Chapter 10 #2
‘The news is good. Since the John Novelle and Joseph Banderville accident, there has been nothing, no chatter about you at all. The reward for your whereabouts has been rescinded. Neither family seems to care where you are and they do not seek you.'
'What about the stalker?' I ask.
He shakes his head and lets out an annoyed growl. ‘Nothing. He is elusive. A ghost.'
Sauvage frowns. 'I thought perhaps it was my detective.
Perhaps he is like Clouseau, the fool from The Pink Panther.
But two others have found the same. Rien.
This clever specter cannot be found. He leaves no breadcrumbs, and, when he does, his breadcrumbs are false.
They lead nowhere. They waste time. Perhaps he was one of the men who is dead, but there is no way to be sure. '
'So should I still stay out of sight, or not?' I ask.
'It is up to you, chéri. If you want to stay in this hotel, of course you may, for as long as you desire. But should you want to go to the university, I can have a couple of my men accompany you, make sure you're safe.'
'You’d do that?' I ask.
'Of course.'
I cock my head at him.
'What is it you want from me?' I ask bluntly.
His lip twitches. 'No games with you,' he murmurs. 'It is one of the things I enjoy about your company. Your mind. It is lacking in deception. A breath of fresh air.'
When I say nothing, he shrugs. ‘Why does anyone do anything? I like you. I do not have any daughters of my own. Only my son.'
He looks at his watch.
'Does he ever visit you?' I ask.
Sauvage's mouth upturns. 'Sometimes. But he is a young man now. He makes his own way in this world.’
He raises a sardonic brow. 'Mostly using his papa's money. But at least he is in Geneva. The trouble he will get into will at least be French trouble.'
'Don't you mean Swiss trouble?' I ask.
'Semantics,' he murmurs. 'So, what will you do?'
I frown at him. 'I’m not sure,’ I say. 'I do like staying here.
It's nice not to have to go out there and be around people, and have to look over my shoulder all the time.
But I'm pretty sure that if I don't start leaving my comfort zone, I'm going to become an agoraphobe, and I don't really want that. So…'
‘You must spread your wings once more,’ Sauvage nods sagely.
‘Like a butterfly,' he murmurs. 'Or perhaps a scarab beetle.'
'A scarab beetle?' I ask.
'One of my ancestors on my mother's side was Egyptian,’ he explains. ‘There it represents birth, rebirth, and creation.'
He smiles. 'The sun.'
'I'm like the sun?' I ask.
He nods. 'Bright. Renewal. Transformation and protection and immortality. Resurrection. You are transformed. No longer the girl who came, who stayed because her stepfather told her to. No longer the girl who was unsure of herself. You are a new creature, I think.'
I wonder if he's going to talk about blooming flowers like he usually does, but he seems to have moved on to desert insects.
'Maybe,' I say a little dubiously, standing up to leave. ‘I have to get back upstairs.’
Sauvage stands as well.
'Thanks for letting me know,' I say, turning to leave.
'I will ensure you are protected, chéri,' the Frenchman says, and I'm still not really sure why he cares about me, but, as Douglas would say, probably best not to look a gift horse in the mouth.
I walk toward the door, but a thought crosses my mind and I turn back around. 'Do you have contacts in the UK?' I ask.
'I have contacts everywhere.'
'There was a reporter at The Heath when I was there.
She was undercover. I gave her documents.
I wondered if she had… I don't know her real name, but I hoped that she would be a whistleblower, that she'd make it so that The Heath was shut down.
But I haven't heard anything. There hasn't been anything on the news there about it that I’ve seen. '
‘I will have someone look into it for you.'
'Thanks.'
I leave Pierre’s office and go back up to our penthouse.
When the elevator opens, all three of my guys are sitting on the couch. My stomach clenches.
Time for the talk.
‘Hi,’ I say awkwardly, intending to sit down across from them so we can communicate, but Shade gets up and practically lunges across the room, taking me in a giant hug, picking me up off the ground.
‘I’m so sorry,’ he says, drawing back and looking into my eyes.
‘I’m so sorry, Daisy. I didn’t mean to make you feel like you were being frozen out.
With my dad and Andy, I’ve just been... It’s no excuse.
But I promise I’ll talk to you about everything, not to be so in my own head, okay?
We never meant to make you feel like that. ’
Very surprised, all I can do is nod and look past him at Mav who gives me a thumbs-up. ‘I thought I’d do the hard part,’ he says.
‘Thanks,’ I say, finding my voice.
I glance at Blake. He’s sitting in the corner of the room. He’s watching me, but he’s not giving anything away.
If he wants to walk away from this, I’ll try to make it as easy as I can, I silently promise. I don’t want him to be hurt.
He doesn’t move, doesn’t say anything as Shade brings me over to the couch and sits with me.
It's been days since I've really looked at Shade properly, I realize. He looks so tired. I’m hit with another pang of guilt that I was being such a jerk.
'What is it?' I ask.
He leans back with a sigh, closing his eyes and resting his head on the back of the couch.
'I didn’t mean to keep you out of the loop. It wasn’t intentional. It’s just…a lot, you know?’
‘I know,’ I say.
‘The will reading…’
Shade draws his fingers through his hair and stands abruptly, beginning to pace around the room.
‘My asshole of a father gave Andy everything,’ he suddenly snarls, and even Blake’s eyes widen a little at the vehemence in Shade’s tone.
‘I'm not even surprised, it's just— Fuck!
We've got the club because it was in my name, and a small trust from my mom, but everything else is Andy's now. Even the shares of the company that were always supposed to be split between us. And then he fucked with the grants. We can’t even get into the lab anymore. I tried this afternoon. I was locked out.’
His eyes cut to Mav. ‘I’m sorry about the grant. About everything.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ Mav says.
‘But he’s my brothe—’
‘Who’s just a rotten apple that didn’t fall far from the tree,’ Mav finishes with a shrug. ‘Fuck him.’
Shade nods.
‘Fuck him,’ he echoes, then looks at me and winces. 'He fired Stevens. He said he can't work with his leg messed up.'
'Stevens?' I ask, immediately afraid for him. 'But where's he going to go? What's he going to do?'
'I spoke to him earlier. He has some money stashed away.
He's okay for now, but he's…he's more than a little shocked.
He told me he's been a butler for too long to be anything else, and he isn't sure what to do now.
We'll make sure he's okay. For now, he has a small apartment in Richmond, so he's not out on the streets. '
'Jesus,’ Blake says, speaking for the first time. ‘Your brother is such a dick.’
‘Yeah, he is,’ Shade agrees, still pacing.
I look over at Blake. When he sees me eyeing him, his lips thin.
'There's something I need to tell you guys as well,’ he says, sounding like he’d rather be anywhere but here.
Is it that he’s a liar?
I look away from him. With how he’s been, I’m not sure I really want to know what he’s been keeping from the group.
'What is it?' Mav asks.
'Remember when my dad sent me that note and I had to go to the prison and I wasn't really sure what the point was?’ He stands and turns toward the window, looking out.
‘Well, turns out he wanted me to go so that I could be evaluated. I guess Kormak gave him some kind of kickback.'
'What are you talking about?' Mav asks. ‘For what?’
'Kormak sold my father’s debt.'
Shade finally stops pacing. 'To who?'
'Some drug cartel based out of Venezuela or Colombia.'
Blake sits down on the couch close by.
'What does that mean?' I ask.
'Pretty much the same shit, different day, different boss.'
‘But the stuff you did for Kormak,’ I begin, but he just stands up and turns away.
I glance between Shade and Mav. Both of them look very grim.
'The cartel has got to be worse than Kormak,' Mav mutters.
‘Does Sauvage know about it?' Shade asks.
'He's the one who told me. He says that there's nothing that he can do. Even he won't pay the debt.' He glances up at us. 'And I wouldn't want him to.'
Privately, I think that being in Sauvage's pocket would be better than being in some drug cartel's. But I don't say that out loud.
'What are we going to do?' I ask.
'There's nothing you can do,' Blake says with a finality that I don't like. 'I just have to keep working. Pay the money owed. Not be seen with you guys.'
'This isn't fair,' I mutter.
'Life isn't fair, Daisy,' Blake says not unkindly.
He leaves the room, closing the door into the bedroom with a soft click that belies the finality of his statement.
'This isn't right,' I murmur. 'Everything's going wrong.'
Mav, and then Shade, and now Blake.
'I'm just going to go down to the lab,' I murmur. ‘Check Envy.’
Mav gives me a knowing look that I ignore. I go back down to Sauvage's office. Thomas stops me at the door.
'He hasn't called for you,' he says.
'I know.' I fidget under his perusal. 'I just need to talk to him.'
He presses his ear and murmurs that I'm out in the hall.
'Yes, sir,' he murmurs, and then he opens the door.
Sauvage is still sitting at his desk.
'Is everything all right, chéri?' he asks.
'No,' I say. 'Mav has lost his grant to make his non… to make the drug that he was trying to make. Shade's brother has taken everything from him, and now Blake—'
'Ah,' Sauvage says, 'the cartel. He has told you. Foolish boy.'
I look at Sauvage sharply.
'The truth is more important to me than anything else,' I say. 'Information kept from me on purpose just makes me distrustful.'
He doesn't say anything.
'Are you keeping things from me too?'