Chapter 43
I jabbed the doorbell, crushing Santa’s jolly face plastered on the absurd welcome mat. The door creaked open, revealing Dalia, decked out like a human Christmas tree in a green dress adorned with enough red ribbons to make any kid jealous.
“Merry Christmas,” she greeted with sparkling eyes.
I leaned in to kiss her, but she dodged me, her father looming behind her. Her grandmother swooped in, taking off her apron. Behind her was a dinner table fit for ten people.
“This is for you, Mrs. Mercier.” I handed her grandma the gift I had for her.
“I hope it’s not orthopedic shoes or something like that,” she quipped, unwrapping the gift with a gleam in her eye. “Ah, you’ve got some taste.” She clutched the present to her chest like Gollum protecting his precious. “Dinner will be ready soon. I’ll be right back!”
She disappeared into the kitchen, humming a song while Dalia whispered into my ear, “What did you get her?”
“You don’t want to know.” I had ventured into the dark web to secure a rare species of plants for her collection. “I have a gift for you too, but I’m keeping it for later.”
“I can’t wait,” she said, sliding a USB key into my hand and planting a soft peck on my cheek. “And that’s for you to listen to later.”
Listen? Was it about her music? She wet her glossy lips, wearing that sweet ChapStick that got me hard every time. Bruno Mercier cleared his throat, and Dalia took a step back. I slid the key into my pocket, almost forgetting he was there, his gaze a blend of disapproval and feigned politeness. I handed him a whiskey bottle, the oldest and most expensive on the market. I still had manners after all, but he shouldn’t confuse me with fucking Santa.
“Levi Delombre, it’s been a long time.” Mercier’s smile was devoid of sincerity as he reluctantly accepted the bottle. “Do you drink often?”
“Levi doesn’t drink or smoke, and he’s a talented chess player!” my little doll jumped in, like she had revised her speech for hours in front of a mirror.
“Dalia, why don’t you go see if your grandma needs help? Levi and I could have a manly chat.”
Mercier’s tap on my back sent a ripple of tension through my entire core. If it weren’t for her, I’d have already put that pretty knife on the table to good use—starting with cutting each of his fingers with rings on it. News flash, it was five. A full hand. Dalia’s expression twisted into a frown, caught between uncertainty about who to trust—her father or me. Can’t blame her. Not that Mercier gave a damn. He was already striding toward his office, and I followed him.
As anticipated, the office exuded an air of pretentiousness, dominated by the scent of cigars and aged wood. This was the moment I’d been waiting for. I took my place across from Mercier, watching him perch like a peacock behind his desk.
“I promised my daughter I’d give you a chance.” He crossed his hands, his eyes slicing to mine. “But let’s be honest, you’ll never be good enough for her.”
So he was laying out his cards from the start. Interesting.
I raised a brow. “Please enlighten me.”
“You may be smarter than most idiots, but you also have antisocial tendencies, got into fights during your school years, and were followed by a therapist. While you’re from a wealthy family, your name is tainted by what happened to your mother. You’ll never be able to give Dalia the security she needs.”
Adrenaline pulsed through my veins. “Dalia doesn’t need security. She needs freedom, sir.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Why don’t we ask her?”
A tightening in his jaw. A subtle fist clench. A tight-lipped smile. I was savoring every last bit of it. “I know what’s best for my daughter. She’ll thank me later for getting rid of you.”
I let out a dark laugh. “I’ve promised her I’ll try my best to be cordial with you, and I’m a man of my word. So let me say this just once: I’ll hurt anyone who gets on her road or mine.”
“This is not Pantheon here, boy,” he hissed through clenched teeth. “I’m willing to offer you money and a future if you stay away from her.”
From beneath his top drawer, he tossed his checkbook onto his desk with a disdainful flick, then adjusted his pretentious pen—likely worth more than anything he’d ever bought for his daughter. His urgency to dismiss me felt as though he had more pressing matters to attend to than dealing with me on Christmas. Too bad for him, I had all the time in the world.
“It’s entertaining how you think that low of me.”
“She’s the most precious thing I have, and she loves me.” His insecurity flared through his pores, the timbre of his voice already breaking. “She’ll never pick you over me.”
A thing. He called her a thing as if she was his good little obedient doll. I lounged back in the chair, propping my feet up on his desk, wondering why I hadn’t given that bastard a good lesson already. Out of respect for Dalia, maybe. Well, screw it. He glared at my Chelsea boots on his desk but did nothing.
“I’m not going anywhere, and you will not be opposed to our relationship.” I extracted my phone and swiftly jammed the communication signals with my device. If Mercier was being monitored, this conversation needed to stay between us.
“Who do you think you are?” He puffed out his chest. I doubted he would even be able to run a mile without gasping for breath. His bulky frame hid how little his self-esteem was. “Four years ago, you were only a—”
I jerked my head back and clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. No, no, no, he wasn’t helping his case.
“If you’re so inclined to speak about the past, I’m going to reveal to you two secrets, sir. First, it’s about your daughter.” I straightened up, retracting my feet from the desk, and leaned forward. “You did such a great job at maintaining her innocence, but too bad, because I broke it.”
That was the exact reaction I’d been dying to see: his ugliness surfacing with a subtle clench of his jaw, followed by a quick grimace as his nose crinkled.
“As you can guess, I took her virginity, but don’t you worry, I haven’t impregnated her yet.” I smiled the only way I knew how—the way that sent dread into the eyes of mortals.
His facade was crumbling, revealing the mediocre man beneath. He appeared older, with all those lines etching deeply into his forehead.
“You’re a monster.”
“Maybe.” I shrugged. “But you see, Dalia is a match to my monster, and initially, she may have been just an obsession or a pawn in my game to annihilate people like you. But I believe I’ve always been lying to myself. The point is, I’m fully aware she’s my everything now. Always has been.”
“How romantic and naive,” he spat, that grimace still carved on his face, with a pulsing vein he should definitely get checked out on his forehead.
“I surprise myself too,” I said, grabbing the frame of the family portrait on his desk. He had a commercial smile in the picture, just like the ones Patrice used to have. All fake. “I was only a teenager, sir, when you punched me at my mother’s funeral and broke our most precious heirloom. Yesterday, I had the displeasure of finding out one of the reasons my mother died was because of people like you. Abusers. Bullies. The scourge of humanity.”
“I don’t regret what I did.” Mercier fidgeted in his seat, his nostrils flaring. “Leave Dalia alone. You have a problem with me, not my daughter.”
“I’d appreciate it if you don’t interrupt me before I tell you my second secret. I promise, you’ll dig it.” I paused for effect. “I know what happened to Dalia’s mother. I know how much of a coward and a liar you are.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he denied, raising his voice.
“Then let me enlighten you again. Los Calaveras didn’t aim to kill the president’s son, am I right? No, they had another goal.” My smile curled deeper. “A target.”
“Stop,” he roared.
“I dug into your past,” I whispered loud enough to imagine the chills crawling on his spine. “Fifteen years ago, you sold guns and warfare attire to a low mercenary group, thinking it’d go unnoticed. They’d just kill each other in another country far away from yours, right? I mean, you were about to go bankrupt, losing a contract with the French army, but you have to admit it’s selfish, even for you. But you refused to deal with them the second time. Was it ten years ago? Because in the meantime, you gained a conscience, and your dear friend, Frederic Archambault, was appointed minister of defense. You secured a contract with the French army after all.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he blurted out, his face contorting.
“Oh, but I do. Four years ago, I hacked into your enterprise, and after many weeks of extensive research, I found the payment. The dates matched perfectly,” I deadpanned, putting the family photo on his desk upside down. “You fired the wrong person that day.”
I had used Patrice’s identifiers to sneak up on him as a snitch in his company. Mercier had fired him for nothing. What a tragedy. I had shot two birds with one stone.
And our friend here, Bruno Mercier, remained quiet like a trained animal on steroids.
“I believe you received threats after that. Threats you hid from your family and ignored because you think you’re that powerful. Threats aiming to kill your wife if you don’t cooperate.” A sinister grin took over my features. “So Dalia and her mother leave for Pantheon, like every year, while you stay here hidden in your office like a coward on Christmas. Lots of famous people, an opportunity for so many of them to die, while covering who truly was the target.”
I tilted my head to the side, my fingers spreading like claws. Blood rushed to my skull. I wasn’t in the mood to smile anymore.
“Dalia’s mother. ” I delivered the last blow to checkmate him. “They killed her with your guns. The same guns you sold to them. Yet you stayed out of the blame, your partnership with them untouched. Dalia could have died because of you. They could have fucking killed her too.”
On some poor quality videos on the dark web, I noticed Los Calaveras had Mercier’s old model guns. The rest was mostly deduction and common sense, but I knew I was right the moment his lower lip shook and shoulders slumped.
“How do you think Dalia will react when she hears the truth about her daddy?” I said, slow and deadly. “You sold them the guns right after the incident like a damn cockroach. I assume that new export contract is with them.”
“You won’t tell her,” he begged. “You’ve had that info for some time already. If you care about her, you won’t do this. I’m all she has left, and I’m handling the situation.”
I wasn’t that much of a saint. He was a monster too, and he’d pay one way or another.
“She has me now,” I said. “As you pointed out, I can destroy you, and I will.” But this time, I had to think of Dalia. Of us. I had to protect her. “I either leak what I have on you right now, destroy your life piece by piece, or…” My lips thinned, my nails digging into my trousers. I couldn’t believe I was offering that bastard a way out. “You stop interfering and leave Dalia out of it. You stop all contact with her. Then you’ll be free to continue your little illegal activity with them, and she’ll be free of you.”
Monsters would always act. They would always find a way to create chaos, but if you controlled the monsters, you could survive. It was every man for himself, and in my case, only one human being mattered, and for once, I wasn’t talking about myself.
Turning in Mercier would drive the spotlight on her. Those mercenaries would find another supplier. They’d still continue to act, and worse, if they were driven by revenge, they could target the woman who just said she loved me. The only beauty in my world.
No, I had to play a safer card, betting on Mercier’s cowardice. That way, he was out of the picture, and Dalia’s safety and freedom were secured. I didn’t give a fuck about doing the right thing. I didn’t want her mixed in with this. If everyone had to die so she could live, I’d be the one slaughtering each of us.
What other than ugliness could understand the ugliness of this world? And I was that ugliness.
That was the first step in my plan, while continuing spying on Mercier’s phone and computer—as I was doing right now, hacking his Wi-Fi from under the table with my phone. Old habits died hard. It would allow me to monitor him, and maybe, hopefully, Los Calaveras. I’d found nothing on them. No traces. They were ghosts, securing their digital fingerprints even better than I did. They never committed one mistake.
I snapped my fingers at Mercier, who had frozen like a perpetual glitch that had damaged his system forever. His eyes were wide open, his lips parted, it was like his soul had left his body. Well, I surely didn’t plan that. If he wasn’t sitting up, I would’ve thought he had gone into cardiac arrest.
“Well.” I stood from the chair, readjusting my long black coat, which he didn’t even offer to take when I arrived. Talk about manners. “My offer ends after dinner.”
It was checkmate.
I paced the room, gripping the handle, when Mercier got back his voice. “Delombre, wait, there’s something—”
I swung the door open.
I thought I had won until Dalia’s bloodshot eyes settled on me.