CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
SYLVIE
When I was twelve, I was slightly off when I hit the springboard on a vault run.
It probably wasn’t enough to matter, but I felt it—the bumble rumbling in my marrow.
And midair, I hesitated, which screwed with my orientation, causing me to slam into the table.
It knocked the wind out of me, but it was a miracle nothing was broken.
Gymnasts have been killed or paralyzed for the very same fumble.
My father sprinted for me, cradling my sore body and rocking me with tears in his eyes, aware that I’d had a brush with death while doing what everyone believed I’d been born to do. Such irony.
Maybe no matter which path we choose, the Grim Reaper skulks around it in the hopes of seizing an opportunity.
Who could blame him? Stealing greatness is always more satisfying.
There are countless choices at this well-orchestrated event.
Morning strategy sessions, beach adventures, spa time, and various other activities.
It certainly has me yearning for a retreat, but I don’t opt for any of that because heading into the lunch hour, everything I need is situated at a high-top table in the lobby bar, surrounded by reclaimed oak and gilded accents. Rustic refinement.
“Card in hand,” Tessa announces into the comm. “Thorn and I are delivering extracurricular materials to the suite’s courtyard entrance.”
Thorn is Zara—we can’t risk using our real names over the comms, so we’re using nicknames. Scheming isn’t the typical way we spend girl time, but I bet they’re having fun.
Slipping through the hordes of guests clad in banknotes, corporate ladders, glass ceilings, and vile pursuits, I gracefully boost myself into the chair and get right to it. “I’m sorry about Cash.”
Peter stares at me for a stretched-out beat, his finger pecking the crystal tumbler filled with whiskey worth a king’s ransom. “Bringing him as a date to my house? Or showing up with him here?”
“Your house,” I start as a waitress arrives at the table, and the scents of mint, ginger, and woody pine fill the air.
Peter does the asking though. “Champagne, lemon drop martini, or …”
“Coffee, please,” I tell her.
“Cream and sugar,” he tacks on, and it bugs me that he knows that, but when the waitress leaves, he introduces a bigger issue. “I don’t fault you for the recent spectacle you made with him at Danny’s expense. It was brazen and public, but he deserved it.”
I don’t bother concealing my sneer. “So glad the two of you keep each other informed, but that doesn’t seem to be something that should concern you.”
“And yet it does.” He peers out the window at the yachts freckling the sea, appearing almost regal in his bespoke sports coat, with his salt-and-pepper hair and an air of tortured sovereignty.
“I thought … when we ran into each other before my Cinco de Mayo party, you made it sound as though you were available. And open.”
“At the time, I thought I was. But this suits me.”
He arches a brow, flicking his focus to Maddox and Cash in a heated argument with another guest, who happens to be a La Lune Noire member. It has escalated to involve the managing director, Auguste Dubois, his general manager, and his guard.
It’s a ruse for Cash to switch the envelope that contains the codes for the lower level with another one, which he’s doing right now. So smoothly that it’s one fluid movement. It’s what makes his talent superior. Most rely on speed, but that comes across as unnatural.
Jax swings by, feigning interest in what’s happening and taking the envelope from his brother. He’ll obtain the codes and return the slip of paper to an identical envelope, seal it, and slip it to Cash, who will switch the envelopes back so no one will be the wiser.
But as with all sleight-of-hand moves, the audience looks where you look or where you fool them into looking. And all eyes are on the six-five tatted Noire, swinging a balisong around while laying into one of his members.
“I know you’re young, Sylvie, but”—Peter drinks me in with something akin to disappointment, not for the first time—“you’re too mature and skilled for that.”
Skilled.
The waitress delivers the coffee, so while I fix my cup, I poke around for what I really want to know. “You’re not attached to me because of Danny.”
He doesn’t answer right away, but he wants to, so I wait until he does. “Your connection to him was as unfortunate as the one you have to the Noires. Would your father have approved of either?”
And there it is.
I flick my eyes up to his and set my spoon on the saucer. “How do you know about my past? Was it Danny?”
“One more second,” Jax grits into my earpiece. “The adhesive is being … a dirty bitch.”
My heart thrums like a ticking bomb. I resist the urge to glance back at Maddox and Cash to see how they’re faring and simply focus on Peter.
“That you are the daughter of the great Heath Jenkins?” He mulls that over with a smirk.
“Danny was late to figuring that out. Your father and I had some associates in common. Our connections went way back, like a six-degrees-of-separation thing. We ran in the same circles, had similar interests, parallel goals, but I only knew of him. By the time I was more involved with the associates he’d worked with, he was gone.
But everything conveyed about him revealed that he was …
impressive.” He pauses with a hint of melancholy. “It was a loss.”
There’s a lot to unpack there, so I take my time as several things filter through the comm.
“The kite has landed,” Gage reports, referring to the method Tessa and Zara used to block the courtyard camera outside the cottages that house several guest suites—that was a late decision made after breakfast, once we realized that Tatum Riesling was indeed flying a kite. “You’re free to enter.”
“Roger that,” Zara replies. “She’s going in.”
“Everything is where it should be,” Cash chimes in next, regarding the codes recorded and envelopes switched back, until he spots me. “Or not.”
Meeting with Peter wasn’t on the original agenda either. He was supposed to be in a business strategy session that I was going to wander into for alibi purposes, but I prefer this.
“Stand down, Money. Ignore him, Little Bandit. You’re doing great,” Liam says smoothly. “We’ve got E at your two o’clock, so keep chatting it up with your mark until we give you the go-ahead.”
“Why pretend you didn’t know who I was?” I challenge Peter. “That you only knew me through Danny?”
“You had gone by two different names since your father’s arrest. I assumed you wanted to be seen separately.
” He sips his whiskey, though his eyes stay on me above the rim, and his admission makes it clear he’d had tabs on me for years.
“I intended to discuss it the night of my party. I wanted to offer you a life that I think he would have wanted for you.”
I shake my head, unable to contain the scoff. “My father wasn’t much of an oil fan. If anything, the Noires have far more in common with him than you.”
“Maybe so. But your father didn’t shout his associations, did he?” He cocks his head with the rhetorical question. “His power was quiet.”
What is your quiet power, Peter?
“Until it was stolen from him.” I don’t coat that with any sugar because my father was ultimately powerless, and I won’t pretend otherwise. “Along with his life.”
“Of course.” Peter lifts his palm in surrender. “I didn’t intend to be disrespectful.”
I blow out an exasperated breath. “I know you didn’t.”
We’re both quiet for a few minutes, watching everyone else socialize. I intentionally avoid peering at E or Beatrice Shaeffer when she walks by and greets him, but I don’t abstain altogether because that would be unnatural.
“Security is on the move, headed for the kite,” Gage informs the girls. “Less than two minutes.”
“Copy that,” Zara responds, and I fight the tension knotting my muscles.
Cash’s eyes flick this way with a subtle warning for me and a message for Peter that our time is dwindling.
“Is this a done deal? You and him?” Peter leans forward, his voice lower. “Tell me I have a shot, no matter how dark it may be, and I’ll take it. I’ll give you the fortune, the stability, the thrills, and the kids—everything Danny didn’t and the picture that will never fit this current situation.”
I flit my attention to Cash and his brothers and back to the man who’s known my backstory for years. “Because I’m Heath’s daughter?”
He considers that, but adds to it. “Because you and I could be unstoppable.”
I’m not sure what to do with that. There are probably follow-up questions that could divulge what would render us unstoppable, but I don’t know what they are.
Or I do.
“What qualifies me?” I peruse the room of well-bred heritage, full of those who contribute to society and those who rob it. “My education and athletic accomplishments or my genes?”
“All of the above,” he confesses, proclaiming his nefarious endeavors.
“And if I were in trouble?” I try, hoping he’ll divulge how he’d provide an exit route.
“Trouble would never find you with me. If that’s the draw you find in Cash, I can assure you that I have a reach far beyond his.”
“A quiet power,” I muse, referencing his take on my father.
“Only when it needs to be,” he corrects, reeling me in with exactly what I came for. “I’ve built something that can be the eye of the storm or the destructive wall.”
Six degrees of separation. Silent dominion or a devastating force.
A chill scampers down my spine. I sense the instant something’s off, but this time, I don’t hesitate. “I’m guessing this transcends fossil fuels?”
He huffs with indignation for my probing when I haven’t agreed to move to his side of the table. “Are you in trouble now? Here?”
“The room has been serviced,” Tessa declares into the comm. “Headed to the coal chute.”
That’s my cue.
Stealing greatness is always more satisfying.
“Maybe we could discuss this.” I slide off the pub chair as elegantly as I can without the help of heels to offer me some height. “Some other time though.” I pluck the pen out of his jacket pocket, scribble my number on a napkin, and slide it to him.
“I’ll call,” he promises as Cash’s heated gaze swats my ass.
Despite the room closing in on me, I smile. “I know you will, Peter.”