5. Bastien
Chapter 5
Bastien
Eighteen Years Ago
Winter had struck the City of Light, and snow covered the sidewalk and streets. I looked out the front window into the night, seeing the gleam of the snow on the opposite sidewalk. It was so cold I could see the frost in the corners.
“What are you looking at?”
I heard my brother’s voice from behind me but didn’t turn to look at him. “Snow.”
“Snow.” It was a single word, but it was packed with incredulity. “You’re staring at the window so hard, I assumed there was a naked woman across the street.”
“Get down here.” Father’s voice came from the parlor downstairs.
“See you later, perv.”
I turned to look at Godric, but I only saw his back as he stepped out of the room.
Father’s voice called again. “Both of you.”
I heard Godric’s steps halt on the landing instead of hurrying down the stairs. It took him a moment to continue and head to the first floor, where our father waited.
I made my move a moment later, unsure what my father wanted from us at this time of night. As I drew closer, I heard Godric and my father speaking from the parlor.
“Why does he have to come?” Godric asked in a quiet voice.
“Because he’s your brother—and my son.”
“But he doesn’t belong here.”
“ Godric .”
I stilled on the stairs and gripped the banister, feeling ostracized in my own home. Godric and Father had always been close. I just assumed it was because Godric was older than me, the eldest son. But sometimes I wondered if it was more than that.
“You don’t need him when you have me,” Godric continued. “He’s not cut out for this.”
My brother and I used to be close when we were younger, but a couple years ago, everything changed. My best friend disappeared overnight, and he kept me at arm’s length. He struck me down with insults. Every time I asked what the hell I’d done to incite this hatred, he never gave an answer. Eventually, I stopped asking and accepted this was the way it would be. My father prepared him to take over the business, and I stayed home with our mother.
My father left the parlor and approached the stairs. “Bastien, get your ass down here—” He stopped when he spotted me at the bottom of the stairs, clearly eavesdropping on the conversation.
I didn’t pretend otherwise, and he didn’t seem to care either way.
His eyes were glazed over like usual, like he was thinking about something else besides the two of us. “Grab your coat and your gloves.”
“Where are we going?”
“I gave you an order. Now, follow it.” He returned to the parlor where Godric remained.
I went to the coatrack and grabbed my things. I put on my heavy boots and then pulled the beanie over my head because I wasn’t sure if we would be outside in the cold.
Father and Godric walked to the front of the house where the main door was, their voices growing distant.
“Why do you need him when you have me?” Godric asked. “I’m your firstborn son.”
“Godric.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone showed how short his fuse was. “Trust takes months to earn among friends, years among strangers. It takes nothing among brothers. Don’t ever forget that.”
I crossed the room and joined them in the entryway, and Godric was red in the face. Red like he wanted to scream and accept the beating that it would cost him. But he found the restraint, and then his eyes shifted to me.
He hated me.
Father pulled on his coat and opened the door to step into the night. “Let’s go, boys.” The line of blacked-out SUVs was already parked outside the gate to take us wherever we needed to go. A gust of ice-cold air entered the warm home and struck me in the face.
Godric maintained his angry stare.
I approached him, mirroring the hate he felt for me. There were so many things I wanted to say to him, that I didn’t trust him not to stab me in the back on Christmas morning. But it was a relationship that had already been burned at the stake. Ashes couldn’t harden back into bones. We would never rebuild what we’d lost, and we both knew it.
So I wouldn’t waste my breath.
“Don’t do it.”
I walked past him and shoved him so hard in the shoulder he stumbled back into the wall. “Fuck off.” I stepped into the night, down the steps, and past the gate.
My father rolled down the window. “Get in.”
I opened the back door and got into the seat next to the window.
Godric came out seconds later and approached the car.
“In the back,” Father said. Then he hit the button on his side and rolled up the window.
Godric halted on the spot, snow falling down around him, staring at the window even though all he could see was his own reflection. His face contorted into boiling anger, but he didn’t act on it and headed to the SUV parked behind us.
We took off, a line of cars moving through the quiet streets of Paris.
I still didn’t know where we were going, but I wouldn’t ask a second time.
The first few minutes were spent in silence. My father was on his phone, texting and doing emails, oblivious to me beside him in the backseat. He finally placed the phone in the inside pocket of his coat. “You’re fifteen now, Bastien. Our society still thinks of you as a boy, but for a Dupont, you’re a man. It’s time you learn the business.”
My parents never mentioned the business around us. It was an open secret, my father’s criminal enterprise. But from the conversations I overheard and the information I’d inadvertently gathered, my father was one of the biggest drug dealers in France. He moved his product from the city to the port and distributed it elsewhere. My father was powerful and terrifying, judging by the way he screamed on the phone in the middle of the night and jerked me awake. It explained why Godric had changed so much. Once he was part of the business, he became as cold and cruel as our father.
“What if I don’t want to learn the business?”
My father slowly turned to regard me, his eyes filled with anger and disappointment. “This business is your bloodline. You’re the third generation to be a part of it. I would share it with my brother if he were still alive.”
“Doesn’t seem like Godric wants me to be part of it.”
“He’ll feel differently once I’m gone.” He looked out the window once again and watched the snow fall.
I stared at the side of his face, equally afraid and desperate for his approval. My father had been a constant figure in my life, but I still felt like I didn’t know him. Sometimes I saw him with my mother—and sometimes I saw him with other women. My father never told me to keep my mouth shut, but I knew there would be a punishment if I didn’t. “What do you want me to do?”
“You’ll see.”
We spent the rest of the drive in silence, traveling through the quiet streets until we arrived at the outskirts of the city. Instead of the beautiful spires of the churches and the lights of the Eiffel Tower, we entered the slums, graffiti on the walls, barbed wire around buildings, and turned into a compound behind a solid gate and concrete wall.
We pulled into the large complex with multiple warehouses, guards on duty carrying rifles, snow on the ground and on the roofs of buildings. We hopped out of the car, and the guards said nothing to my father, barely acknowledged him.
Godric left the car and caught up to us.
My father ignored him. “Come with me, Bastien.”
I kept a straight face, but I was nervous. Nervous for what, I wasn’t sure.
Godric’s piercing stare was locked on my face.
Father led the way, entering the first warehouse. It had a sliding door like a garage, but a small door was inside that one, and my father knocked before the door was unlocked and we stepped inside.
The room was full of tables covered in nondescript packages stacked on top of one another. Girls were working there, girls my age, and they seemed to be processing the drugs in one section, bagging it in another, and then weighing those bags before they were placed in a plastic tub on a pallet against the wall.
Not a single girl looked up from her work, even though they knew we were there. It was midnight, and they were working under the light from the overhead lamps, fulfilling the packages like they were in a time crunch.
My father walked up to one of the tables, and the girls acted like they didn’t see him. He scooped his hand into the tub of white powder and let it seep from the spaces between his fingers, treating it like sand on the beach during a vacation. “We process a million pounds a week.” He moved away from the table.
I stayed and looked at the cocaine sitting there before I lifted my gaze to look at the girls.
They all continued to work. Except for one.
A brunette with green eyes looked at me with a mixture of fear and comfort—because she knew me.
I couldn’t remember her name, but I knew her face. Instead of us going to private school like the children of other rich families we knew, our father sent us to public school because he wanted us to know real people and the real world. Neither of my parents cared about higher education or university. When Godric had said he wanted to be a veterinarian, neither of my parents was impressed by that aspiration.
I remembered her because she’d gone missing a couple years ago. Her face was plastered on posters all through the hallways at school. No one knew what happened to her, and after a few months with no leads, everyone forgot about it.
I’d never given it much thought because I didn’t know her personally.
Judging by the look in her eyes, she remembered me as well as I remembered her.
“Bastien.”
I turned at my father’s voice and broke eye contact with the girl from school. I crossed the room, my mind in a daze, and came to his side.
Godric continued to give me his ruthless stare.
He was three years older than me, but maybe he remembered her too?
My father showed me the other processing lines, the girls packing the different drugs and weighing them to be uniform before they were packaged and ready for distribution. It was more than cocaine. It was heroin too.
My father took me into a different warehouse, and this seemed to be the office space where numbers were calculated and shipping routes were designated, because it held tables with laptops. The rest of the warehouse was completely empty.
“Where do the girls go when they’re done?” I asked.
Godric stared at me.
“They’re never done.” My father grabbed a folder and pulled up a chair to one of the tables. “Sit.”
“They must sleep and eat, right?” I asked.
“That’s what the other warehouses are for, son.” He opened the folder and pulled out the papers. “Now, sit.”
I fell into the chair, the realization smacking me in the face. The girls never left. That meant the girl had been here since she’d disappeared…which was two years ago. That meant she had only been thirteen at the time.
Godric sat in the other chair, arms across his chest, continuing to give me that angry stare.
I understood my father was a drug kingpin, but producing and distributing drugs never sounded like that big of a deal to me. It seemed like a victimless crime, but now, I realized that wasn’t the case. Those women worked to process the drugs that we sold for millions and paid for our beautiful homes, cars, staff, and yachts. And then I felt like shit, absolute shit. “I don’t understand.”
“I’m about to explain it all to you, son.”
“The girls… Where do they come from?” I knew where one came from, but what about the rest?
My father gave an irritated sigh as he looked at me. “They aren’t important. They do their job, and they do it well.”
“One of those girls is my age.”
“She just looks young?—”
“I know she’s my age because I went to school with her,” I said. “I remember the day she went missing.”
Godric shook his head. “I told you.”
My father gave him a vicious stare like he might slap him on the spot. It lingered for a long time before Godric finally looked away. My father looked at me again. “Bastien, it is what it is. Forget about it.”
“Forget about it?” Her parents were looking for her, and I knew where she was. Those other girls probably had families too, families that would never know what happened to their daughters or their sisters. “Why don’t we hire someone to do this?—”
“Because you can’t hire someone to keep their mouth shut,” he snapped. “This is the only way.”
“So, they’re just stuck here until they die?” I asked in disbelief. “Working for the rest of their lives and sleeping in a warehouse like it’s a chicken coop?”
Godric gave a shake of his head but bit back the words he’d already spoken.
My father raised his hand in frustration. “Forget about the girls, alright?” He slid the papers toward me. “You need to learn how to run the business, who our distributors are, how to maintain order in a lawless profession. This is the business that puts food on the table for all four of us.” He flipped to the page that showed the monthly revenue after costs. It was a number bigger than any I’d ever seen. “The girls don’t matter.” He pressed his finger into the number. “This is what matters. And this is what you and your brother will split when I’m gone.”
In a different circumstance, I would have been impressed by that number like anyone else. But now it meant nothing to me, not when it was earned off the backs of underage girls who were too scared to fight or run. “I don’t want it.” I directed my gaze away from the page and looked at my father. “I want nothing to do with this.”
My father slowly sat back in his chair and regarded me like a stranger rather than his son. “What did you just say?”
“I don’t want it,” I repeated. “Godric can have it.”
Godric stared at me before he shifted his look to his father.
“I want you both to run it?—”
“I don’t want it.”
He slammed his hand on the table and made it bounce off the floor. “Interrupt me again, boy. See what the fuck happens.”
I gave a small jerk at his outburst. The room went quiet, far quieter than it’d been just a second ago, even though there was no one in there but us. My eyes remained on his face, and while I was scared of my father, I was scared of what was in that other warehouse more.
“They’re nobodies, Bastien. Inconsequential. Insignificant. Meaningless.”
I wished I could remember her name, but it continued to elude me. We’d never spoken to each other. I wasn’t sure if we’d even had a class together. But I somehow recognized her face enough to notice it in a crowded room. “She’s not a nobody. I went to school with her. I remember the day she went missing because the entire school had an assembly, and her parents came to talk to us.”
My father gave a sigh of irritation and then looked at my brother. “You remember her?”
He shook his head. “I was in lycée at the time.”
My father looked at me again. “Are you sure it’s her?”
“Yes,” I said. “She recognized me. I could tell.”
My father returned the papers to the folder before he dragged his hand across his jawline. “Now I understand why you’ve been so distracted.” He got to his feet. “Let’s fix that. Come on.” He left the warehouse and stepped into the night.
I was quick behind him, hoping that my father would release her so she could go home. She would keep all this a secret in exchange for her freedom. I knew she would. That was a deal I would take in a heartbeat.
We returned to the warehouse with the girls, and my father gestured to his men with the rifles. “Grab her and bring her outside.” He pointed out my old classmate then headed back to the door. “Come on, boys.”
Godric stayed and exchanged a look with me, and it was the first time he didn’t look angry. He was full of resignation, suddenly looking exhausted. Then he gave a slight shake of his head, so slight it was almost unnoticeable. “I fucking told you.”
“ Bastien .”
I followed my father outside. Outdoor lights were flicked on, so the cold ground was visible, covered in patches of white snow. The second I took a breath, ice crystals were in my lungs.
Behind me, the guys escorted the girl outside where we stood. She didn’t fight their hold, but they continued to grab her like she was a flight risk. They forced her toward us then pushed on her shoulders so she dropped to her knees, the snow soaking into her jeans.
“Father—”
“No distractions. No compromises. Nothing.” He pulled the gun out of the back of his jeans, cocked it, and then forced it into my hand. “If you want to survive in this business then you need to understand everyone is expendable but you and Godric.”
I’d never held a gun before, so I held it awkwardly, not wanting to come near the trigger. “What the fuck are you saying?”
“Shoot her.”
I took a step back, disturbed by the order he’d just given. “Are you insane?”
“I’ve never been saner,” he said calmly.
“We should let her go.”
“Let her go?” he asked incredulously. “So she can run to Mommy and Daddy and tell them what happened here? Rat us out to the police? The police won’t do shit, but our enemies might hit us once they know our location. Everyone is expendable, Bastien.”
“Then let her keep working.”
“Can’t do that either,” he said. “Because you’re soft—and that’s going to change right now.”
“I’m soft because I don’t want to kill some innocent girl?”
The girl started to cry. Her cries started off small, but as the conversation continued, she began to sob. “Please…”
“Shoot her, Bastien.”
“I said I don’t want this. I want nothing to do with any of this.” I held the gun at my side, and the metal was so cool I could feel it through my gloves. “Give the business to Godric. I want nothing to do with this hell.”
My father gave me the coldest stare. “You think you’re better than me?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“I’ve given you boys everything. The best of everything. And you’re gonna stand there and judge me? Little boy thinks he’s better than his old man?”
“That’s not what I said.”
“It fucking sounds like it. My father handed this business to me and my brother, and someday I’ll hand it to my two sons. There is no choice in the matter, Bastien. Godric needs someone to watch his back, and you need someone to watch yours.”
“I said I don’t want it.” I said it calmly this time, but I didn’t feel the least bit calm. “This is not my path.”
Godric shifted his gaze between me and Father.
Father’s rage burned in his eyes like bolts of lightning. “Shoot her.”
“No.”
“Shoot her, or I’ll shoot you in the arm. Don’t you call my bluff, boy. Because I’ll shoot one arm and then the next and then your leg—however many shots it takes for you to be the man you were born to be.”
I didn’t know what to do, facing off with a version of my father I was better off not knowing. “Does Mother know?—”
“She’ll be disappointed that her son is a fucking coward.”
“And you think it’s brave to shoot an unarmed girl?” I exclaimed. “I’m not going to do it.”
My father raised his palm to one of his men.
They handed him his pistol.
He cocked it and then aimed it at my arm. “I don’t want to do this, Bastien. But mark my words—I will.” He held the gun completely steady, aimed at my right arm, finger on the trigger.
“You’re gonna shoot me? Your fucking son?”
“Three.”
“This is fucking insane!”
“Two.”
“Fucking psychopath?—”
“One.”
I felt the gun lift in my hand and then kick back from the shot.
Bang .
I stumbled backward, the gun still in my hand for a moment before it dropped to the ground. My ears were ringing, the world was spinning, and it took what felt like several seconds to figure out what had happened.
The girl was dead—blood in the snow.
Godric retrieved the gun and stuffed it into the back of his jeans.
My father stood with the gun at his side, but instead of reserving his anger for me, he gave it to Godric with a lethal stare.
Godric held my father’s stare in a way I never could. Blue eyes like mine, but with an edge I didn’t possess. “I told you he’s not made for this.”