Chapter Seven
IT WAS HIS FIRST TIME attending a funeral without being the killer.
Or wishing he was the killer.
The thought should have disturbed him. Instead, Zacharie found it almost amusing in a grim sort of way, standing in the back of a funeral parlor in Glendale while mourners filed past a closed casket draped in white lilies.
Trina de los Reyes had been twenty-six years old. Pretty, if the photographs displayed on easels were accurate. Smiling in every single one, her arm slung around Mira’s shoulders, their faces pressed together like sisters rather than cousins.
Like family.
Like someone who hadn’t sold her own blood to human traffickers for what his sources confirmed was a mere fifty thousand dollars.
“I’m so sorry for your loss.”
The mourners lined up to extend their condolences to Mira, but all eyes were on him.
He was used to this. The weight of strangers’ gazes, the ripple of recognition that followed him through any room in Southern California.
One of their homegrown billionaires, the society pages liked to call him.
Self-made. Mysterious. Perpetually single despite the endless parade of women who threw themselves at his feet.
Today was no different. The whispers started the moment he walked in.
Women straightened their posture, touched their hair, found excuses to drift closer.
Men sized him up with a mix of wariness and envy.
The elderly aunts from Bakersfield clutched their purses tighter, as if his wealth might be contagious. Or dangerous.
Let them wonder.
Let them stare.
His attention was elsewhere entirely.
Mira stood by the casket in a simple black dress that skimmed her knees, her dark hair pulled back from her face, a single strand of pearls at her throat that he didn’t recognize.
She looked lovely.
Fragile in a melancholic way, like a watercolor left out in the rain. The kind of beauty that made people want to protect her, shelter her, wrap her in cotton and keep her safe from the ugliness of the world.
It was also the kind that disturbed men like him.
“You don’t have to be here,” Mira mumbled when there was a temporary lull in the line.
“I know.”
The answer had her blinking, those dark eyes of hers widening slightly before another mourner stepped forward and she had to look away.
Zacharie remained by her side throughout the day.
He made sure she ate, even if it was only a few bites of the catered sandwich he placed in her hands.
He made sure she took a brief rest in the family room when she started swaying on her feet, and he made sure to check her wound, despite her protests.
He made sure stayed hydrated, pressing bottles of water into her grip at regular intervals and watching her throat move as she swallowed.
He had figured her for a crybaby. All that blushing and stammering and wearing her heart so openly on her sleeve. He had expected tears. Rivers of them.
But she hadn’t shed a single one.
Not when the minister spoke. Not when Trina’s coworkers shared tearful anecdotes about her infectious laugh. Not even when the boyfriend, the same one who had assaulted Mira and then lied about it, had the audacity to show up and deliver a eulogy so maudlin it made Zacharie’s teeth ache.
Mira had sat through all of it with dry eyes and a face pale as chalk.
Something was wrong.
Whenever a person acted out of character, it meant pressure was building somewhere. Cracks forming beneath the surface. And eventually, inevitably, something would have to give.
The funeral parlor closed its doors at promptly eight in the evening. The last of the mourners trickled out into the warm California night, their headlights cutting across the parking lot before disappearing down the palm-lined boulevard.
Zacharie settled the remaining fees at the front desk while broodingly questioning himself for still being here.
There was no need.
Trina had been the only major threat keeping Mira from resuming her old life. Now that the woman was gone, murdered by parties still unknown though Zacharie had his people working on it, Mira was completely safe.
Which meant he should see himself as completely freed.
Both of them were free from having anything to do with each other.
The thought should have brought relief.
Instead, it made him feel on edge, like his life was on the line even when there was no clear and present danger.
When he returned to the receiving hall, the room was completely empty, all the folding chairs put away, the catering tables cleared. Mira was still seated where he left her, hands folded in her lap, her gaze fixed on the closed casket that would be transported to the crematorium in the morning.
She glanced up at the sound of his footsteps, and something...disturbing twisted behind his ribs. He didn’t like how the fluorescent lights washed the color from her face, making her look even more fragile than before.
“We can go now,” he said.
“I still have to settle some things with—”
“It’s all taken care of.”
She blinked.
“The payment. The scheduling. You don’t have to worry about anything,” he stressed.
“I could’ve done it myself.”
“Then I’ll let you do it next time.”
Zacharie had meant it as reassurance. An awkward attempt at lightness, the kind of thing normal people said to each other in difficult moments. But something in her face crumpled, her lips pressing together, her chin trembling almost imperceptibly.
She looked like she was about to cry.
And his chest twisted more tightly at the sight of it.
“Mira—”
She shook her head. “I’m fine. Just please...go.”
She wanted him to go.
And he should go.
For both of their sakes.
But instead he found himself snapping at her.
“Stop hiding behind such childishness.”
She shook her head. “I’m not—”
“For days now,” Zacharie snarled, “I’ve clearly done something to upset you, but you insist on acting like a child by pretending—”
“You were the one who pretended first!”
Her voice cracked on the accusation, loud enough to echo off the empty walls.
“Pardon?” The word came out in French, sharp with disbelief.
Her gaze flew up to his, finally meeting his eyes, and the moment their gazes collided he realized it was a mistake to want this.
Because now there was no unseeing the tears blurring her vision. No ignoring the way her whole body trembled with the effort of holding them back. No pretending he hadn’t done this to her somehow, broken something fragile without even understanding what.
“I know I’m a burden to you,” she whispered.
“So what?”
The words were already out before he could stop them, and he only realized that honesty was not always the best policy when he heard her choke back a sob.
“C-Can you please just go?”
Mira looked as if she was only seconds away from shattering into pieces, and it was all because of him, a man whose social skills had been honed for interrogation, not comfort. For extracting information, not offering solace.
He tried to think of something else to say.
But he could not.
He wanted to cross the distance between them and pull her into his arms.
But he could not.
He wanted to say and do what was right.
But he could not.
Because it was also at that moment he recalled the only memory he had of his father.
And it was of his father offering his youngest son Zacharie as collateral to a rival gang.
Not because he was the most precious.
But because he was the weakest and thus the most expendable.
“Just go—”
This time, he didn’t let her finish.
“As you wish.”
Zacharie turned his back and walked away. Every step he took was like distancing himself from the light while the darkness swallowed more and more of him. Every moment was a battle, a deliberate choice not to look back or take anything back.
Once he was out, it should have been easier to breathe.
But instead, it was the opposite, despite the cool night air brushing against his face.
The parking lot was nearly empty save for his black sedan and a few other vehicles. He got in easily enough. But despite knowing there, he simply stayed behind the wheel and waited.
Because he needed to make sure she was safe one last time.
He was just doing his job, that’s all.
Thee minutes ticked by. Ten. Twenty. Thirty.
The lights inside the funeral parlor dimmed. Staff members emerged, got into their cars, drove away. The boulevard grew quiet, nothing but the distant hum of the freeway and the occasional car passing by.
Still he waited.
Headlights swept across the parking lot as another car pulled in.
Zacharie straightened, his hand moving instinctively toward the weapon concealed beneath his jacket. Late-night visitor to a closed funeral parlor. Could be innocent. Could be a threat.
The car, a silver Honda, unremarkable, California plates, rolled to a stop near the entrance.
A man stepped out. Young, maybe mid-twenties. Dark hair, athletic build, dressed in jeans and a rumpled button-down like he had driven straight here from somewhere far away.
Zacharie’s eyes narrowed.
Before he could decide whether to intercept, the funeral parlor’s front door swung open, and Mira came rushing out.
Her face was tear-streaked, her movements unsteady, and the moment she saw the man standing by the Honda, she let out a sound that Zacharie heard even through his closed windows.
A sob.
A name, maybe.
And then she was running.
Running across the parking lot, her heels clicking against the asphalt—
Zacharie’s chest felt like it had turned into lead as he watched her sob in another man’s arms.
The sight...disturbed him.
Increasingly.
By the time she pulled away from the other man, his knuckles had gone white around the steering wheel, and it felt as if his clenched jaw had locked into place.
Who the hell was that?
****
CALIXTE ENDED THE CALL and slipped his phone back into his pocket.
The garden was quiet at this hour, the twins long asleep in the nursery with Pluto standing guard at the foot of their cribs. Moonlight silvered the landscaped hedges and turned the fountain into something out of a fairy tale.
He stood there for a moment, processing what Zacharie had just told him.
Comme c’est intéressant.
Eden was curled up on the sofa when he walked back inside, a cup of tea growing cold in her hands, her gaze lifting to meet his the moment he appeared in the doorway.
“Is everything alright?”
“That depends.” He crossed to her side and pressed a kiss to her forehead. “How do you feel about a short trip to Los Angeles with the boys?”
“That also depends.”
“On?”
“Two things.”
“Name them.”
“How important is it?”
“About several layers’ worth of lacquer would be peeled off.”
Eden’s face softened. “Let’s go then.”
“I’d still like to know what your second condition is.”
“It’s not important.”
Her husband cupped her chin, and Eden’s heart skipped a beat.
“Humor me anyway.”
Calixte watched a sheepish smile form over her wife’s lips, and as impossible as it seemed, he found himself falling for her even more at that moment.
“I was wondering—”
“Consider it done.”
“—if we could take the dogs with us?” Eden was laughing as she finished, with how her husband had already agreed without even knowing what he was agreeing to.
He swept her up in his arms, and as she cupped her husband’s cheeks, she found herself thinking how life had changed so, so much.
Once upon a time, this man existed solely in the shadows, feared as the Prince of Killers.
But what he was now...was what she prayed Zacharie could be, if the right girl would stay long enough to peel all the layers away to show him that he was neither weak nor evil.
Never had been.
And didn’t ever have to be.