which was a fancy way of saying they were running security.
“The Merchari are here, watching,” Jun said as they entered the banquet room at the back of the establishment. “Standing on the right, holding the champagne flute, black suit, round-rimmed glasses.”
A spike of danger shot through Damian’s nerves but he said nothing, face carefully cheerful, greeting guests for a couple of seconds before glancing in the direction indicated.
Of course the Merchari were watching. They’d given Jun a year, only five months of which had passed.
Even so, their investment was about to prove itself one way or another.
Jun went on bowing and shaking hands beside him.
The Merchari agent who’d crashed the comeback party was standing beside one of the sponsors for the venue, chatting and looking at home in the swirl of well-dressed guests.
It was different seeing him in person, rather than on the security footage they’d used to help Jun identify him before.
Damian worked the room in that direction.
He recognized and called out the sponsor by name, gripping arms together and giving air kisses.
They were European, after all. “I’m afraid I don’t… ” Damian said, turning to the Merchari.
“My plus-one of the evening,” the sponsor said. “One of our suppliers and long-time friend. Sathers, meet Neumann, Neumann, Sathers.”
The man didn’t look German, despite the name.
Hardly his real name, most likely. Damian went through the motions of handshaking and smiling.
He welcomed them both to the dinner, not letting the ick of sitting down with someone comfortable buying and selling human beings settle on his tongue.
They had a plan, a trap. He just had to stick with it to the end.
How could such a monster look and sound so normal? Because in the end, most of them did.
Just like Thaddeus had. Just like Bak Gyeong had. Demons in demure facades.
Mi Hi summoned everyone to sit a few moments later. As the crowd moved towards their seats, Neumann put himself in Jun’s path, addressing him. Jun spoke to him briefly, mask flawless. Damian couldn’t hear what was said.