13. Bastien
13
BASTIEN
The butler escorted us into the sitting room, the equivalent of a lobby in an office building, and we waited a few minutes before my mother emerged in a white button-up blouse with midnight-blue trousers and ballet flats. Around her neck, she’d tied a little scarf. My mother always lit up at the sight of me, lit up in a way my father never did, even when I did something right or impressive.
“My baby, what a surprise.” She came over to me and kissed me on each cheek before she gave me a squeeze. Then she turned to Fleur. “Lovely to see you again.” She kissed her on each cheek and blanketed her in motherly affection. “You look beautiful. I love this—” She spotted Fleur’s engagement ring and cupped her mouth with both hands. “Oh my lord, look at that!” She clutched her hands to her chest before she moved back to Fleur and hugged her hard. “You’ve made me so happy.”
I hadn’t seen my mother in the throes of joy in a long time. She smiled politely and appeared engaged in her life, but never anything like this. Nothing that made her shriek in unbridled happiness.
My mother finally let Fleur go and turned to me. “I’m so happy for you, baby.” She hugged me again, Fleur’s size, so also a foot shorter than me. “I did not expect this when you dropped by for a visit. I can’t believe it, but I can very much believe it. So, when is the wedding? It has to be within at least a year?—”
“Mom.” I pulled away and gave her a gentle squeeze on the arm. “We’re still in the moment right now. We’ll figure it out later.”
She turned back to Fleur, took her hand, and examined the ring under the light of the chandelier. “Bastien.” She clicked her tongue against her teeth. “This ring is marvelous. You have impeccable taste.”
“I know,” I said with a smirk.
“Did you tell him you wanted this?” she asked Fleur.
“No,” she said with a smile. “He did this all on his own.”
“This has to be twenty-four carats,” Mom said as she continued to examine the ring like a jeweler. “The clarity is truly remarkable.” She finally let go of Fleur’s hand and looked into her face. “So happy for you. I can’t believe there will be another Dupont soon. And little Duponts running around, carrying on the family name and legacy.”
Any children we may or may not have wouldn’t be included in the Dupont legacy. They would do something better with their lives than what Godric and I had chosen. Something respectable, commendable.
“This calls for a celebration,” Mom said. “Champagne and caviar in the drawing room.” She stepped into the other room to speak to her butler and tell him all the details.
“I’m glad your mother is excited,” Fleur said. “I wasn’t sure how she’d react.”
“She loves you.”
“I was afraid she would say it’s too fast, that we’re in a rush.”
“She trusts my judgment. You’re the only woman of mine she’s ever met, let alone heard of.”
That seemed to make her feel warm because she smiled and looked down at her ring again, lightly grazing her finger over the large diamond in the center. After a long gaze, she looked at me again, her eyes so bright they were like moons. “I love you.”
I savored the look on her face, the way she wore her heart on her sleeve and it beat just for me. So caught up in the stare, I almost didn’t say it back. “I love you too.”
I sat in the warehouse with a cigar in my mouth. It was pouring rain outside, the drops like a stampede of cats on the roof. I’d spent the last few days in bed with Fleur, fucking like rabbits in spring, but unfortunately, I had to go back to work.
My phone vibrated with a text. Can we meet?
It was Godric.
He was the last person I expected to hear from. I wanted to fire off questions about his intentions and the purpose of the meeting, but that could scare him off. When?
Now .
I’ll be in the city in 15 mins . I left the warehouse without a word, having driven myself, and returned to Paris. By the time I was surrounded by the buildings and lights of the glorious city, he texted me a location, a bar that he must own because nothing was open at four in the morning.
I parked on the empty street then entered the dimly lit bar, seeing Godric alone at a table in the center of the room. There was no bartender, so he must have made his own drink. None of his men appeared to be with him, a gesture of peace.
I helped myself to the bar and made a drink before I sat across from him.
His drink looked to have been sitting there awhile, because most of the ice had melted and diluted the scotch in his glass. Condensation was on the outside, and there was a noticeable ring on the table around the base. He wore an expensive black jacket with an Omega watch on his wrist. He’d always cared about nice things—clothes, cars, jewelry.
The only thing I cared about was women. And now, I had a woman worth more than all the cars in my garage and all the watches in Godric’s closet.
He stared at me as he relaxed in the chair, his guard dropped, unlike how it’d been at the wedding. He opened his coat to reveal the stash of cigars before he grabbed one and extended it to me.
“Can’t say no to that.” I took it and lit up.
He did the same.
Soon, we were surrounded by a cloud of smoke. The two of us sitting there in comfortable silence like we hadn’t been enemies these last few years. With our blond hair and blue eyes, our relation was impossible to miss. He was lean and toned like he ran on a treadmill instead of lifted weights, like a fucking pussy. He put his faith in guns rather than himself. I had a different philosophy, because an enemy could take away your guns and knives, but they could never take your strength.
Minutes passed, and neither one of us spoke, just smoked and drank, the large window that faced the street coated with rivulets of rain that continued to fall.
I knew Fleur was dead asleep right now in my bed in my t-shirt. I wondered if Godric went home to anyone. When I got tired of the silence, I broke it. “Thank you for the warning.” I didn’t want to show appreciation to him for anything, but I knew it would be poor taste if I didn’t.
He swirled his glass, even though there was barely any ice left. “I expected you to make a deal, not call for war.”
“I did make a deal, and then I changed my mind.”
He took a drink then returned the glass to the table. “For your fiancée’s ex-husband.”
“Mom told you.”
He gave a slight nod. “Congratulations.”
I didn’t accept it, unsure if it was genuine.
“Why would you destroy your alliance with the Aristocrats for the man who used to fuck your girl?”
I didn’t appreciate how he phrased that, but I didn’t rise to the bait. “Love makes you do crazy things.”
He took a puff of his cigar and let the smoke absorb on his tongue as he stared at me. Seconds later, he let it go as a cloud.
“They were all aware of Oscar’s plan to bury Fleur. They’re just as guilty as he is.”
“Sounds like an excuse.”
“It is—but it’s still valid.”
“You know they’ll come back. And when they do, they’ll come for you.”
“I’ll cross that bridge if and when I come to it.” I set my cigar aside and took a drink. I hadn’t done this with my brother for years, not since we were business partners, before he lied to me.
There was a long stretch of silence before Godric spoke. “This is the real deal?”
I regarded him, searching for his meaning before I responded. “Yes.”
He stared at me for a while before he gave a slight nod. “Mom was so excited when she told me, I could barely understand a word of what she said.”
“I’m surprised she told you.”
He gave a shrug. “Every couple of years, she makes her plea for us to be brothers again. To put aside the past and start over. I think that your upcoming nuptials reignited that.” He took another puff on his cigar. “She knows I’ll never get married, so…”
“Never say never. Didn’t think I’d get married either.”
“Then she must be one hell of a woman.”
“You have no idea, brother.”
He stilled when I uttered the endearment, something I hadn’t said to him in a long time.
I was somewhat embarrassed for the way I’d dumped my emotional baggage on him, in the middle of a crowded room when he had no warning of the missile headed his way. But it was done now, so I had to pretend I had no regrets about it.
Godric enjoyed his cigar a while longer, his eyes drifting elsewhere as he remained lost in thought. “His name is Ivan.”
My full attention focused on him, the sound of the rain suddenly gone.
“Escaped from a Russian prison for crimes against his own government. Laid low in the Middle East for years. Now, he has his own organization in Paris. Says it’s the mecca of wealth and power.”
I didn’t get anxiety, but I felt floods of adrenaline akin to waterfalls.
“Bastien.” He took the cigar out of his mouth and let it rest between his fingers on the table, the conversation turning even more serious than it’d been a moment ago. “He puts the psycho in psychopath.”
“Then why do you work with him?”
“I don’t. We just have the same ideologies about business.”
“If you share the same beliefs, and he’s a psychopath, what does that make you?” I cocked my head as I penetrated him with my stare.
He stared back, smoke rising from the tip of his cigar.
“Just something to think about…”
He stared like those words bounced off him. “He’s bribing all the groups in the city to roll on you. And those who don’t accept the bribe are getting a threat to their family instead. But a lot of them support the old Republic, only adhere to the Fifth Republic because you force them to. They’re looking for new leadership.”
My skin flushed before it prickled. As if a gun was pointed at the back of my head, I felt a sense of imminent danger, even though it was just the two of us in an empty room.
“You don’t have much time left.”
I had the best poker face in the world, so I didn’t react to what he said, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. A snake was in my garden, and it’d eaten all my fruit before I’d noticed it was there. He was powerful enough to threaten the gangs that reported to me, and he was powerful enough that they were too afraid to tell me about the threats. “Why are you telling me this?”
The smoke continued to rise to the ceiling from the tip of his cigar. He regarded me for a long time with guarded eyes. But slowly, the walls dropped, and the resentment faded away. “Because you’re my brother, Bastien.”
“It’s late,” Luca said, wiping his eyes like he was dead tired after the long night. “The sun is about to rise. Last time I was up this late was when we burned Oscar from Notre-Dame.” He leaned against the table with his arms crossed.
“Godric asked to meet.”
Luca perked up, like this information was enough to defeat the fatigue. “What’d he say?”
“Heard of some Russian asshole named Ivan?”
He shook his head.
“Neither have I. But he’s bribing and threatening our guys to roll on me one by one. If Godric is telling the truth, and I think he is, that means the guys are lying to our fucking faces.”
Luca absorbed all this, his stare slowly sharpening like a buffed knife. “How do we know this isn’t a play?—”
“Because it’s not.”
“Godric has had it out for you for years.”
“He’s telling the truth.”
Luca studied me, his head slightly cocked. “Why are you so sure?”
Because I’d told Godric the truth. Spoke my truth and poured out my fucking soul to him. “I just am.”
Luca seemed to see something in my stare, because he didn’t push. “How are we going to handle this?”
“We tell the wrong person that we know, and Ivan moves in.”
He nodded in agreement.
“Which means we need to hit him first.”
“And execute all the assholes who supported this coup.”