7. Brooks
The moment someone yanked the hood off my head, I knew I was right.
Daniel Boniface was standing in front of me smirking like he’d just pulled the best con in the world, his men around him in the dim lighting of the catacombs. A quick glance to the right showed me that Camille had made the trip with me. She was standing tall with her arms wrapped around her, and though I was willing to bet she was shaking like a leaf, she also looked like she was going to keep it together.
Good. I couldn’t deal with her coming apart at the seams right now. Camille was great, don’t get me wrong, but she also had a low tolerance for being manhandled. Particularly when it was Boudreaux men doing the handling.
If she could hold it together, it would leave me available to deal with more important things. Like Daniel Boniface and whatever the fuck he thought he was doing.
Because I was furious.
“What the fuck, Daniel?” I snarled, lunging toward him.
A hand grabbed me from behind and stopped the lunge, and I realized that I wasn’t standing up against the wall of the tunnel like I’d thought I was. Looking around, I saw I was in the middle of the fucking thing. And we were in one of the smaller tunnels. The place was more shadow than light and hadn’t seen anything that looked like a cleaning rag in years. I could practically feel the moss dripping down the walls, following the moisture from whatever lay above us. And below...
A grimace grew on my face at the thought. The catacombs and tunnels around them held mostly clean water, but a lot of it was stagnant, which meant it wasn’t as clean as one would like. Particularly when one was literally standing in it.
Daniel tsked at me and stepped up, putting his finger under my chin like he had any right to touch me. I made a move like I was going to bite him, hating everything about this situation, and he stepped back quickly.
Which made me smile.
“So what, you come onto my family’s property without permission, and then you’re stupid enough to kidnap not only me but also my cousin?” I asked quietly. “I’ve known you a long time, Daniel, but I never thought you were reckless. How the fuck do you think you’re going to get away with this?”
He stepped close again, though I noticed he was smart enough to stay out of range of my teeth. “Keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you. It’s been a long time since you were in our city, Brooksy. You don’t hold as much power as you used to.”
I snorted at that. “Last time I checked, Daniel, I was still Dominick Landry’s daughter. And that means I hold just as much sway as I ever have. My family is bigger than yours. In case you’ve forgotten.”
That was true on two levels. The Boniface family had been powerful once but had almost died out in the last decade, losing most of their money to gambling and all their power to drugs. Daniel was one of the last from the family, and though he was smart and willing to do just about anything, he wasn’t smart enough to bring his family back from the brink of extinction. The Boudreaux, who he’d chosen to work for, were more powerful. Richer, and with a bigger reach.
But they weren’t as big as my family.
Which meant Daniel had been taking his own life into his hands to go onto my father’s property and kidnap me.
The question was, why? Was he running some sort of con on his own? Doing someone else’s dirty work? I didn’t think anyone else knew I was in town, and even if they did, they’d have to be insane to go onto a Landry property and grab me. Maybe there was a new family in town? Or a lone shark? Someone who wanted power enough to pull off a heist too risky for anyone else?
But again...
Why?
I might throw my father’s status in Daniel’s face, but that didn’t change the fact that I was hardly the jewel in the Landry crown. Camille might be, and my brother Beau, but me? My father might pay a ransom for my life.
More likely, though, he’d leave me to save myself the way he’d done so many times before.
Instead of answering me, Daniel lifted his chin to whoever had my hands, and Camille and I were forced roughly toward the moth of the tunnel, where I could see more light. I shot another look at my cousin to see that she was starting to panic now that we were being moved again, and gulped. Shit. Camille had always had a quick trigger. Sloane liked to call on her ‘I’m too cute to take care of myself’ looks to get other people to let down their guards, but Camille didn’t have that trick.
I had to get her out of here before she lost her shit.
Actually, scratch that. I had to get out of here because I had things to do. I’d come to New Orleans with a mission, and that hadn’t included being kidnapped and held for ransom, or whatever Daniel thought he was doing. I didn’t have time to be down here hanging out in the catacombs. I needed to be on the surface, running for Boudreaux House while figuring out how I was going to get Gemini to loan me some men and help me get them to New York. For all I knew, the war was already starting up there while I was down here lounging around in?—
We got into the next room, which was more like a crypt than anything else, and I blinked against the light flooding the area. Gray stone walls, the blocks rough and pitted the way they always were. Marble on the floors and lamps lining every corner. It was bright and almost cheery in here, though that didn’t eliminate the feel that we were trespassing on something supernatural. I’d never liked the catacombs. There were too many hidden graves down here. Too many people who had been buried against their will or in secret. I’d always assumed that meant spirits who didn’t want to be disturbed, and though I’d used the catacombs to get from one end of the city to the other on occasion, it had never been my preferred mode of getting anywhere. To start with, they always connected to a graveyard up top, and getting into them had required some very sketchy lock breaking and creeping.
Then you got in here and felt like you were covered with the residue of spirits.
But none of that mattered at the moment, because I had something a whole lot bigger to worry about than the spirits who might not want us down here. I’d known when I realized we were in the tunnels that we were in trouble. The catacombs had always belonged to the Boudreaux family and the whole city knew it. I’d never understood why, but that hadn’t been important. We hadn’t come down here unless we had no other choice, because the chances were too good of running into a Boudreaux you didn’t want to see.
Like the one standing in front of me right now.
A lazy, arrogant smile curved his lush lips, and I looked up into eyes that were too dark to be anything other than black.
“Brooks,” he murmured. “I heard you were in town. Though I have to admit I didn’t believe you’d come back. After last time.”