Chapter 4 Aliénor
ALIéNOR
I slept with my gun under my pillow. Kept a low profile.
My apartment was small and cramped, and my neighbors were nosy and weird and clearly dealing drugs out of their apartment. The street was littered with people all throughout the night, some homeless and others who did their business between midnight and dawn.
Despite the obvious threat that surrounded me, I actually felt safer being buffered by low-level crime. I had a loaded gun and a solid right hook, so I wasn’t worried about handling myself if I needed to.
I was still trying to find a job, and with no real work experience or education, I was stuck in customer-service types of positions, like bartending and waitressing, work that would barely get me by unless I was in a Michelin-starred place where each table was spending at least five hundred euro on a single meal.
I was at the two-seater dining table in the small kitchen with a laptop in front of me, something I’d purchased with the cash Luca had gifted me when Dominic texted me.
I’m gone for a couple days, and you just leave?
Dominic was one of the waiters at Septime. The two of us had clicked the moment we met. Wasn’t working out.
Why? I know you hate Diane, but everyone hates her.
I wasn’t sad I wouldn’t have to see that bitch again. It’s not her. Too far from my apartment. If I’m going to make the same wage either way, may as well be closer. He didn’t know where either of my apartments was, so he wouldn’t know it was a lie.
Well, this sucks. Where are you going to go?
No idea.
So, you quit without a backup?
Don’t worry about me. I always land on my feet.
A cat with nine lives…
I had way more than nine lives.
Let me know where you end up. We should meet up for coffee.
Sounds good to me. He was the only friend I had right now.
The phone screen went dark, and I returned my focus to my laptop.
It was nighttime outside, but the lampposts that made this place the City of Light were visible outside all my windows.
The smart thing to do was leave Paris and start over somewhere else, in a place where I could really let my hair down.
But this was my city. I was too damn stubborn to leave it.
I drank from my wineglass until there was just a drop of Bordeaux at the bottom.
Just when I reached for the bottle to refill the glass, I heard a creak.
I stilled and strained my ears to listen, to determine whether the sound occurred because I’d shifted my weight in the chair or because the native sounds of the unfamiliar apartment were still foreign to me.
Or because someone was there to kill me.
I waited, breath stalled in my lungs, and I glanced to the door. It was dark in the hallway outside my apartment, so I couldn’t see a shadow in the crack. Couldn’t see the outline of a man’s boots.
I abandoned the wine bottle and reached for the gun I’d left on the table beside me. I gently lifted it and pressed my thumb into the safety until there was a quiet click. I heard another creak, and my eyes flashed to the door again.
The doorknob turned, just slightly, so slightly I wasn’t sure if I actually saw it move. But then there was a click, and the door moved an inch. It was three in the morning, so my killer assumed I was asleep in my twin-sized bed in the closet that served as a bedroom.
How did they find me so quickly?
I gently closed my laptop to hide the light from the screen.
The door inched farther open, and the unspecific details of a man emerged.
I aimed my gun and fired twice, unsure whether I hit his chest or his stomach. He jerked when the first bullet hit him and then twisted at the second before he toppled over, dead right on my threshold.
My ears rang louder than the shot I’d just fired. The tinnitus roared like a lion. My hand remained still on the gun before I clicked the safety and gently set it on the table. I looked calm on the outside, but my heart raced like the threat was still imminent.
I hadn’t even found a job yet, and they’d already tracked me down. Had they watched me leave Luca’s place and trailed me this entire time, waiting for the moment I let my guard down? “Fuck.”
I grabbed what few things I had and hopped into the first taxi that pulled over. When they asked for the address, I hesitated before I answered, because just four days ago, I’d been asked the same question and hadn’t had an answer.
I didn’t know his address, but I recalled the area easily. “Saint-Thomas D’Aquin.”
It was a far drive from where I was in the 18th arrondissement, pretty much clear across Paris, past the Louvre and over the Seine. At this hour, it would be a quicker trip with less traffic on the streets, but it would still cost me at least seventy euro.
The farther we traveled from my apartment, the less my heart started to race.
But once we crossed the Seine and approached his residence, it started to race again and my palms went damp.
I felt like an obnoxious beggar who didn’t appreciate what was given and demanded more.
He’d helped me when he didn’t have to, gave me his money and even his gun, and I was embarrassed to return here.
Humiliated.
But I didn’t know where else to go.
I looked at maps on my phone to figure out exactly where his place had been, and after searching for a while, I realized that his house used to be a hotel.
Hotel De Poulpry – Maison Des Polytechnicians.
I thought I’d been there once before for a dinner party or a wedding or something.
It had looked familiar when I’d walked in, but it didn’t click right away.
He must have bought it and turned it into his private home because of the view of the Seine and the Eiffel Tower.
The taxi came to a stop at the intersection, and I handed over a small fortune before I stepped out on the sidewalk and walked the rest of the way on foot.
Hardly anyone was out right now, just me with two heavy bags over my shoulders containing my clothes and shoes and laptop.
At that very moment, I was homeless, about to knock on a stranger’s door and ask for a place to stay.
I stopped when I was across the street, looking through the iron gates to the property lit up with sconces beyond.
Maybe I should call first instead of putting him on the spot.
I placed my bags on the sidewalk then called, staring at his gate like a stalker.
He picked up right away. “Luca.” It was clear by his tone that he hadn’t saved my number and assumed this was about business.
“Hey, it’s Aliénor…”
He was silent, exactly as I expected him to be.
“I’m sorry to bother you like this—”
“What do you need?”
I wasn’t sure if that was an offer or him asking me to get to the point. “They found me again. I had to leave my apartment…and I have nowhere to go.”
He didn’t ask who they were. Didn’t ask for an explanation, like he met women who were being tracked by bounty hunters all the time. “I gave you money. Use it for a hotel.”
I felt my heart sigh in disappointment. “They’ll just follow me there too.”
He fired back right away. “Why is this my problem?”
I’d felt low a lot in my life, but this had to be one of the lowest moments. Begging for help because I couldn’t handle this myself. I was proud that I had survived and continued to survive, but now I felt no triumph, because I was just existing.
Maybe I should just let them kill me.
“It’s not—”
“Then we have nothing else to discuss.”
“You said I could call you in a jam.”
“Yes. Like you need a ride or another gun or even money. But not a place to live.”
I should keep what little pride I had left and hang up, but I had no other options right now. If I went to Dominic’s, I’d probably just get him killed.
“I’ve given you paperwork to leave the country. You’re the one who chooses to stay—”
“They will hunt me to the ends of this earth. But you’re the one place where they won’t come for me.
I don’t know who you are, but when you said they feared you, I knew that was true because no one came for me while I was there.
I’m standing across the street right now with nothing but my bags of clothes after killing someone who broke in to my apartment and…
” My voice cracked when I gave in to my tears.
“I’m fucking desperate. I’m sorry, but I’m desperate. ”
He was silent.
I clenched my eyes shut and held my breath, choking back the sobs that wanted to break through my tight jaw.
He hung up.
My eyes remained closed, and I felt a hot tear drop down my cheek, slide around my nose, and then seep into the corner of my mouth.
I lowered the phone from my ear then took a deep breath.
“Come on. You’ve got this. You’ll figure it out.
” I sniffled loudly then wiped my face with the sleeve of my jacket, trying to hide the proof of my cries from myself.
Then the gate across the street opened, even though a car didn’t leave or approach.
I continued to stare, unsure if that was an invitation or a coincidence.
Then his silhouette appeared, the outline of a tall and muscular man. He stepped into one of the lights along the driveway, and his features were illuminated. His hair was dark like his eyes, his sweatpants low on his hips like he’d been retired for the evening in his bedroom.
He passed the gate and crossed the street without checking for traffic, coming right toward me with that same hard gaze he had shown me in the past. His eyes were focused on mine, but if he noticed I’d been crying, he showed no sympathy.
He went straight for the bags and threw them both over his shoulder before he nodded toward the gate. “Come on.”
He had an elevator, so he used that instead of the stairs, still holding my belongings like they weighed nothing more than a gym bag. When we stepped out on the top floor, he went for the room I stayed in before and set my belongings down on the floor.
I was speechless, not expecting him to bring me into his home again.
He didn’t depart straightaway like he usually did.
This time, he moved to the couch in the sitting room and took a seat, leaning forward with his arms on his knees.
As if he was warm, he pushed up the sleeves of his shirt to his elbows and showed the popped veins all over his forearms and the backs of his hands. “Sit.”
I was more than speechless, but also motionless. I had to snap out of the shock and move to the armchair across from him, facing him eye to eye, seeing someone deeply annoyed but doing his best to restrain it.
He stared at me for what felt like a minute before he spoke. “I already helped you once and expected nothing in return. That’s as far as my generosity goes.”
I gave a nod in understanding. He had already been kind to me. I was an asshole for asking for more.
“If you want to stay here until you get this figured out, then it’s going to cost you.”
I felt a shock through my stomach, felt the muscles in my core tighten.
He said nothing more.
I understood exactly what he meant even when he didn’t say anything. “That’s fair.”
His eyebrow rose slightly like he expected some kind of pushback.
My childhood and early adolescence had been picture-perfect.
But the years after my family had been murdered had been darker than midnight.
I’d done things I never thought I would do to survive, but not only did I do them, I was good at them.
This was different from that because it was better.
In another situation, I would have done it and expected nothing in return. “We have an understanding.”
His expression didn’t change, as if he was still surprised by my cooperation.
I was tired of being hunted. Tired of looking over my shoulder.
I just needed a break, a chance to catch my breath, to figure out how I was going to end this rather than run from it.
But I couldn’t retaliate when I was weak.
I couldn’t fight back when I couldn’t even breathe.
I was powerless on my own. I needed help.
I needed Luca.
“Thank you.” My expectations for life and my perceptions of people were far different from the average person. I’d just thanked a man who offered to house me and feed me and protect me if I fucked him—and I felt like I was the one who got a good deal.
He continued to stare at me like he expected more, either insults to his character or demands of my own.
When the silence was permanent, he realized that further conversation wasn’t needed.
“I’ll let you get settled.” He rose to his feet and moved around me, his footsteps light against the thick rug.
“Goodnight.”
I knew he was gone as soon as the door clicked shut.
When I was surrounded by my solitude, the adrenaline and despair floated out of my body like a cloud. My eyes were on the window with the curtains wide open, the top of a nearby building visible. I’d made a deal that any sane person would judge me for, but I would gladly take it to have this.
To feel safe.