34. Chapter 34
Chapter 34
Duncan
I gave Elsa two choices; one, we close her place down, or second, she could hire someone to do the heavy lifting.
With very little grace, she went with option two and hired a baker. This meant that she didn't have to wake up at the butt crack of dawn, and Thierry had time to do whatever the hell he did when he wasn't at Délices d'Elsa.
Lisset, in her late thirties and an expert baker, ran the boulangerie with the same precision and eye for quality as Elsa. Even though Lisset worked full-time, my wife still spent much of the day at Délices d'Elsa—which meant I was there for most of the day too. If I had to leave, Thierry or Dean stayed with her. We also had a two-man security detail for her, something I made clear was non-negotiable.
I did enjoy saying non , every time she complained about them.
She was chatting with Lisset when I finally heard back from Vincent Arsenault.
He hadn't been my first choice to turn for help, but my first choice was hidden away in the US Embassy with no contact with the outside world, and I couldn't wait. As an Archer, I knew where and how to make alliances.
I'd asked Elsa if I could trust Vincent right after the shooting incident.
She looked at me quizzically. "He thinks of me as a sister, Duncan," she snapped, "I don't understand why you think I want other men. I am twenty hundred weeks pregnant. I don't want to have sex with anyone."
Lies.
She was horny as hell, and the number of times I'd had her rub against me in bed after she pushed away the pillow wall she put between us was proof of that. Just this morning, I'd made her come in the shower, and she'd looked beautiful, spent, and soft. Five minutes later, she was back to being pissed off with me and the world in general.
I understood the battle she was facing. She had forgiven me for trying to use her, for not shielding her from what Dom wanted from her. But she was having trouble forgetting it. Her biggest fear was that I'd be like her father and try to use our child. That hurt like a motherfucker. She really thought I was as much of a bastard as Jean-Luc Moreau, head of the French mafia?
"I know you're not fucking Vincent or interested in fucking him," I sighed. "I just need to know if you trust him."
"Why do you want to know that?" Elsa demanded.
I didn't want her to stress; there already had been enough of that for her, what with the shooting, the time she had collapsed due to dehydration, my fuck up—all of it was not good for a pregnant woman. But I also knew that if I hid things from her, any chance we had at having a half-decent relationship would be blown to smithereens.
"I want to see if he can help with our Pascal problem."
She raised both her eyebrows. "You're not going anywhere near that madman."
" Ma douce , he's after you, so, yeah, I have to eliminate him as a threat."
Elsa narrowed her eyes. "What does this eliminate mean? You're not going to…are you?"
If necessary, I wouldn't hesitate to have Pascal Fournier killed. I had no qualms about that. He was an evil man, no gray area there. But I preferred to keep my hands clean. Even if I had a conscience, Pascal being killed wouldn't bother me. Since I didn't, especially when it came to protecting my family, it wasn't a problem I had to deal with.
"Just getting him out of the arena, so he can't play gangster anymore," I told her vaguely.
She put her hands on her stomach. "I trust Vincent."
"Good. Then I can trust him, too."
"What are you up to?" she asked suspiciously.
I smiled, kissing her softly on her lips despite Lisett being in the audience. "My love, I'm going to ask Vincent for help."
"I thought Vincent was a dangerous weapon’s dealer." She crossed her arms over her big belly, looking fucking adorable. I was so madly in love with her that I couldn't understand how I hadn't recognized it before.
"Thierry says he's not dealing chemical weapons, and that's good enough for me. Vincent cares about you, and he has the resources to help me." I pushed back some of her hair that had come loose around her face. "You trust him, ma douce , and that means I can do the same."
Her eyes softened, and then, just like that, they became suspicious and accusatory. "Is this a ploy to get me back?"
Damn it! This woman wasn't giving me a fucking inch. "No, this is me relying on your judgment, no games, nothing."
She watched me for a long moment and then did something that she hadn't done in a long time. She went on tiptoe and brushed her lips against mine, sliding her tongue out to taste me. It lasted a short few seconds, but I felt it all the way to my soul and my dick. Elsa was giving me a chance, and victory had never tasted this good.
Leaving Dean at the bakery while he grouched about missing a vital auction, I went to see Vincent in his office at La Défense. I hated that I had to make a deal with a man like Vincent Arsenault, well known for having a dual life as a businessman and an arm's dealer. But you couldn't fight a man like Pascal Fournier without a man like Arsenault.
I'd tried to talk to Elsa's father, but that man had his head up his ass while it was buried in the sand. He refused to see that Pascal was making a play at taking over Moreau's empire. According to him, the kidnapping attempt was a misunderstanding that he had cleared up with Pascal. As things stood, he couldn't understand what I was worried about because even if Pascal had taken Elsa, it wasn’t like he was planning on hurting Elsa; he was just going to use her to negotiate with Moreau. I'd had to resist punching him in the face for not seeing the risk to my wife and child, his daughter and grandbaby.
Dom was out of commission, and with that, my choices had been limited. But Elsa had faith in Vincent and that meant so could I. I believed my wife, believed in her. She might have been sexually inexperienced, but the life she'd lived helped her see through people.
I couldn't help but smile when I thought about her and I thought about my wife a lot.
She was a zillion months pregnant, suffering from heartburn and backaches; and needing to pee every two minutes, which was frustrating the hell out of her. Hormonal Elsa was horny and temperamental—cute as fuck and erratic. Most of the time, I didn't know whether she was going to hug me or throw something at me. She was, if nothing else, keeping me on my toes.
I walked into the high-rise sleek building, a modern monolith of glass and steel where the offices of Arsenault Imports otherwise, I'd have come to the boulangerie . I hear you've set up an office at Délices d'Elsa."
I shook his hand and took the chair he offered me. As he went back around his desk to take a seat, I told him, "My wife refuses to let me barricade her at my apartment on Avenue Montaigne, where I have ample security so I have no choice but to be where she is."
"The things we do for the people we love."
"Yes," I agreed. I was here to make a deal with the devil for my wife and baby. There was nothing I wouldn't do for them, including giving up my own life if need be.
His expression remained neutral, but I could see the flicker of interest in his eyes. "The truth is you can't hide her for the rest of her life, or should I say Fournier's life?"
I gritted my teeth. "As you know, Pascal tried to kidnap Elsa. He's a threat to my family, and he won't stop until he gets what he wants. I need him out of commission."
Vincent leaned back in his chair, steepling his fingers. "Why are you talking to me? I thought you did business with the CIA."
I cocked an eyebrow but didn't say anything. It wasn't like I knew if Dom was CIA. He could be fucking anybody. Right now, he didn't exist; even the hospital records of his visit had been wiped, and the police had not come back to follow up on the incident. Someone high up in the American governmental food chain had made the kidnapping attempt disappear, most probably to keep Dom's interference quiet.
"How do you propose we…ah…take Pascal out of commission? He's not an easy man to kill," Vincent pointed out, "Many who are better than you have tried and died while trying."
"I wasn't thinking of killing him." I relaxed a little. Vincent was going to play ball. That was the first hurdle that I had to cross and I just had.
"What did you have in mind?"
"I was thinking that maybe we could help European or French authorities arrest his ass and throw him in prison for a long time."
"He could run his organization from prison," Vincent mused.
"But it's not his organization. It's Jean-Luc Moreau's."
Vincent nodded. "Okay."
I now moved to the second part of my plan. "Now, you may wonder how this benefits you."
Vincent smiled widely. " Oui , I have been wondering that."
"We get Pascal out of the picture, and we convince Moreau to retire."
I didn't think a lot of people surprised Vincent, but I knew I just had. It was an angle he'd never thought about. With Jean-Luc Moreau gone, Vincent could take over Moreau's organization, and a man like Vincent was always looking for an advantage and to expand his power. This move would give him all of France, in addition to the illegal global arm's empire he sat on.
Dom was going to kill me when he found out what I'd done. But with Vincent, we'd have a reasonable man running the country's illegal activities—not someone ready to make deals with just anyone for money like Moreau.
My wife trusted Vincent, and I followed her lead, putting my faith in her judgment without hesitation. She needed that from me, and honestly, it wasn’t hard. I loved her, and I believed in her completely—there was no conflict between how I felt and what I was doing. It was a new feeling for me. I wasn’t trying to stay on her good side by working with Vincent just because she vouched for him. I was doing it because I trusted Elsa not to steer me toward a man who could hurt us.
"These are two power-hungry men," he chuckled, "Everyone in our business is. Power is survival. I don't think it'll be easy to get either of them to give up what they hold. How do you intend to convince them against their instincts?"
"I'm glad you ask. We frame Pascal and Moreau; but only Elsa's Papa gets a get-out-of-jail card."
"If we frame them both, let them both rot in prison."
"That would displease my wife."
Vincent smiled. "Like I said, the things we do for love." His demeanor turned serious. "Framing Pascal or Jean-Luc is no small task. It will require precision, resources, and ruthlessness."
"I know, which is why I'm asking you for help. I know you have connections," I said, my voice level. "And I know you think of Elsa as a sister. I wouldn't be here if I had any other choice. I need you to set him up, to make sure he's taken down and can't get back up."
He studied me for a long moment, then nodded slowly. "I do care about Elsa. And I don't take kindly to threats against those I consider family." He paused for a long moment. "I'll help you, Duncan. But understand this—you will owe me a favor. A favor that I may collect at any time, in any form."
The implication was clear, and it sounded ominous. But for Elsa and our child, I would do whatever it took. "Deal."
A slow smile spread across Vincent's face, one that didn't reach his eyes. A favor from an Archer for a man like Vincent was a very good deal.
"Let's lay out the plan." He spread his hands, indicating, I had the floor.
We spent the next hour meticulously reviewing every detail. Vincent's knowledge of the underworld and strategic mind were invaluable. He proposed setting up a deal that Pascal couldn't resist, complete with fake documents and a carefully orchestrated sting operation. The goal was to catch Pascal and Jean-Luc red-handed, with enough evidence to ensure they would be locked away for a long time.