Chapter 43
CHAPTER
FORTY-THREE
My appetite curdles at the sight of an otherwise tempting breakfast spread.
I glance across the table at Graham. He hasn’t met my eyes since I walked in. Any discernible emotions are shuttered.
Manon gives a satisfied sigh, wiping her mouth with a serviette. She taps her cane on the floor with great force. The butler—Smedley—appears at the door in seconds.
“Clear this away,” she says, flicking her fingers. “I don’t believe our guests will be partaking.”
Smedley bows. I stare daggers at Graham while plates, silverware, and gleaming dishes are set on a rolling tray and pushed back out into the foyer. The door shuts.
Manon leans back in her chair. “It’s so good of you both to attend my rebirthday party—albeit, some might consider the lack of invitation to be quite rude.” Her mouth twists into a raptorial grin. “An ISA agent and my own brother as my guests of honor? My, I am a lucky woman.”
“You’re the Consultant,” I mutter, no question in my voice.
She presses her hand to her chest and tilts her head in mock poignancy. “Mon oh mon, I would have thought you put it together by now.” With effort, she rises from her chair, stalking around the table like a great white. “I am the puppeteer, Agent—you… you are the marionette.”
Graham’s stare finally locks onto mine.
Did you know? I silently implore him.
Manon comes to stand beside Graham. “No one could suspect a mere woman,” she sneers sarcastically, ice forming around every syllable.
I respond with a tired look. “What about Klaus?”
“Klaus is a fiction—a naive scapegoat in reality, paid to remain silent and never stray too far from Germany,” Manon replies. “He was who you all expected, so he was who I invented.”
“The man in Paris?—”
“An actor.” She pats Graham’s shoulder with a triumphant smile and walks back to the head of the table. “Clever, no? My brother has always presumed me to be some feeble, defenseless thing. It was incredibly easy to fool him, I assure you.”
Assumptions, they can be deadly.
Graham’s jaw sets. “Let her go, Manon.”
She purses her lips, as if considering the request. “No—I don’t think I will. It has been quite a while since I’ve had the pleasure of hosting an ISA agent here.”
“Then let him go,” I reply.
“Oh, how noble you must feel!” Manon laughs, a thin, humorless sound.
“Were you aware that our dear maman was slaughtered by the ISA? Yes, imagine my surprise when I discover that my brother has gone and fallen in love with one of those agents.” She pauses, leaning heavily on her cane.
“He was always a silly, sensitive boy, and now he has become a fool of a man. What a waste.”
Graham meets my eyes. The corner of his lips curl, if only for a moment. I wish I could feel whatever you’re supposed to when you find out someone loves you, and you discover that you do, in fact, love them back.
Instead we’re being watched by a hawk with the taste for blood on her tongue.
“I believe the problem lies in the fact that our maman was slain before he could properly know her,” Manon muses. “She was my buoy in the storm, my closest confidante. While father saw my implacability as a threat, our maman… she understood me.”
Graham cuts her a steely glance. “Our mother fought against people like you.”
“Her hands were bloody, Graham, do not be a child,” she snips. “Do you not think she did what it took to survive? You were too young to hear her stories.”
“You know it’s different.”
“And you have no idea how it felt to have the only person who looked at me with kindness suddenly ripped away,” she spits in rapid French. “But then I grew older. I realized I did not need kindness—I needed respect. It came easily when I demanded it.”
“By murdering?—”
“Our mother was a murderer,” Manon interrupts in English, every word slicing through an unintended target. Me. “Whether pulling the trigger or giving the order, there is not much difference. You cannot escape who you are, brother, and I am perfectly comfortable as I am.”
My stomach churns and Graham’s gaze settles on me across the table. The uncomfortable truth is ineluctable. He can stop being a thief, but I will always be a killer.
“C’est adorable, you truly believed you would catch me.” Manon’s mouth tilts into a cruel smirk, seemingly keen for a subject change. “I do enjoy making federal agents chase their own tails—merci for the present, you two, it truly was not expected.”
Listen—this isn’t my first rodeo with megalomaniac villains. Feigning boredom is the quickest way to get narcissists to self-destruct.
I sigh. “What are you on about now?”
“Your contact in London,” she explains, a flicker of dissatisfaction on her lips. “He was… motivated to provide the wrong address.”
Black Eye’s phone starts to burn a hole through my pocket. My previous plan goes up in smoke as quickly as it was formed.
Keeping my expression neutral, I reply, “The police will arrive at an empty castle tonight.”
Disaster.
Still watching her like I’m interested in a response, I reach for my water cup and promptly knock it over. The natural flush of nerves helps sell my embarrassment.
Manon groans. “Smedley!”
The butler steps into the room. Behind Smedley, who has begun scowling at me, I see Black Eye hobbling out of the door on the other side of the foyer.
Not good.
While Manon’s barking an order, I look to Graham, who’s been watching me. “Checkmate,” I mouth, eyes darting pointedly to my feet.
He stands suddenly. The chair wobbles backward with the force and falls.
A second later, I pretend to try and help Smedley, instead sending the glass careening down to the other end of the table.
While Manon turns from Graham to me, I drop the phone to my feet and slide it across the floor as my glass smashes.
He stoops to right his chair and winks as Black Eye stumbles into the dining room.
“Imbecile,” Manon spits in my direction.
Black Eye, whose entire mouth and the front of his shirt are streaked with blood, announces his presence. “Ma’am, the prisoner escaped.”
“Do you think me blind?” she snaps.
“She has a phone, ma’am.”
Manon lifts a bored eyebrow in my direction. “Search her.”
I spread my arms and legs, my features pulling into the same clueless, doe-eyed expression I gave Black Eye earlier. Luckily, she already expects me to be an imbecile.
“It’s not here,” he grunts, stepping away after retrieving his gun.
Manon carefully lowers herself into her chair. “Him next.” She points to her brother.
Black Eye comes up empty again, and it’s my turn to be confused.
“Stop wasting my time,” Manon hisses. “I need to rest before the events this evening—take them to their guest chambers.”
Another guard appears, presumably to help transport us.
Black Eye glances from me to his boss. “Both of them?”
“Oui,” she replies, tipping her head back onto her chair and looking down at us from her nose. “I have decided to be magnanimous.” Her hand flicks dismissively in my direction. “I am not the ISA, discarding women as if they mean nothing—no, her final day on earth should at least be remarkable.”
Graham’s fist slams down on the table. “This is no way to?—”
“Go,” Manon interrupts, “before I lose my patience and decide to bathe my favorite rug in her blood.”