Chapter 15 #2
He clears his throat. “I’m sure you’re aware that I was part of the voting council that removed your grandfather from the Synd—”
“I never knew my grandfather,” I growl quietly. “He died before I was born. And none of this is rooted in vengeance, I can promise you.”
He nods slowly.
“Well,” I jerk my chin at the other man. “What about your little friend here.”
Gordon’s eyes narrow. “Beaumont isn’t any friend of mine. That’s no secret.”
I smile calmly. “Regardless, is he involved?”
Jameson’s head snaps around and he glares death at Gordon. “You throw me under the bus, and I’ll fucking—”
“I don’t know,” Gordon says evenly, shaking his head. “I really don’t. All I can say is, I’m not involved. I swear that on my life and on the Syndicate.”
I sigh. I wish I could believe him, because he really does sound believable.
The problem is, I know he’s lying, because I have proof of his involvement in the coup.
Not a smoking-gun proof, where I’ll be killing the two of them tonight.
But proof enough to strip them both of their territories and council privileges within the Syndicate.
And I have proof because Quentin has proof.
“Well?” Gideon murmurs quietly, turning his back on the two men to speak quietly with me. “They’re both Syndicate lifers. Neither of them is going to spill anything about anyone they may have been working with. You might as well cut their throats now.”
I’d love to take his advice. But I can’t kill two senior members without a smoking gun and not expect it to turn into a massive problem.
“Well?” Jameson spits venomously. “You gonna kill us, young kinglet?”
“I have a better idea.” I eye them both coldly. “You’re both hereby stripped of your territories, leadership positions and council privileges, until further notice.”
Jameson balks, his face going ashen. Gordon just grits his teeth.
I glance to Sebastian. “Cut them loose.” I turn back to them. “You’re both welcome to stay the night. There are guest quarters for you, and I’ll provide a doctor and fresh clothes, if you wish.”
“Fuck you,” Jameson snaps, rubbing his wrists as Seb cuts him free.
Gordon just bows his head. “I thank you for your justness and mercy, Marquis,” he says quietly and without malice. “I would be an honor to stay under your roof tonight.”
I smile sadly.
Gordon is a good man. I wish he wasn’t involved in this shit. But unfortunately, proof doesn’t lie.
“Can I assume you’ve been playing Dungeon with the other boys?”
I smile as I step through the hidden passageway in the bookshelf of my study and see the brunette with the pretty blue eyes.
“You’re early.”
Sabine shrugs, grinning at me as she wheels over. I meet her halfway, dropping down on my haunches to give her a hug.
“Pfft. I was bored with Paris.”
I snort. “Really.”
“Vraiment.” She winks. “Trust me,” she purrs in her mild Parisian accent, “a little Paris goes a long way.”
I chuckle as I walk over to the bar cart near the windows. “Are you drinking?”
“Oui. Whiskey, merci.”
I pour us each a splash and walk back to her wheelchair, handing her a glass and then clinking mine against it. “So…what do you think?” I arch my brows and then raise my eyes to the room around us.
She whistles as she looks up at the gilded ceiling. “Mon Dieu, this house! Fuck!” She laughs and shakes her head, running her manicured nails through her dark chestnut hair. “I mean, I’d seen pictures, but… This is a castle, Vaughn.”
I chuckle. “Well, they do say a man’s home is his castle.”
“And you, as always, take things so literally.” She shakes her head and takes a sip of her drink. “Seriously, the house is gorgeous. And merci for the elevator,” she adds, looking away as she takes another sip.
“I considered ordering Seb and Carson to be your designated mode of transportation whenever you needed to go up and down any stairs.”
She laughs. “I’m sure they’d have loved that. But the elevator is probably easier.”
I grin, lifting my glass. “Fuck, it’s going to be great having you here.”
I go way back with Sabine Lourde, almost as far as Seb, Carson, and Gideon. When I was a kid, her father, Stellan, became a mentor to me. He was in the upper echelons of the Syndicate, and I guess he saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself yet.
He nurtured it. He showed me the ropes and a path up through the ranks so that I didn't spend my whole life as a low-level thug or street enforcer. He became like a father to me—more than my actual dad ever was.
And then, two years ago, a bombing orchestrated by Diego Torvallés killed that father figure and put Sabine in a wheelchair a month after her twenty-first birthday.
Since then, I’ve taken her under my wing, almost like the little sister I never had. She doesn't need my protection: paraplegic or not, she’s one of the toughest motherfuckers I’ve ever met. But still.
Stellan made me his family.
So now I’ve made his daughter mine.
Sabine’s spent a lot of the last four months working under Gaspard Leclerc, the senior Syndicate officer who essentially runs France for me.
She’s been back and forth a lot: sometimes in New York with me, sometimes back in Paris.
Recently, she admitted that she’d rather be in the States fulltime with me and my crew of psychopathic misfits.
She’s in the middle of getting her own place in the city. But for now, she’ll be staying here at Blackbriar Hall.
My brows knit. “Look, it's not that I don’t want you here…”
“Uh oh,” she gulps dramatically.
I roll my eyes. “The city might be…you know…a bit more manageable in terms of getting around. You might feel cooped up here in the house all the time.”
She shrugs. “Yes, but if I move to the city, I’ll miss out on all the hiking trails and rock climbing I keep hearing the Adirondacks are so famous for.”
I sigh. She grins impishly at me.
“Gallows humor, Vaughn.” She snickers. “Or more like gal-rolls humor.”
I groan as she snorts at her own terrible joke.
We chat a bit longer before jet lag catches up with her and she heads off to check out the elevator I had installed a month ago and go to her bedroom.
I pour myself another drink and head up to the observatory: a huge, glass-enclosed room set on one of the gothic rooflines of the mansion, with panoramic views of the mountains and the woods stretching out in almost every direction.
It doesn’t take long for Quentin to show up.
“This house is getting crowded.”
I nod, my gaze still piercing through the window, drinking in the last shards of sunlight as the sun dips behind a peak.
“You’re sure she won’t be a distraction?” he says quietly.
“She’s family,” I growl through my teeth. “She’s not going anywhere, if that’s what you’re implying.”
“I wasn’t implying anything of the kind, Vaughn.”
I turn, taking a slow sip of my drink.
“The proof you found was…helpful,” I murmur.
“The proof that we found,” he smirks, nodding sagely as he leans against the bookshelves near the door. Although you have…doubts.”
I frown. “Jameson Beaumont is obviously part of it. The arrogant prick spent his life with his tongue up Veyrac’s asshole.” I shake my head. “But Gordon…”
“Everyone has a side they don’t let the rest of the world see, Vaughn.” He tilts his head. “You of all people should know that.”
“It just doesn’t add up. He has more to lose going against me than to gain.”
“You’ve seen the proof, though.”
I nod unhappily. Quentin sighs.
“A king’s job is never easy, Vaughn. The sword of Damocles is always hanging by that goddamn thread over your head.” He leans on his cane, looking over his glasses at me, then his brow furrows as he delicately clears his throat.
“Will she be a problem?”
“I told you, Sabine is fam—”
“I’m not talking about Sabine.”
My eyes snap to his. Rabid anger snarls inside me.
“No,” I growl. “She won't. Because she won’t be involved with the Syndicate going forward.”
Quentin nods slowly. “Good. You mustn’t be distracted right now, Vaughn.”
“I’m not.”
“Every man can be distracted by a pretty face.”
“I said I’m not,” I snap.
Quentin just arches his brows.
“There is one other thing.”
I rub my temples tiredly. “What.”
“Carson was…casual with you, earlier.”
I frown as I glance up at him. “Of course he was. He’s one of my best friends.”
“Yes, but there’s a time and a place. Arthur was good friends with a few of his knights. But the round table came first. Remember that.” He peers at me over the rim of his glasses again. “There may come a time sooner than you know when Carson King becomes less a friend and more of a liability—”
“This conversation is over.”
The words snap coldly from my lips. The observatory goes silent as I turn away, looking back out through the glass at the now darkened mountains.
“I’m merely here to help, Vaughn.”
“I know.”
“To see a legacy fulfilled.”
I nod, still looking out the windows as silence bathes the room. Eventually I turn to him, but of course he’s gone now.
“Thanks, Grandfather,” I murmur to the now-empty room. I lift my drink and swallow the last of the whiskey, then exhale as I leave the observatory.
Yes, it would have been nice to have Quentin Bancroft here to see all this unfold. But that’s a pipe dream.
He’s been dead for thirty years.