Salvation (New Orleans Rogues: Boudreaux #2)

Prologue

Lucien

Fifteen Years Ago

By the time I get to the house, I’m so angry I could kill someone.

Actually, that’s not a bad idea.

Considering whose house I’m at, murder might be the only option available to me. And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hold a certain... allure.

After all, I’ve hated Dominick Landry my entire life, and being sent to his house on some bullshit errand by my father hasn’t made me like him any more.

I don’t even understand why I’m here. Give him a message, my father said.

Make sure he understands. Don’t leave until he’s given you some sort of reply.

What the actual fuck does any of that mean, and why the actual fuck did I have to be the one to come down here?

This isn’t our side of town, and Landry isn’t our ally.

From everything I’ve heard, he’s the fucking devil himself, and I know for a fact that my father hates him with the strength of one thousand suns.

Of course that doesn’t mean much when it comes to Dear Old Dad. I could probably say the same thing about myself–that he hates me with everything he has in him–and I’m his fucking son.

I climb the steps to the door slowly, reminding myself to breathe, and look up and over the place.

Gothic, just like so many of the mansions in New Orleans, but this one isn’t attractive like most of the city.

Other buildings drip with history and a sort of shabby, rundown splendor.

Everything looks like it was beautiful once, and could be again if someone just put enough love into it.

This house looks like someone reached in, ripped out whatever soul it might have had, and replaced it with an essence of evil that no house deserves.

Not that houses deserve anything, as they’re inanimate. Hell, now that I think about it, they don’t even have souls.

Devils, I’m only seventeen and I’m already jaded.

I let my eyes wander to the left and then the right, trying to get a better feel for the place, and start to realize that something’s wrong.

The place is gothic and dark, no doubt about that, and made up of stone that looks like it never had any color to it at all.

Sweeping lawns surround the place, and in the distance, a wall rings the property.

I had to break through the gate in that wall, and did some major damage to the lock on said gate.

I won’t be apologizing.

If my father wanted me to come in here, he should have sent a fucking key.

If Dom was expecting visitors, he should have left the stupid gate open.

I narrow my eyes at the thought and reach into my pocket for the pack of cigarettes I shoved in there earlier.

Pulling it out, I practice the trick I learned last month and pull a cigarette out of the packet using only one hand.

This at least brings a grin to my face, and by the time I light the thing and slide it between my lips, I’m smiling outright.

And fingering the knife I also keep in my pocket.

I don’t know why I’m here or what my father is playing at–he has actual soldiers for this sort of thing–but if he thinks this mission is going to go off without a hitch, he has another thing coming.

He should never have sent the wildest card in his deck to the house of the man I know mistreats my new pet.

I let my eyes travel over the house once again, and then the driveway.

Then the lawns, and back to the driveway again.

At that point, my eyes catch on something and I turn in that direction.

Because it’s the middle of the night at the Landry mansion and there’s absolutely no one around. No guards. No soldiers.

No Dominick Landry.

But there’s a line of ten or so dark vans at the end of the driveway, nestled up against the house itself like they’re fucking spooning.

And that doesn’t feel right. What the hell is Dom doing with so many vans sitting in his driveway?

The only people who live here are Dom, his daughter, and his son, plus one cousin who moved in for reasons I don’t remember. One man and three kids.

They don’t need ten vans to themselves, and his men don’t sleep in the main house.

Look, don’t judge me. Like I said, Dom isn’t our ally. My father considers him an enemy, which means the Boudreaux spies have been watching the Landry mansion for years. We know more about them than we should, and that includes where Dom’s soldiers sleep.

And whether we could get to him in the middle of the night if we wanted to.

That brings me back to my midnight visit and I face the door again, my hackles up and my hands suddenly twitchy. Why the fuck is it so quiet around here? Where are the guards who should be stationed at the gate and around the wall, and why are all the lights out in the house?

Is this a trap?

Did my father send me to spring it before his soldiers come in?

“Shit,” I breathe, blowing a lungful of smoke against the door in front of me.

I know what you’re thinking: There’s no way a father would use his seventeen-year-old son as bait.

No dad would send his kid walking into a situation to spring a trap, just so his soldiers could do whatever it was they were supposed to do.

And normally you would be right. No normal dad would do any of that.

But as I said, Gem Boudreaux doesn’t like me all that much.

And if I was him, I might think that a seventeen-year-old kid who’d recently become friends with the Landry girl was exactly the right person to spring such a trap. After all, I have a good reason for being here.

In theory, I could be here to see Brooks Landry.

“Fuck,” I mutter, and this time I put a lot more heat behind the word.

Because that makes more sense than I like, and I should have seen it before I was standing in front of Dominick Landry’s fucking door. Already on his property.

Inside walls that will make it nearly difficult to escape quickly, regardless of the sport bike sitting in the driveway waiting for me.

I slip my hand around to my back and caress the pistol I keep in my holster there, then let my fingers travel into my pocket for the butterfly knife. At least I didn’t get here unarmed.

I just need to work on figuring out my father’s plans more quickly. Especially if he’s starting to think I need to take a bigger role in the family business.

Nothing to be done about it now. I’m here, and I know this place is covered in cameras. Someone inside this house already knows I’m here, standing on the doorstep like a nervous suitor afraid to knock on the door and see the girl he’s been dreaming of.

The damage is done. No going back.

I paste a sly grin on my face, stiffen my back, and raise my hand to knock on the door.

* * *

The moment the door opens, I know something is wrong.

The man at the door isn’t the butler–who I’ve never seen but know exists–but instead a man wearing all black fatigues and a mask around the bottom half of his face.

He’s taller than me by a foot at least, even though I’m tall for my age, and has sunglasses on.

In the house.

In the middle of the night.

He also has a high-capacity automatic rifle strapped across his chest, complete with a scope and a silencer attached.

This man isn’t meant to be in a fucking house.

He belongs on a battlefield, or at the very least out in the yard, looking out for invaders like me.

I don’t even think he’s one of Dom’s regular guys.

I’ve never seen his soldiers in anything other than sharp black fits, their hair combed and their loafers perfectly shiny.

They’re deadly, no doubt about that, but they always look good doing it.

This guy looks like he just got back from slicing a body from hip to sternum and pulling out the organs to sell them on the black market.

The thought should bring me pause or at least counsel caution, but I’ve never been one to obey those sorts of rules.

“I wear my sunglasses at night,” I murmur, giving him my most sarcastic look. “Bold of you to have them on in the house, though. Hard to see the bad guys if you’re already impeding your vision, isn’t it?”

I don’t wait for him to answer, but push right past and into the foyer before he can say anything. “I’m here to see Dom.”

“He’s busy,” the man snaps, stepping around me and putting his massive bulk between me and the rest of the house. “And who the fuck are you to come in here asking for him?”

I look up at the guy, anger growing in my belly at being spoken to like this. This asshole might look like a serial killer but he’s obviously nothing more than a soldier, here to do a job.

And I’m the fucking Boudreaux heir.

He shouldn’t even be looking me in the fucking eye.

“Lucien Boudreaux,” I tell him, letting my voice fill with ice.

“Heir to the Boudreaux family and all that comes with it. So I’d suggest you remember your place when you’re speaking to me.

I’m here to see Dominick Landry, and I have important business with him.

I don’t give a fuck if he’s busy. He can put it on pause and give me the five minutes he owes my father. ”

The man looks like he’s going to argue and I stretch up to my full height, wishing like hell I’d worn something more impressive than jeans and a t-shirt.

Though I didn’t exactly think I’d be coming in here to have a dick-measuring contest with some jacked-up Rambo.

After a moment of trying to kill me with his eyes, though, the guy finally backs down and deflates. “This way,” he says gruffly.

Like he’s doing me some sort of favor.

He turns and walks toward the staircase and I follow, my fingers itching to grab my butterfly knife, flip it open, and bury it right between his shoulder blades.

I don’t inhabit my father’s world very often, but when I come to the dark side I know exactly who I am and how to handle myself–and I never allow disrespect.

Especially from some two-bit soldier in Dom Landry’s house.