Chapter 12 #3
When I come back out into the living room, the guys’ eyes take in my new outfit, moving over me hungrily. I blush a little, feeling pretty for the first time in a while, but I’m conscious of the passing minutes, so whatever fun activities are in their heads will have to wait.
When we get downstairs, one of Sauvage's guys is waiting in the parking garage for us. We get into a stretch, black town car.
Sauvage is already sitting on the other seat. There are some flat bags hanging from the handle on the ceiling and I wonder what he’s brought.
He doesn’t mention them, though. He just gives one of his eyerolls when the guys get in after me, saying nothing as the doors lock automatically, I think, and the car begins to move.
Shade gives it until we’re outside Richmond proper before he looks at me expectantly. ‘Well?’
'I want to kill Joe Banderville and Pierre is helping me do it.’
I expect Shade’s stunned silence at that bombshell. Mav’s too.
But I’m surprised when, next to me, Blake nods, smirks, and raises his hand toward me.
I high-five it.
‘Nice,’ he mutters. ‘Let’s get the fucker.’
‘Don’t encourage her,’ Shade says.
Afraid he’s gonna try and stop me, my eyes narrow at him.
But Shade doesn’t start yelling, and he doesn't demand the car be turned around. He seems oddly calm, actually.
‘What’s your plan?’ he asks, and his gaze cuts to Sauvage. ‘Or is it his plan?’
‘The club we’re going to in New York is his,’ I say before Sauvage can respond. ‘But the plan is mine. I've made something in the lab.’
He sits back, his face oddly blank, and I find I can't read him.
Disconcerted, I edge closer to him.
‘I wasn’t hiding this from you,’ I say imploringly. ‘I wasn’t just going to go do it without telling you, or anything. Sauvage only found out we had a chance to get him this evening. I knew fifteen minutes ago. That’s all.’
‘So you’ve made a poison?’ Mav asks when Shade doesn’t say anything. ‘A pill?’
‘Yeah. Dissolvable in liquid. It'll look like he OD'd on fentanyl. I know he takes it. I noticed a bottle on his desk…when I was in his office.'
I leave it at that, and I see them all look at each other again.
'I need to do this,' I add quietly.
‘I agree,’ Blake says. ‘He needs to be dead, and you need to be the one after everything.’
Mav side eyes Shade and lets out a breath.
'We get it,' he says. 'We do, Tulip. But let one of us do it.'
'No!' I say adamantly, straightening my spine. 'I need to do it. I need to…take back what he stole from me.'
I will Mav and Shade to understand and I let out a hard breath of relief when Shade takes my hand.
'I get it.' He kisses me lightly on my lips. ‘I don’t like it, but I get it.’
He glances at the others. ‘But we're going to be there with you. You're not going into Sauvage’s club by yourself.'
I look at Pierre, who rolls his eyes again and mutters something in French that makes Shade’s eyes narrow at him.
I give a hesitant nod.
'Okay, but I'm the one who does it,’ I reiterate. ‘You guys stay out of sight. You can be in strategic parts of the club to make sure I'm safe if you want, but that’s it, okay?'
I get three slightly reluctant nods.
‘Promise?’
Shade’s jaw ticks. ‘Promise,’ he grinds out, not looking too happy.
'Mon Dieu,’ Sauvage says under his breath at the roof of the car. ‘Now that your querelle domestique domestic quarrel is finished… If you wish to go into my club, you dress appropriately.’
He sneers at the guys and gestures to the suit bags that are hanging next to him from the grab handle. I see now that they’re labelled with my guys’ names.
I think at the very least Blake is going to complain, but none of them say anything as they each take the bag with their name on it and put on the black suit inside. Sauvage's eyes flit around from my hair to my dress and heels impersonally, and he nods.
'Invisible enough,' he mutters to himself with a small smile.
The two-and-a-half-hour trip from Richmond, Connecticut to the heart of New York City is made mostly in silence after that.
I look out the window when the city comes into view on the horizon, never having been in such a large one before.
Philadelphia, where I lived for those few months after my dad died, wasn’t anywhere near this huge and sprawling.
The towering buildings dwarf everything.
It makes me feel very small, but also oddly secure.
I suppose it’s because, if I needed to, I could get lost in the city and no one would ever find me.
It's good to know that it's here and relatively close if I do have to run in the future.
We enter the grid system. There are sounds of multiple sirens in the distance and cars everywhere. If not for the car’s tinted windows, I'm sure all the lights would bother me.
We roll up at the back entrance of a large, brick building.
It's raining, and Sauvage's driver gets out with a large black umbrella. He hands it to Sauvage, who leaves us to go inside first.
The driver takes me in with another, identical umbrella, so that I don't get wet, leaving the guys in the car to make their own way in.
I give them an apologetic look as they dash through the wet and fall into step behind me as I follow Sauvage down the wide, red-carpeted hallway, deep into the building.
I can hear distant, thudding bass. Sauvage takes us to the end of the long corridor. There, two of his men are waiting. I don’t recognize them, but they’re dressed in the same suits that Shade and the others are now wearing.
I see the exact moment they register this and I think Sauvage notices too because I’m sure I see his lip twitch.
'The cameras,' he points up before they can complain. 'They are off. No one will know that you were ever here. If your pill does not work as you intend—'
I huff at him a little.
He puts his hands up in placation when he notices I’m affronted. ‘Of course I know it will, ma petite fleur, but un deuxième plan a plan b? For safety?’
I give him a nod, my stomach starting to twist with nerves now that we’re here.
He turns to the guys and pulls out four identical earpieces. 'These are all on the same channel. Mine is as well. No one else will be able to hear. Now, you look like my men. Invisible as ma petite fleur, oui?’
He gives me the last one and I fit it into my ear. I immediately don’t like how the sound is muffled in just one ear, but I try to ignore it. Safety first.
Sauvage points at Shade. ‘You should go to the mezzanine. It will give you a view of all of the dance floor. Through the door and up the first stairs. Terry will show you. Hurry. Banderville is already in one of the VIP rooms. We run out of time.'
Shade gives me a quick kiss.
'Please be careful,' he says, caressing my cheek, and then he's gone, Terry leading the way.
‘You will be in the next room from him,’ he says to Mav. ‘It is empty. There is a small hole in the last wooden slat on the left. You will use it to watch the room.’
Mav nods. ‘If anything goes wrong, get out of there,’ he whispers to me.
One of the men waiting nearby gestures with his head to Mav, and with a quick squeeze of my hand, he goes through the same door that Shade disappeared through.
'You will be on the dance floor,' Sauvage says to Blake finally. 'Go straight that way. It is easy to find. Try to blend in.'
To me, he gives his arm. ‘Come, chéri. We find you a tray with a drink to put your Aqua Tofana in.’
I go with Sauvage. My heart is hammering hard in my chest. Perhaps I should care that I'm about to kill a man but, I reason, I already spent ten years thinking I had, and then I shot that other guy to save Blake, so it’s not my time.
The Frenchman takes me to a bank of elevators and we go up.
The club music is much louder now. When the doors open, I’m momentarily blinded by the dazzling strobe lights, but when I see past them, I find a sprawling space of the packed club.
I’m urged across it, and when we finally get to the other side, Sauvage leads me toward a back stairway.
A sign on the wall points upward and says ‘VIP’ on it.
We reach the next floor. Ahead of me is a high rail that looks out over the huge dance floor. It follows the perimeter of the main room all the way around with private rooms on either side and then seating areas and bars on the ends.
A waitress with pin curls sidles past us with a deferential nod to Sauvage and a round, black tray in her hands. There’s a single glass tumbler on it with what looks like a scotch on the rocks.
Sauvage takes the tray from her and sends her on her way without a word. She doesn't even bat an eye. He hands me the tray, and after retreating back into the stairwell for a moment, I reach down into my bra. I draw out one pill and put it into the drink. It fizzes a little but quickly disappears.
'You are a femme fatale,' Sauvage says with a grin. 'I shall let you do the rest, my petite assassin. Go. I'll be in my office.' He taps his ear. ‘Listening.’
I must show my surprise that he’s just leaving me to it, because he smirks.
'You think I would take this occasion from you? No, chéri, this is your time. Your salvation.'
He turns away, going back downstairs.
'Can you hear me?' I ask into the earpiece, hoping my voice doesn’t shake.
'Loud and clear, gorgeous,' I hear Blake say above the din.
I glance over the balcony.
'I can see you. I'm by the speakers.'
I look down and locate Blake, dancing with a drink in his hand.
'I'm on your level to your left,' Shade says, and I glance behind to the left to find him sitting in a chair close to the bar that overlooks the entire club.
I peer out over the dance floor.
'Is our club going to look as good as this?' I ask with a grin.
I can almost see Shade's narrow-eyed gaze.
'If you want it to, Tulip,' Mav says. 'I'm in place. I can see the asshole. He's in the third room behind the curtain—looks like he's waiting for someone.'