Chapter 17
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
Lyam
I open my eyes and for a minute think I’m dreaming again.
Because this is where I come in my sleep. Dark walls. The smell of must and urine and the squeals of rats. The prison of my dreams.
Only this time, I’m not dreaming.
When I get out of these chains—and I will—I will kill them.
I draw in a breath and try to remember what happened.
I was outside Le Marquise, near the Louvre.
It was a setup. It was a fucking setup. He had those tourists planted so they could cause a mob scene and take me in.
Clever bastard.
I blink, looking around the dimly lit room and see a pair of polished black shoes. “Welcome, Mr. Gerard.”
I look up into the jowly face of none other than Francois Montague himself.
Cosette’s father.
The man that would be my father-in-law.
I shudder at my enemy and observe him up close.
On the surface, they look nothing alike.
Now that I know, I can see the slightest hint of resemblance. The subtle turn of the nose and color of his eyes.
Just like hers.
But that’s where the similarities end.
There’s a pronounced hunch in his shoulders, and a greedy, calculating smile embedded in his fleshy face. She is sunshine and daisies, and he’s the charred remains of a forest fire.
Whereas Cosette’s eyes are bright and vivid, his are heavy and cruel.
She’s slender and lithe, as graceful as a willow tree.
His potbelly sags below his waistline, pinched into pants that are too tight.
Her smile is bright and vivid and could challenge the stars in the heavens, and his is a slimy smirk.
Cosette’s skin is soft and clear like a porcelain doll’s while his is pitted and leathery.
“What the fuck do you want?”
He sighs and places his fingertips together.
“It’s very clear, Mr. Gerard. I want to be reelected. Why else would I work so hard at ridding Paris of its scum?”
I know he’s baiting me, and I refuse to rise to the bait. The irony of calling us scum…
Though I’m familiar with where I am now, I can see that we’re in a different area.
Before, deep in the dark recesses of this basement hovel, there was no light, no noise from the outside.
I can still see where they held me, the chair and chains still visible in my mind.
But now I can hear the rattle and squeak of something overhead and even see a small window that sheds light on the passing feet of passersby.
It takes me a minute to identify the bright blue lights and stone monuments outside the window.
We’re in the basement of the Capitol.
Clever, Montague. Very clever. And damning. If I ever got word to the press about what he does in the basement of this place of government business, he’d never survive it.
The nerve that Montague took me here.
“You had to ask questions, didn’t you?” he says with a shake of his head. “You could have just left. When we began the witch hunt, you could’ve packed your bags and gone off with your friends in Tuscany or America, but no. You had to go after my daughter.”
Go after his daughter?
“It was easy enough, Mr. Gerard. Let me have my way. The citizens of Paris aren’t interested in riffraff like you being in their historic city. All you had to do was give me my way and let me drive you out of the city.”
No. It’s a lie. He was never going to just drive us out of the city. He wanted us annihilated. He may still.
“But you went and had to perpetuate your rubbish by impregnating my daughter.”
“Your daughter,” I repeat through gritted teeth, “hasn’t seen you since she was too young to remember.
You don’t even pretend that she exists. And you have the nerve to claim ownership of her in this way?
She wasn’t good enough for you before, you rejected her and pretended she never even existed, but now she’s your precious daughter? ”
“Silence!” he thunders, as shooting pain cascades through my nerves. I clench my jaw to stifle a scream when pain tears through me. He’s got me connected to chains that emit electric currents.
Motherfucker.
I grit my teeth and glare at him as he continues. I’m panting from the exertion when the pain stops.
“She disgusts me. A prostitute for hire when she worked at La Maison? An employee for your revolting club?” He shakes his head.
“I wanted to punish you for having the gall to disrupt the calm of my city. I had one of the officers on our payroll infiltrate one of your businesses, pretending to be a client. He had the nerve to go too far, and Fabien decided to kill him, didn’t he? ”
It takes me a minute to realize what he’s talking about. Fabien killed a man who attacked Nicolette. Montague’s hire?
“My daughter will pay for her shameful behavior. Wretched creature. I hoped that you would kill her when you discovered she betrayed you, and things looked like they were going our way. But you didn’t, did you?
Foolish man.” He shakes his head. Spittle flies from his mouth as he fumes.
“You thwarted my plans. You had no idea she was working for me all along, did you?”
I tear at the chains that have me bound to the floor.
He’s lying. He can’t hate her and consider her despicable and also hire her to work for him.
Can he?
Would she?
“Let me go,” I seethe. “Then we can talk man to man.”
He likely knows that our “talk” would involve my hands around his throat. He only shakes his head.
“If it were that easy, why would I chain you to begin with?”
A door opens and I hear approaching footsteps. I look up to see one of Montague’s henchmen. I recognize the crooked nose, thin lips, and narrowed, beady eyes. I see him in my nightmares.
My torturer.
“Welcome back,” he says with a ruthless smile.
I bare my teeth at him. “Easy to say that when I’m bound in chains, isn’t it?”
He’ll go down first, and painfully.
“What is it?” Montague asks. “You know I don’t abide interruptions unless necessary.”
“So sorry for the interruption, but I have pertinent news.”
“Oh?” Montague gives him a curious look. “What’s that?”
He looks straight to me when he curls his lip. “We found her, sir.”
No.
I rattle the chains. “If you touch a fucking hair on her head—”
“Like you care?” Montague asks, his head tipped to the side. “You just found out she was working with me, didn’t you? You sent her away. You don’t want her.”
Something doesn’t sit right. Something’s wrong with this scenario. I know they drugged me, but I also know that they’re lying. I push through the fog and insist on what I know is true. “She isn’t working with you.”
“Do you say that because you believe it to be true or because you hope it is?” he asks, shaking his head from side to side. “Of course she is. Why do you think she lured Savannah out?”
It doesn’t make sense. She couldn’t have fabricated any of what we had.
The way she touched me. The way she told me in her gentle way how much she loves me. How devoted she already is to our baby.
Montague is a traitorous liar. So who would I believe?
I push through again. “Because you threatened to end her pregnancy.”
He laughs. “I didn’t even know she was pregnant when we asked her to betray you.”
My head swims with the lies, and I’m unsure of where even to begin to sort them out. Cosette didn’t betray us, I know that for a fact.
I wonder why he hasn’t killed me yet. I doubt it’s just to punish me for whatever crime he thinks I’ve committed.
No. He wants me for something.
Then why does he have me here?
What’s his endgame?
My heart beats faster at the knowledge that they know where Cosette is, when I realize if he’s lying about everything else, he’s lying about that too.
It’s a bluff. I was careful about moving her, careful who I hired.
I made sure they were untraceable and completely off the grid.
There’s no way they actually know where she is.
I wouldn’t have moved her from Le Marquise otherwise.
I imagine her, resilient as hell and strong, but compromised, focused on carrying our baby to term. I have to get to her. “You killed Rousseau.”
His eyes go hard. “Of course I did. She betrayed us. She was a danger to every citizen of Paris.”
The bastard. The fucking bastard.
I clench my jaw.
“What do you want from me?”
“It’s very simple, Mr. Gerard. I want to be reelected. I’ve promised to rid the city of the likes of you. All you need to do is move out. Re-root somewhere else.” A small smile makes him look almost reptilian.
No. That isn’t it.
“I want to let you go, you see. But I can’t unless I have some assurances.
In short, Mr. Gerard, I want you to make a choice.
Cosette or your family.” He begins tapping the little table beside him with broad, blunt fingers, but his eyes remain on me.
“You’re an assassin, so this will be an easy one for you.
Kill Cosette, and life goes back to the way it was before.
I’ll come up with a story for the press and drop all charges and investigations involving your family.
However, know that if you choose her, and your family remains in the city, I will kill all of you.
” He scowls. “Starting with my sorry excuse for a daughter.”
Hot, visceral hatred bubbles inside me like lava.
He wants me to choose between Cosette and my family?
“It’s a very simple choice.”
“Very easy,” I say to him. “Because the answer is no.”
The electrical current sears through my skull, rattles my nerves, and brings pain the likes of which I’ve never known. I scream until my voice is hoarse, and when it finally stops, I’m dripping in sweat and my vision is hazy.
“Not an option, Mr. Gerard. You’ll do what I say, or I’ll fry you until you can’t remember your own name. And then, if you still refuse to do what I’ve asked of you, I’ll be sure you watch as I kill her, before I take your life.”
I won’t hurt her. I can’t. The only reason I rejected her and sent her away was for her own safety. I love Cosette. There’s no goddamn way I’ll allow anyone to hurt her, or our unborn baby.
But I need to find out more information. I need to bide my time and find a way out of here.
“So, wait,” I say, even though speaking makes me want to vomit. “One of your men went to Le Luxe. He was the one who Fabien killed. You set it up so I’d be kidnapped and held for ransom so you could get what you wanted.”
The slow, wicked smile that spreads across his face makes me sick.
“Then you sent men to Le Luxe so you could destroy us from within. You found Cosette. Used her to get to us. You were working with the Chaberts all along.”
His eyelid twitches as he scowls at me, and he doesn’t respond. But his silence tells me everything I need to know. He’s been pitting every rival mafia group in Paris against one another for his own gain. And it’s worked.
Until now.
He lifts the small remote control that makes me writhe in pain when he pushes the button. My body tenses, remembering what happened, how I’ve been here before. I don’t fear physical pain. I fear helplessness. I don’t fear what they’ll do to me. I fear what they’ll do to the people I love.
“Then what will it be, Mr. Gerard?”
“You can shove your offer up your fucking ass. I’ll never betray my family. I’ll never hurt Cosette. And if you think for a minute that I’ll do anything to harm our baby—”
The pain hits so hard, I can’t talk. I fall to my knees and writhe. He rends screams out of me as spasms of pain erupt in my body, fire pulsing through my veins.
I’m on the floor, panting. My ears ring with pain. Worse than the agony is the inability to think when I’m in its grip. I draw in a breath to try to clear the mental haze.
He waits until I look at him again. “If you don’t, Mr. Gerard, I will.”