Chapter 4 Lucien
Lucien
I’m going to actually kill someone.
“You’re telling me,” I grind out, “that someone made the decision to get into that caravan, find the van I was in, and take the risk of saving me, but there was never any intention of getting her out?”
I look around the table at the five men gathered there, steam billowing out of my eyeballs and ears, and wait for an answer.
They’re not going to have one, I already know that, because this is the five hundredth time I’ve asked since we got back to my mansion last night, and so far, no one has come up with anything to say for themselves.
I pin Daniel Boniface with a look, though, and then Luke, hoping that they’ve maybe found some fucking guts since the last time I asked.
Because who the fuck stages a rescue operation and then only rescues some of the people, rather than all of them?
Granted, they did get all my men out, and that was a feat unto itself.
I had ten men with me when we went to the port, and though we lost one of them to the fighting at the port itself, the others were all shuffled into the vans.
I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but Daniel and his men managed to find everyone and get them into the cars that belonged to my family, and from there back to my house.
I suppose I should give them some credit for that.
But the fact that they left Brooks behind–and didn’t give me any choice in the matter–will never, ever be okay with me. Because now she’s in Dom Landry’s house, alone with no clue of what’s going on. I don’t know what Dom wants with her or why he did things so dramatically, but I can guess.
And none of the options are good.
He used to beat Brooks when she was young, to the point that she still had scars from the beatings years later.
When she came back to New Orleans asking for her help, he straight out refused her and then, when she came to me, sent men after her who tried to kill her and her cousin.
When she returned again, he acted as though he was happy to see her, only to kidnap her and throw her into a fucking trafficking circle.
He’s not exactly going for dad of the year, and I don’t expect any better of him right now. What’s he going to do, suddenly elevate her to some glorious position in the family?
Doubtful. He’s never liked the girl.
“What do we know?” I ask sharply, standing from the table and stalking toward the control room, which we set up last week.
I can hear several men hustling after me, but I don’t wait for them.
I’m angrier than I’ve ever been in my life–or at least angrier than I’ve been since yesterday–and the men behind me are the biggest reason for my anger.
Breaking into a cavalcade to save me and getting me out but leaving Brooks is. ..
If they weren’t my men, I’d have killed them for it. And that’s all.
“Your father wasn’t in favor of saving Brooks,” a voice suddenly says by my ear, and I whirl to stare at Daniel, my mouth open in shock and my heart standing far too still in my chest.
“What?” I whisper.
He gives me a long, narrow-eyed look like he’s deeply regretting having opened his mouth, but then nods once and continues.
“Your father. We went to him or backup because we didn’t have enough men to pull it off on our own.
He gave us men, but on one condition. We had to leave Brooks with the Landry men. ”
He must see my color rising because he puts a hand up and continues before I can say anything.
“We didn’t want to, Lucien. We fought with him about it.
I nearly walked out. Nearly called the whole thing off.
But we didn’t have the manpower we needed to get you out of there, and I wasn’t going to let Dominick Landry get you all the way to his house.
Once you were there, we would have been powerless. ”
I shut my mouth, because he’s right about that.
The Landry mansion has plenty of holes in the security–I should know, as I took advantage of them when I was sneaking into the house to see Brooks, at one point–but if Dom had taken me prisoner, he wouldn’t have left me alone for a moment.
And even if Daniel could get men in, the chances of them grabbing me and getting out alive again were minimal.
Still.
I turn and start walking again, incapable of standing still. “And what did my father give you as the reason?” I ask, my voice sharp with hatred.
My father and I have never gotten along. My mother died when I was young and the moment she was gone, Gemini Boudreaux changed from a father to someone who only saw me as his heir. A tool to be sharpened and used.
A game piece to be moved around the board.
He hadn’t been abusive, precisely, but he’d never made any secret about his expectations, and my feelings were never important to him in that regard.
It wasn’t going to take much for me to increase my anger toward him, and if he’d sent Brooks into the Landry mansion to her death...
“He thought that taking her would start a war,” Daniel said quietly.
I nearly turn and stab the man, just to have something to do with my hands.
“Dominick Landry has done more than enough to start a war on his own,” I snap. “And Gemini didn’t want to make it any worse?”
Daniel hustled to catch up to me. “You know Gemini,” he muttered. “He wants to name the time and place. And he didn’t want you getting caught up in the crossfire when it happens.”
That last sentence nearly gives me pause, because it actually makes a lot of sense. If I’d been in Dom’s house when my father decided to attack him, I would have been either a pawn or a dead man walking. And once the shooting started, they wouldn’t have been able to protect me.
“Say it like that and I’ll start to think the old man actually cares about my well-being,” I say, giving Daniel the benefit of an almost-smile.
When he answers, I can hear that he’s taken it. “And if you believe that, you’re even more of an idiot than I thought.”
I laugh then, caught off-guard by a joke from the man who never tells jokes, and stride quickly into the war room.
“I’m twice as smart as you, and you know it.
I’ll accept that my father may have had a reason to get me out of there, but I’m not willing to let Brooks stay.
We’re getting her out, Daniel, and we’re doing it now.
We’re not leaving her in there a second longer than we have to.
I don’t give one single fuck if it does start a war.
And I don’t care what my father thinks about it. ”
We make our way quickly toward the main table in the room, where we’ll have a clear view of the five flat-screen monitors on the front wall, and take our seats. I hit a button to turn everything on, wait for the screens to light up, and then ask Daniel to tell me exactly what we’re looking at.
Because they may have left Brooks behind on my father’s orders, but they haven’t seen what I saw at that port. The girls in handcuffs, their faces white as snow and their eyes shadowed with pain and the realization that no one is coming to save them. Battered and bruised arms. Unwashed hair.
A horrible lack of any sort of sound coming from them.
Those girls have been sentenced to a fate worse than death and they all know it. Brooks came to New Orleans to try to get them out, and when I agreed to help her, I threw my whole being into it.
Now she’s caught in the trap of the man running that ring again. I saved her once before, and thought for a few moments that we might actually have won.
We didn’t.
And now that she’s stuck again, it’s going to be twice as hard to get her out. I don’t think Dom Landry will let her go easily.
But I won’t rest until I get my girl back.
And I don’t care how many people I have to kill to get it done.
* * *
I stare at the grainy, black and white video in front of me, my eyes focused on the front door of the Landry house while I listen to Luke and Daniel in the background.
They’re talking about what the Landry clan has been doing since yesterday, who’s coming and going and how many soldiers are in the house, but I can’t seem to focus on anything they’re saying.
Because Brooks is behind that door. She’s somewhere in that house, somewhere in one of those rooms, and I’m going through every room in my memory, trying to figure out where she is.
If I were to break into the house right now, where would I find her? If I were there, charging through that door and screaming her name...
I’d expect to find her in her room, but I know she wouldn’t actually be there.
It would be the first place I went, and I’d find it empty and probably as stern and undecorated as it always was.
I’ve known Brooks since she was twelve and I was sixteen, and the girl’s always had a hold over me.
For years, we were nothing more than friends, her tiny form a sidekick I never managed to get rid of, her hand always tucked into mine and her voice always in my ear, giving me commands or asking me questions.
Then, when she turned fifteen, something changed.
Her eyes began to linger longer on mine, her touches became more gentle, and I. ..
And I...
I was nineteen at the time and already knew more about the world than I should have.
I’d been running my own gang for years already, and had rackets all over the city that my father didn’t know about.
But looking into that girl’s deep blue eyes, watching her lips as she licked them nervously, did something I wasn’t expecting.
She’d murmured something about needing to go home and I hadn’t let her.
I’d turned her, pinned her against the wall of the alley we were in, and sealed my lips over hers, drinking so deeply of her that I didn’t think we’d ever come back up again.
And God, it had been more than I’d ever dreamed of having.
A world I hadn’t even known existed, a feel of flying that I’d never known was possible.