Chapter 13 Brooks
Brooks
The mansion I’m entering doesn’t look like the mansion I know.
I mean, it’s still gaudy and overblown. Gothic exterior with an interior that looks like it was designed by a French king.
Or French prostitutes. But there are enough gas lamps in here to light up the entire block, and heating lamps placed in the corners as well.
Those are unnecessary. The night is hot and humid, the air sticking to my skin as I walk through the front door and into the house itself.
I wonder, for a moment, who the hell talked my father into trying to heat the place in the middle of a New Orleans summer.
But the thought is lost at the sight that greets me.
Gone are the dark corners and spooky hallways of the house.
Gone is the feeling that someone might be hiding behind the door, waiting to catch you doing something you’re not supposed to.
The place is done in elegant ribbons and garlands of magnolia blossoms. Bouquets cover every possible surface and the ceiling is drenched in silk stars on strings.
Music is playing from somewhere—a real orchestra, if I’m guessing right—and everyone has a drink in their hand.
This is the mansion where I grew up, and yet it’s wearing a mask, trying to be something it’s not.
The air still tastes evil, though, and I shiver as it touches me. This place still holds bad things. It’s just dressed up for the night.
I turn my attention to the people, now, and scan the crowd.
Everyone is dressed to the nines and smells of money and power.
I spot people I know from the underworld—the heads of families and their underlings, plus sons and daughters and wives.
There are people I recognize from the society papers as well.
Heads of industries—or what pass for industries in New Orleans—and those who have inherited wealth.
Their faces are smooth and beautiful, their clothes expensive.
The people are also wearing masks.
I hiss at that. Of course my father didn’t tell me this was a masquerade.
Why would he tell me the truth?
I slip to the side of the door, where I find a tray full of masks, and pick one up, holding it to my face.
It’s not fancy, but at least it allows me to fit in.
I run my other hand down my dress, the deep green silk slippery against my palm, and feel the outline of the knife on my outer thigh.
I wonder abruptly whether other people can see it—the material is clingier than I expected—and then realize that I don’t care.
Let them look. I hope they realize I’m armed.
I would have been stupid to walk in here without a weapon.
I’m already regretting that I only have one, and that I’m here on my own.
I thought it would be better to arrive alone, but now that I’m here and facing the crowd of people, where I’m sure traffickers are hiding in plain sight, I’m second-guessing myself.
This whole thing smells suspicious. My father has never thrown balls, and I know from the research Camille gave me—and the questions I asked—that Dom Landry has more money than he’s ever had.
He’s spending at an alarming rate and daring anyone to stop him, telling people that he has more protection than he did before.
Protection from who, though? And for what? Is he running the whole smuggling ring for someone, or is he just a stopping point on the journey?
Do they still use his basement to hold the girls they take?
I take one step forward, then another, finally moving into the crowd and looking to the left and right as I slide through them.
The faces don’t change. They’re animated with laughter and drink, food and company.
All of them speaking rapidly, and all of them masked.
The masks don’t hide their identities, however, and I have no trouble recognizing faces I’ve seen before.
I just don’t know if I’ll be able to identify any new faces again in the future. If the men my father works with are here and I see them, will I be able to name them if I see them again?
I’m not sure, and that makes me itch, like insects are crawling over my skin and I can’t get to them.
Lucien and I have nearly enough to start moving against my father out in the open, and potentially saving the girls he has, but we need to know what direction to take.
I have to know who he’s working with and where they’re keeping the girls.
Of course, that’s why I’m here tonight.
For the inside track.
Honestly, I’m surprised Lucien agreed to this plan in the first place.
He’s more cautious than I remember, more possessive.
The swashbuckling pirate I knew when I was younger has given way to someone more charming and polished, but less reckless.
Hell, he wouldn’t have let me leave his house at all if I’d given him a choice.
Luckily, I didn’t. Because he doesn’t have the right to stop me. Not anymore.
I laugh to myself at the contradiction, well aware of how I’d sound to anyone else if I told them when I’m thinking.
What I’m feeling. I’m furious at him for trying to keep me in his house and acting as if I belong to him, and angry at myself for the way my body reacts any time he’s around.
I hate that my feelings for him are still so sharp, and the way my eyes seek him out in any room, looking for him like he’s some sort of security blanket.
I despise how relieved I was to see him last night in that parking lot. I don’t want to think I need him. I don’t even want to think I want him. Not after what he did.
But there’s an idea running through my head that we fit together like two puzzle pieces, even after all this time, him moving to cover me when I turn and me filling in the blank space around his body when he pulls me to him.
It feels like we should have been doing this our entire lives—like we have been—and like I wasted years of this potential by leaving.
I let myself catch on that thought momentarily, and then shake it off.
None of that matters. I made the choice I made, and Lucien made his own choices, and there’s nothing we can do about that now.
We might be allies for the moment, but we live very different lives and once I save Aislyn, I’ll head back to New York and my real friends.
I just have to take the next steps in my plan so I can do that.
Next steps that Lucien definitely won’t like.
“Sister,” a voice suddenly says in my ear.
I close my eyes, half in resignation and half in relief. I haven’t seen Beau since the last time I left New Orleans, and although he could have tried to find me after I moved to New York, I’m equally to blame. Because I didn’t try to find him.
For a long time, I also saw him as part of my father’s plot to plant me in the Boudreaux operation and use me to undermine Gemini and Lucien, and after a lifetime of looking at him as a hero, that had been a big blow.
I still don’t know for sure that he wasn’t part of that plot, though, so when I turn to him, I’m hesitant.
He looks so much the same, though, that I have a moment of utter whiplash.
Same broad cheekbones and wide eyes, as dark as chocolate and twice as warm.
Dark hair to match, and a mouth that wants to laugh more than it wants to frown.
He’s tall–as tall as Lucien, at least–and broader than he used to be.
Five years older than me, Beau was the one I ran to when life got too scary, or when my father hurt me, and though I might have hated him for not protecting me from Dad, I never did.
Beau had been a child as well, and incapable of doing anything to stop my father’s temper.
Hell, I’d seen my dad go after Beau, too, and that had been worse than anything he ever did to me.
I remembered the moment well. He had Beau tied up against the wall and was using a belt on him, leaving welts and cuts along my brother’s back, and though Beau had been standing tight-lipped, not making a sound, my heart had shattered into a million pieces seeing it.
And then I put it back together, encased it with stone, and attacked my father, screaming at him to stop.
That had only gotten me in trouble, and I’d ended up forced to watch as my father punished my brother for me having said anything.
A part of my soul had never recovered from that.
But the armor around my heart only grew stronger.
I learned to keep my feelings buried when they would be damaged, and to see things clearly when I needed to get shit done.
And my relationship with Beau grew deeper than ever.
Then I ran for New York and left him behind.
So right now, seeing him for the first time in years, is like water to a woman dying of thirst.
I fly into his arms, screaming with laughter, and he catches me and holds me close, his heart hammering against my own and finding the same rhythm, the way it always has.
When he pushes me back to look at me, his grin is big enough to split his face. “You didn’t even tell me you were in town.”
“I haven’t exactly had time,” I said, laughing. “I just got here!”
He tips his head at that, though, and the smile melts away. “You haven’t been here in years. I thought you were done with this place. What are you doing here? And why’s your hair...”
He gestures vaguely to my hair, by which I guess he means to ask why it’s red now instead of blond.
I answer the easiest question first.
“I decided I like it better red.”
His eyes grow narrow. “And the rest?”
I pause for a moment, mind flying over the facts. How much can I tell him? Do I trust him? Can I trust him?
No, I realize. I want to, but I can’t. Not until I know whose side he’s on. Because if he’s allied with my father, in the name of taking over the Landry family one day, it’ll mean he knows about what Dad is doing.