Chapter 27
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
MY MIND WHIRLED. Why was he here? Had he overheard something on the bugs that clued him into our real identities? Had he figured it out some other way?
“I don’t know what they’re paying you, but I’ll give you, like, fifty bucks not to kill us,” I offered.
Charles probably paid him thousands and thousands of dollars, but fifty bucks was fifty bucks, right?
Surprisingly, the guard laughed. The action made him look significantly less murderous, like a rottweiler instead of a scorned chihuahua.
Because everyone knew chihuahuas were really the most murderous breed of dogs.
That was precisely why God made them smaller than a cat—so the rest of the world would stand a chance.
“I’m not here to kill you,” Gavin explained. “I’m here on Mrs. Gauthier’s orders. I am to be your chauffeur.”
“Chauffeur?” Colt asked from behind me, his expression guarded. “Chauffeur to where?”
I looked back at him, mumbling, “Our deaths, probably.”
Gavin chuckled.
Great. So he had the hearing of a rottweiler, too.
“Mrs. Gauthier has arranged a dinner date for the two of you at La Petite Pipette. ” He held a bag out for me. “She insists you wear this.” Now a glance at Colt. “What you’re wearing should be fine. Maybe add a sports coat. You both have fifteen minutes.”
I rushed through gussying up. Vivienne had included a violet floor-length dress that made the green in my eyes pop and flattered my fake-pregnant figure.
It had a tasteful yet sexy V-neck and came paired with strappy gold sandals.
Based on the heat in Colt’s gaze when we reconvened in the living room, I wasn’t the only one who appreciated the look.
The ride to the restaurant was tense and silent and lasted approximately a thousand years.
The suburbs morphed into businesses, which grew taller and closer together the farther we ventured into downtown Detroit.
Vehicles congested the roads, and I could practically smell the exhaust in the humid air outside the car.
The evening sunlight glistened off the skyscraper’s windows and bathed the city in a golden glow that softened the rough edges.
Construction barriers and weathered brick contrasted against bold and colorful new buildings.
Old and new, wealthy and working class, all in the same place.
La Petite Pipette , nestled in the intersection between historic and modern downtown, was a masterpiece.
The bar alone had complicated chemistry set-ups with glass pipes and beakers and metal stands adorning the back of it, liquids of varying shades of amber, caramel, and burgundy bubbling or foaming within.
A wavy copper container with a long neck that I could’ve sworn was used in distilling shined next to one of these set-ups like a fancy peanut.
Overhead, a light fixture like suspended puddles of mercury illuminated the glossy bottles and flasks of liquor lining the rest of the shelves.
Double helix lights like DNA hung over smaller hexagonal tables, with copper-like metal legs that matched the pipes on the distillery.
Though there weren’t many booths, the ones that existed were plush and polished, much like the rest of the establishment.
Small, corked flasks on each table held salt and pepper, in case anyone had missed the chemistry-theme memo.
It would be pretty impossible to, though, since all the waiters and waitresses wore lab coats as part of their uniform.
It should’ve been tacky. But Charles had designed the place perfectly to be refined, but fun. Fancy, but casual. There was nonalcoholic bubbly that tasted nearly identical to the real stuff and delicate pastries that melted on my tongue.
Aside from nearly killing Colt with dessert—don’t ask—dinner went off without a hitch. It seemed like we were in the clear.
Until Gavin made a wrong turn driving us home.
“Oh, it was supposed to be a right back there,” I piped up, gesturing over my shoulder.
Gavin met my eyes in the rearview mirror, his features stony. “I know.”
My blood chilled and Colt tensed beside me. The odds of there being another stop as part of Vivienne’s plan were nil, but we played our parts. Confused, asking blissfully ignorant hypotheticals to each other, and all the while panicking inside. Planning for the worst case scenario.
We finally came to a stop outside a public beach. This time of day, with clouds blocking out the sinking sun and taking its extra warmth with it, the shore was nearly deserted.
Gavin met our eyes in the mirror again, his expression cold and his voice colder. “Time for a walk.”
On a scale from one to ten for how likely we were going to die, I’d give us a solid thirteen.
We complied, fresh out of excuses unless I pretended to go into labor.
Which wasn’t a half-bad last resort, honestly.
Still, it was just that—a last resort. Under no circumstances were we to break our cover, and it would take the hospital approximately two seconds after admitting me to figure out I wasn’t really pregnant.
Gavin led us to the shore. The sand slid through my sandals, grating underfoot and between my toes. A faint fishy smell carried on the breeze from the lake. Water stretched as far as the eye could see, growing increasingly dark and ominous as it neared the horizon.
“I had a chat with someone recently,” Gavin began, almost conversationally. “It took a while to track her down, but she had some interesting things to say about you, Mr. Dixon .”
My stomach pitched. Gavin knew Colt’s identity. I didn’t know how , but he knew it.
Colt’s hand tensed in mine, though his voice was eerily calm. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Tiffany—was that her name? The redhead you went on a date with only two months ago?” Gavin nodded toward me. “A date which, judging by your wife’s reaction, she knew about. Assuming she is your wife.”
Welp. May as well throw us in a toolbox, because we were officially screwed.
“You’re far too observant for mere civilians.” Gavin leveled us with an icy stare, his words precise and punctuated. “I’ll only give you one chance to tell the truth. Who. Are. You?”
A breeze blew through the skirt of my dress and whipped my curls to the side. A seagull landed nearby, eying us in search of food. Colt remained still as a statue.
A myriad of plans flashed through my mind. Lies we could spin to explain ourselves. Even if I threw him under the bus and said Colt was a cheater and I knew it—something he would never in a million years be—I’d still lied about his history with Tiffany.
Why was Gavin confronting us about this here and now, anyway?
Sure, our odds of taking him on weren’t great, but if he’d guessed we were Feds, he had to know that we were trained in combat, and we still outnumbered him.
He didn’t know for sure that we were unarmed, even if we were.
It would be nasty, but it wasn’t a guaranteed win for him.
Especially since there were four other henchmen itching for a good fight that he could’ve recruited as backup.
But he hadn’t. He’d chosen to confront us alone.
Why?
I narrowed my eyes. Gavin was the only one of the bodyguards without evident gang ties, which meant no other bosses besides Charles.
I replayed each interaction with the Gauthiers in my head at lightspeed, focusing instead on Gavin’s role in each one.
He always stood the closest to them, looked outward for threats while the primary focus for the others was watching the Gauthiers.
While the other bodyguards alternated which one would accompany Vivienne on our coffee dates, Gavin was a constant.
She joked with him like they were old friends, genuinely smiled when he was guarding her, but performed as soon as any of the other guards joined them.
At the very least, ButtFace didn’t seem fond of Gavin. I’d chalked it up to jealousy that Gavin got to sit next to Vivienne at the coffee shop, but maybe it wasn’t jealousy at all, but frustration. Resentment.
The itch at the base of my skull intensified, and my gut clenched. I didn’t have anything substantial to go off. I knew this. Colt knew this. We’d discussed it. And yet, the missing piece for my hunch just slid into place. We had little to lose at this point, and everything to gain.
I was going for it.
I sighed, heart thumping wildly until it drowned out the gentle crash of the waves lapping against the shore. “We’re Feds.”
Colt’s head snapped in my direction before his palm slapped against his forehead. Huh. A facepalm. I hadn’t gotten that specific reaction from him before, but I also hadn’t broken Undercover 101’s most important rule then, either.
Gavin nodded, the tension in his shoulders easing. “Good.”
“Good?” Colt let his hand slide down his face, regarding Gavin with a cautious stare. “What do you mean good ?”
“Because he’s the one who keeps the Gauthiers safe from the other ‘bodyguards,’” I murmured.
The rest of the Got-Your-Back Street Boys weren’t so much Charles’ guards as his prison wardens. And the cameras—Charles wasn’t behind all of them. He likely didn’t even have access to the footage.
Gavin’s eyes flicked to mine, all but confirming my suspicions. “Charles never wanted to get involved in this in the first place. But he needed to… supplement his income.”
I swallowed hard, thinking of the various treatments Vivienne and Charles had undergone in their efforts to conceive. The thousands and thousands of dollars they’d had to spend.
“It was only the more harmless stuff at first. Club drugs. Hallucinogens. That kind of stuff.” Gavin looked out over the lake and crossed his arms. The seagull scuttled closer.
“But he caught the attention of some unsavory types. Charles didn’t want to work for any of them, let alone do what they wanted him to do with their drugs.
” Gavin’s eye twitched, betraying his agitation.
“So, they threatened Vivienne. If they’d just threatened him, he wouldn’t have budged.
But they knew where to apply the pressure. ”
That’s why, if Gavin had to choose which of the two Gauthiers to guard, he went with Vivienne. Maybe Charles ordered him to. She hadn’t only been my ticket in, the poor woman.
“Since Charles had already almost been kidnapped before he hired me, his new taskmasters weren’t going to take any chances. They didn’t want him getting cold feet, either, so they all sent one of their own to be part of his security detail .” Gavin scowled at the term, a snarl on his lips.
The seagull eyed him before taking flight. Its rustling feathers punctuated the tense silence between us.
“Once Vivienne got pregnant,” Gavin continued, “Charles couldn’t take it anymore. He wanted better for his child. For Vivienne. He always figured the Feds would catch up to him eventually, so he decided to speed things along. Strategically leak the identity of Le Chimiste and wait.”
So much about the timing of this assignment suddenly made sense. How we’d had a breakthrough after literal years of Le Chimiste being an urban legend. A ghost in the wind. Did that mean the Lamaze classes were designed to be our opening from the start?
“So you suspected us from the start?” I gestured to my bump. “Because we’ve had to take some pretty drastic measures, which I am going to be ticked about if you knew from day one.”
He glanced at my tummy, his lips twitching like Colt’s often did when he fought a smile.
“Actually, no. The possibility seemed too absurd, for one, and for two, you were incredibly convincing as a couple. It wasn’t until you came to their house for dinner and looked at each camera exactly once and never again, even by accident, that I reconsidered.
Add in the way Maksim and Dante started acting toward you after the tango class, and I figured it was worth tracking down the woman from the burger place and getting her side of the story. ”
I sniffed, slightly mollified. At least my diligence with this hunk of silicone hadn’t been completely wasted.
“I take it Charles is looking to make a deal?” Colt asked, speaking up for the first time since Gavin dropped the proverbial bomb on us.
He arched a brow and freed his hand from mine to cross his arms. The wind ruffled through his hair.
A distant car honked. “Regardless of whether he has been coerced, he broke the law before then, too. People have died because of what he’s made. ”
I grimaced. My chest burned like I’d pressed Colt’s clothes iron against my bare skin. Dominick. He’d been a casualty of one of Charles’ first batches.
Colt sent me a look, so quick I nearly missed it, or the understanding written in the crease of his brow. “What does he offer in exchange for getting him out?
Colt hated making deals. I’d seen it countless times in interrogations.
Deals were instrumental in catching the bigger fish, but he hated having to let the smaller fish swim away with only a slap on its fishy little wrist. It wasn’t just, but it was essential.
A necessary evil—one he was considering doing now.
It was probably delusion talking, but I hoped our discussions had influenced his decision.
He and Gavin hashed out the details. Charles, in his infinite paranoia and strategizing, had enough evidence to put away a lot of heinous people for a very long time. It would be the biggest breakthrough of the year. The decade, even.
I fought the sting of tears, my throat tight and my shoulders lighter than they’d been in weeks.
There was a third door after all. A happy ending for the targets I’d come to care about.
It was such a rare, impossible thing. Nearly unheard of.
But in a world riddled with darkness and depravity, occasionally the Greater Good ended up being just that.
Good .