Chapter 11 Brooks
Brooks
I lean down over the Ducati, my stomach to the casing around the tank and my eyes on the road ahead as I shoot through the dark night.
It’s past full dark now and the city around me is starting to put on its night-time face.
Street lamps and lights flash above me as I drive, and I can hear music starting to play from the houses around me.
People are on the sidewalks making their way to the clubs and restaurants, if they’re looking for legal entertainment, and the dance halls and gambling dens if they’re not.
Everyone is chatting and laughing as if they don’t have a care in the world.
Because they don’t know that the world is falling apart around them.
Or maybe that’s just me.
I go through what I know again, collecting all the information I managed to store in my brain.
Most of the details are on my phone, thanks to the pictures I took, but I can remember a few things.
The name of the girl. Anastasia Brayden.
The time for the operation: 10PM. The location where they’re either picking her up or dropping her off.
For that, I only have an address, and I wonder suddenly what I’m going to find there.
It’s near the port, almost on top of the water, though I know that only because Lucien used to take me to that area to get into the catacombs through some secret entrance he thought only he knew about.
My mind snags on that and I suddenly remember those days, when we were newly engaged and learning each other in a whole new way.
We’d been friends for years–or at least acquaintances who spent as much time together as we could whenever I was in town–and had kissed several times already.
When we found out we were going to be married, courtesy of the contract between our fathers, we’d both been giddy with excitement.
We’d run through the city every night like a couple of kids with all the money in the world to spend, and I thought at the time that I would never be happier.
I thought I’d found the love of my life, and my partner in crime.
I never thought I’d find out that my father was sending me to the Boudreaux house as a plant, or that I’d come to the conclusion that Lucien had to be in on it.
I also didn’t think Lucien would let me go. Which was why I left in the middle of the night without telling anyone but Camille. I thought Lucien would try to stop me, and even after I left, I thought he’d come after me.
News flash: He didn’t. He never even called. Didn’t write or send carrier pigeons, and when I asked, Camille told me he’d never approached her, asking for my location. Instead, he’d gone right into the city and started dating every girl he could get his hands on.
“Asshole,” I breathe.
I bend down further and push the bike to go even faster. I don’t have a lot of time between now and whatever’s happening at 10. I want to get to the address and find a place to hide before anyone else arrives. This is the best intel I’ve found so far, and I’m going to make it count.
The plan: Get to the drop-off (or pick-up) point and get my eyes on the girl in question. Then watch. I want to see who takes her and whether they have any identifying marks. If I can figure out who they’re working for, it’ll be perfect.
If I can stick with them and see where they take her, even better.
I’ll gather as much evidence as I can, and then save the girl and get the fuck out of there before anyone comes to help. That’s the easy part, though; I’ve got plenty of practice taking men down, so saving her will be easy.
As long as I get there in time.
As long as that code I saw on my father’s calendar means what I think it means.
I see the turn I need ahead and chance a glance over my shoulder, to make sure no one is going to get in my way. I don’t think anyone saw me leave my father’s house, so I should be in the clear, but you never know.
When I look back, I see a sedan I’ve never seen before.
It’s dark, the windows completely blacked out, and fast. I know it wasn’t there five minutes ago because I’ve been checking the rear-view mirror, just to make sure.
It must have come from some other street, and the noise of the New Orleans night is so raucous that I didn’t notice it.
Shit.
Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean that he’s following me. Maybe he just decided to drive to the club rather than walk.
I take aim at the street I want and slow just enough to make the turn, skidding through it at a speed that’s barely safe, the tires jumping along the asphalt below me and screeching when I hit the gas again.
I shoot up the street, trying to gain as much speed as possible.
If that guy is following me, he won’t be able to take the corner as quickly.
I want to have plenty of distance between us by the time he gets straight again.
When I glance over my shoulder, though, I’m shocked at what I see. He’s taken the corner at a speed I wouldn’t have thought possible, performing a nearly perfect Tokyo drift to get around it without tipping the car onto its side.
God dammit.
I turn back around and slam on the accelerator, rethinking my route and trying to put as many turns in as I can afford.
I don’t have a lot of time to get to the destination, but I also don’t want to get there with company.
I don’t know who the fuck is in that car, but if they’re taking a corner like that, they’re a better driver than anyone I’ve ever met.
And they’re evidently set on catching me.
***
By the time I reach my destination I’m breathing heavily, strung out on adrenaline and stress and feeling jittery.
But I also lost the guy. I’m sure of it. I took corners he couldn’t take and used alleys he wouldn’t fit in, and he fell behind me ten minutes ago. I’ve kept a close eye on my mirrors and haven’t seen him since, and I think I might have actually pulled it off.
I bring the bike to a stop and wheel it up next to a building, where it’s hidden in the shadows. Beyond me, a parking lot sits bright and well-let in the darkness.
And beyond that, a graveyard full of vaults and headstones.
I frown at that, trying to remember which cemetery this is, and remember so suddenly that it feels like my head is going to explode with the knowledge. I’ve seen that cemetery before. Many times. Lucien used to bring me here as often as he could.
Because that’s where his supposedly secret entrance to the catacombs is.
I grab for my phone, panicked that I remembered the address wrong, and pull up the picture I took of my dad’s screen. Then I glance at the building next to me, and then the street sign.
This is the right address. But there’s nothing here except a parking lot and a graveyard. What the fuck am I doing here, and how are they going to kidnap a girl from a fucking graveyard?
Before I get any further into that thought a squeal of tires announces someone coming in hot, and I jump back against the wall next to my bike as a car barrels into the parking lot, then comes to hard stop. The engine cuts and there’s silence for a full moment.
Long enough for me to recognize the car that was following me.
I slide my hand into my jacket and grab the knife I always wear against my chest, then pull my Glock out of the holster on my back.
I didn’t expect to use them this early, but I came armed.
And this guy is about to find out why following me into a dark parking lot is a bad idea. I’m busy. I don’t need company.
When he opens the door and steps out of the car, though, all growling, piratical menace, I realize that it’s Lucien.
I sag, the adrenaline rushing out of me like someone’s put a drain in my side, and have to stop myself from actually running to him.
I’ve torn though the night–and my father’s house–without allowing myself to think about it too much, and at the sight of someone friendly–someone I used to trust with my life–I suddenly realize how much I’ve needed backup.
Suspecting that my father is behind everything, then facing him, then racing toward this parking lot without knowing for sure what I was going to do. ..
I didn’t give myself any time to think about it. But now that I see Lucien I know that a part of me was waiting for him to come support me.
And the moment I realize it, I put it away. Because I might have trusted him once, but that was a long time ago. These days, I don’t know who he is or what he wants. I do know that he’s keeping secrets from me. And I don’t like when people keep secrets.
Though his face when he tears toward me tell me that he dislikes me almost as much as I dislike him right now.
“What are you doing here?” I ask. “And how the hell did you find me?”
Instead of answering, he reaches behind my ear, making me twitch, and pulls something out of my hair, holding it up in front of my face.
“When I realized you were missing and found my idiot cousin to ask what happened, I called Camille, who was kind enough to tell me that you’d gone to your father’s house. And then I turned on the tracking device.”
I shove him back, even angrier than I was thirty seconds ago. “You put a tracking device on me?”
He grins. “Of course I did.”
I didn’t think I could get angrier, but I was wrong. I want to slap the grin right off his face. “Why?”
He bites his lip and gets as close to me as he can without actually touching me. “Because I’ve known you a long time, Brooks. And I know you’re almost never where you’re supposed to be. I figured I’d need a way to find you before you got into any trouble. Now what the fuck are we doing here?”
I open my mouth to answer but anger and shock have stolen my voice, and it takes me several minutes to remember how to speak.
By the time I get there, I’ve gone through a change of heart.
I don’t like that he’s here and I fucking hate that he had the nerve to put a tracking device on me.
I want to slice his throat right here and now for daring.
But a very large part of me is disturbingly glad to see him, and more than a little bit heated at how close he is right now.
His woodsy scent is flooding my head and bringing back all sorts of memories, and somewhere inside me a little girl is screaming for someone to take care of her, and chanting Lucien’s name again and again and again.
She wants to believe we can still trust him, and that he might be the knight in shining armor we’ve always wanted.
I know he’s not. He’s a shadowy, smooth-talking pirate who will always choose what’s best for himself.
But as long as he’s offering to help, I’m going to let him.
Just to give that little girl a moment of hope.
“I broke into my father’s computer in his office and found the files he’s keeping on this trafficking ring,” I say quickly.
“Yes, he’s involved. No, I don’t know who he’s working for.
Yes, there were a lot of names and I took pictures.
He had a meeting set up on his calendar for this spot, starting in five minutes.
And the code indicated that a girl would be either picked up or dropped off.
I came to get to one of the men and find out what’s going on.
And to get the girl the hell out of here. ”
He blinks once, like he’s having trouble taking all of that in, and then scowls. “And you were going to do all of that without me?”
I just shrug. “I figured you were busy.”
He gives me a dark, humorless chuckle. “Never too busy for you, love. Let’s get set up.”