Chapter 4 Lucien #2
That tiny, blond girl had taken me in the palm of her hand and curled herself around me, winding her energy through mine and tying us together until I didn’t ever want to be away from her.
And I’d never managed to let her go.
Now, the thought of her in there alone, without an ally while her father forced her to do whatever he wanted...
My hands flex on my thighs and I jerk at the thought, every cell in my body keen to get to the mansion and rescue her.
The need to find her and save her is nearly overwhelming, though the more rational part of my brain–the one that generally does the thinking–knows that she would be howling her fucking head off if she heard me mooning over her like this.
The girl is nothing if not cocky.
And at the end of the day, it’s partially her fault that we’re even in this situation.
“What do we know of their schedule?” I ask abruptly, interrupting the conversation between Daniel and Luke.
They pause for long enough to tell me that they’ve already been through this–probably while I was supposed to be listening–and then Luke dives into it again.
“We don’t know what they want with Brooks,” he said quickly.
“But we’ve been watching the house all night.
We know that they arrived with about twenty men, all from the vans.
They went into the house and didn’t come back out.
There’s been movement this morning, but nothing more than the ordinary patrols.
They’re not acting like they have a prisoner in there, Lucien. ”
I take a beat to understand the implication, and then round on him. “Are you saying you think she’s in there of her own accord?”
He takes one glance at my face and backs up two steps, his younger face faltering. I see it and fight to get control over my own expression. Luke might be broader than me but he’s still young, and he’s family.
It’s not his fault Brooks is in this position.
“No,” Daniel says sharply. “What we’re saying is that they think she’s an ally.”
I let that sink in for a moment, and then feel the pieces start to fall into place. “They think they’ve brought the daughter of the house home.”
I turn and look at the feed, letting my eyes run across the front of the house again.
It’s not a high-quality picture–the cameras are too far away for that, given the length of their driveway–but I can already see that they’re right.
There aren’t men at the gate, and though there are sentries at the front door, they aren’t on high alert.
They don’t look like they’re waiting for someone to come rescue their prisoner, and they sure as hell don’t look like they’re fighting to keep her there.
And if I know Brooks, that’s all part of a plan she hasn’t bothered to tell anyone about.
One she didn’t even know she was going to have to carry out, because she didn’t know her father was going to find us last night at the port or take us prisoner.
She didn’t know she’d be in his house on her own, fielding his demands without any backup.
But they don’t look like they’re keeping anyone prisoner in there. Dom’s soldiers are walking around like Dom is just having a family breakfast.
That little fucking bitch. She’s doing something, and I have no way of knowing what it is.
I quickly run through what I do know, and it’s not much.
She doesn’t have a phone on her–that was taken when she was first captured, and then again when she went back in to try to save the girls–so I have no way of contacting her.
Camille isn’t in the house, as I’ve already heard from her. She’s in the French Quarter. Beau...
Honestly, I have no idea where Beau is, but I don’t know if he’d be an asset or an enemy. I don’t have a problem with the man, but he’s the heir apparent to the Landry family, and I don’t know whose side he’s actually on.
I don’t think Brooks does, either.
So she’s in there without friends, and I have no way of getting to her or finding out what she’s doing. Even worse, she has no idea that I’m out here watching her, and that I’m ready to come to her aid the moment she needs it.
Christ.
How the fuck am I going to get someone in there to fill her in on what’s going on?
Maybe even get her out?
Fire flares through my veins at the thought, and I realize that I don’t have to have a plan for that. If I can get close enough to the mansion, I can get in through one of the servant’s tunnels, and from there into the main house, and from there–
I stop myself at that, though, and try to be more rational.
Because I would burn the city down to get to the girl, but it’s not that simple.
If she’s doing what I think she’s doing, she’s convinced Dom that she’s on his side, or at least a neutral.
She’s trying to play nice. And that all ends the moment I go in there, guns blazing.
I’d tear the mansion down brick by brick to get to her, but if I’m too loud. ..
She’ll be the first to pay.
Because once Dom realizes how badly I want her back, he’ll use her as leverage. And I don’t think she’ll survive it.
Shit.
I shouldn’t be surprised. Not really. Brooks courts trouble like she’s getting paid for it, and she’s never happy unless she has some bad idea in the works.
And she almost never tells me what she’s doing before she starts doing it.
“Lucien,” another voice suddenly says, breaking me out of my thoughts.
I whirl in my chair and look to the doorway, where I see another of my men.
He’s been up all night, the shadows under his eyes dark bruises and the stubble on his chin unruly.
He was there last night during the rescue, I realize, but I haven’t seen him since, and I wonder suddenly where he’s been. Why he hasn’t gone to bed yet.
For a moment, I don’t want to hear what he has to say.
“Speak,” I say, knowing I don’t have a choice. Because when you’re the head of a crew of men, you don’t get to take a day off.
Particularly when you’re about to go to war.
“I know you’re trying to get Brooks out, but we’ve had another development,” Pierre says, coming in quickly.
Right. Of course we have.
“And?” I snap.
He swallows, then takes a deep breath and carries on. “It’s your sister. She’s missing. I just got word. Myself and some of the team have been going through the footage from the house cameras, and she hasn’t been home in several days.”
My heart drops from my chest and to the floor in front of me, where it flops around like a fish for several seconds while my brain tries to catch up.
Corinne? What the fuck does she have to do with anything?
She’s missing? Where the fuck would she have gone, and when? Does my father know? Could she just be–
Then my worlds come crashing together and it all starts to make a horrible sort of sense.
Brooks is here because of a trafficking ring, and we’ve been racking that ring’s movement through the city for the last week.
Earlier than that, actually, though that was before we had many details.
Girls have gone missing from every section of the city–top-tier girls, from some of the highest echelons of society.
Mafia daughters and sisters. The girls attached to crime syndicates.
Politicians’ daughter and society girls.
Girls who should have security to watch over them.
We know where those girls are ending up.
Hell, we’re missing Boudreaux cousins and sisters already. I have a whole file of them.
And now Corinne is missing. Three days. She’s been gone for three days.
Oh my God.
I whirl back to the desk and hit the buttons to bring up security cameras across the city, then get to my feet and start pacing.
“Daniel,” I say quietly. “Find her. Retrace the patterns we’ve seen.
Look for the vans that have been taking girls.
Go back three days and figure out where she was the last time anyone saw her.
And look for that van following her when she left. ”
Devil’s balls, I don’t want to even consider it, but I don’t know that I have much choice. Corinne fits the profile. She’s the daughter of the richest family in the city.
And Dom Landry hates my father. Probably hates me even more.
He has Brooks back, and now he might have taken Corinne.
And the anger rushing through my veins is so complete that I nearly can’t breathe with how it’s scorching my lungs.
“Lucien,” Daniel says, his voice cutting through the red haze over my eyes.
I look at him, knowing that I must look like a madman rather than a human, but he doesn’t back down. Instead, he cocks his head toward one of the laptops on the table and meets my eyes.
“They’re moving Brooks.”
I don’t hesitate. I grab my coat, my cane, and the Glock I left on the table the last time I was in here, and head for the door.
“Then we’re moving, too,” I say.
Because if they’re taking Brooks out of the mansion, it means we might have a chance to grab her.
And I need her back by my side.
We have work to do, and I’m already tired of this separation. I want her brain helping me figure things out and her smart mouth in a place where I can control it. I want her heat pressed against me and her eyes in front of me, telling me how much she wants me.
I don’t know what she’s got up her sleeve or how she means to pull it off, but I want her to know that I’m ready.
I want her to know that I still have her back. No matter what.