25. Ryan
Ryan
Henri’s smile widens, and I see satisfaction settle into the fine lines around his eyes; I see the exact moment he decides whatever uncertainty that remained in me has tipped in his favor.
Behind him, Camille looks like I just shot him.
I cannot look at that for too long.
If I do, I might lose my nerve.
Henri gives my shoulder another paternal squeeze before finally taking his hand away. “What happens next is very simple. You’ll come with me. Tonight, we leave this unpleasantness behind us, and tomorrow we begin properly.”
“Properly,” I echo.
“Yes.” He says it with such absolute confidence that I almost admire the insanity.
“What about my stuff?”
“Whatever you need can be purchased.”
“My clothes?”
“Replaced.”
“My passport?”
“We’ll collect it.”
“My cottage?”
Henri glances toward the dark windows, beyond which my little half-renovated inheritance sits somewhere in the night. “That property has caused enough trouble.” The casual dismissal pisses me off more than it should.
Maybe because the cottage is the first thing I’ve had in a long time that feels entirely mine, even if the walls are cracked, and the plumbing seemingly survives through spite and French witchcraft.
Maybe because Alberte’s secrets were literally built into it, and after everything, selling it suddenly feels less appealing than it did when I arrived.
Or maybe I just hate Henri deciding another thing for me.
I nod anyway. “Okay.”
Camille makes a furious sound.
Henri doesn’t turn toward him. “You see? This needn’t be difficult.”
“No,” Camille says. “Apparently it only requires brain damage.”
I bite the inside of my cheek.
Henri looks like he’s barely holding back from striking him again. “Be quiet, will you?”
Camille says bitingly, “You struck me in the head with a cane. I believe I am uniquely qualified to mention brain damage.”
One of the men almost smiles.
Henri notices, and the smile disappears.
Interesting.
There are cracks in this whole operation.
Small ones, but they’re there.
The men listen to Henri because they’re being paid.
They defer to him because he is the client, not because they worship at his altar.
Every few minutes, one of them checks his phone or glances toward the windows, and there is something increasingly impatient in the way the broad-shouldered one nearest the door shifts his weight.
They expected a job—retrieve evidence, intimidate people, maybe kill somebody if required.
They did not expect a family therapy session hosted by Hannibal Lecter.
Henri turns back to me. “We should go.”
“Now?”
“The sooner the better.”
I let some uncertainty creep into my face. “But Camille…”
Henri exhales, faintly annoyed. “We discussed this.”
“I know.”
My gaze drops toward Camille.
His good eye is locked on me.
He is trying to tell me something with it.
Probably run.
Possibly I am going to beat your ass if I survive this.
Honestly, fair on both counts.
“I just…” I let my voice soften. “Can I say goodbye?”
Camille’s expression becomes murderous.
Henri looks from me to him. “Is that necessary?”
I shrug, deliberately making myself small in a way I fucking hate. “I’ve been staying here. We were…” I glance down, twiddling my fucking fingers. “Whatever we were.”
Henri’s mouth curves. “You care for him.”
“I guess.”
Camille stares at me like he would like to object to the phrase I guess on principle.
I keep going. “If I’m really leaving with you, then I want to say goodbye.”
Henri studies my face for several seconds, then something indulgent passes over his expression again. “Very well.”
My heart thunders.
One of the men releases Camille’s shoulder but does not cut his restraints.
Henri stands.
The movement is slower than his gestures have been, reminding me that for all the power packed around him, he is still seventy-seven years old. He braces lightly on the cane until fully upright, then holds his free hand toward me. “Come.”
I look at the hand.
This man wanted to own my grandfather.
He murdered Camille’s mother.
Destroyed Camille’s father.
Terrified his lover so badly he ran across an ocean and spent twenty-three years waiting for ghosts to catch him.
And now he is holding out his hand because he believes I belong to him too.
I take it.
Henri’s fingers close around mine, warm and human.
That bothers me.
Monsters shouldn’t feel human.
He helps me stand, his grip firm and proprietary. Camille’s gaze drops to our joined hands, and something raw and unguarded twists his features—a flicker of betrayal before the mask slams back down.
I almost mouth *I’m sorry*.
Henri releases me the moment I’m steady. I take one step toward Camille, then another.
The broad-shouldered gunman shifts his weight, but Henri raises a single finger without looking back. “Let him.”
I stop in front of Camille. He looks up from the floor, one eye nearly swollen shut, the other dark with pain and something else—dread.
Blood has dried in a stiff, rust-colored crust along his temple and cheek.
A fresher cut still glistens near his eyebrow, beading slowly.
His hair is matted with sweat and stuck to his forehead.
His arms are wrenched behind him, plastic biting into his wrists; the angle is all wrong, pulling his shoulders into a strain that must be agony.
I want to reach out, smooth his hair back, wipe the blood from his face. My fingers twitch at my side. I don’t.
“Hey.”
His good eye narrows. “Do not ‘hey’ me.”
“I’m trying to say goodbye.”
“No, you are not.”
My heart stutters. Henri is behind me; I can feel the weight of his attention like a physical pressure between my shoulder blades.
“Camille.”
“You are an atrocious liar.”
Fuck.
I force a breathy, unconvincing laugh. “You’re concussed.”
“And you are doing something stupid.”
“Again, concussed.”
“Ryan.” The way he says my name—soft and stripped bare—nearly wrecks me. All the anger is gone from his voice.
Only fear remains.
I look at him then, really look—the tremble in his jaw, the rapid pulse beating at his throat, the way he’s holding himself so still against the pain.
Quietly, I say, “You told me you loved me.”
His expression fractures completely.
Camille swallows hard. “Yes.”
“And then you left.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
“By dying?”
“If necessary.”
Real fury—hot and bright—flares behind my ribs.
Useful fury.
I lean in closer, then growl, “You are such a fucking asshole.”
Henri gives an amused chuckle behind me. Camille does not.
“I know,” he murmurs brokenly.
“No, I don’t think you do.”
“I think this conversation would be more productive if we were not being held at gunpoint.”
“Maybe.”
I straighten up and turn away from him.
“Ryan,” he begs.
Henri waits several feet away, too far. I walk toward him.
His expression brightens with paternal approval. “Finished?” he asks.
“Not really.”
“No?”
“I think I’m going to be pissed at him for another decade.”
“Ah, well, you will have plenty of time.”
The promise coils cold in my stomach. I make myself smile. “Yeah?”
“Yes.”
Henri steps nearer. There. Better.
His cane taps once against the floor beside his polished shoe. “Come. The car is waiting.”
He lifts his hand slowly, the thin skin stretched taut over pale knuckles, and this time he does not rest his fingers on my shoulder. He draws them across my cheek instead, brushing my skin in a motion so gentle, so affectionate, that I have to hold myself back from gagging.
I have spent most of this conversation wanting him closer; now he is.
My heart hammers like a war drum in my chest, as if I might hear it echo through the room.
His thumb is still against my cheek as I look into his eyes.
I think about Alberte—the young one from the photographs.
Twenty-one and hopeful, meeting someone who must have seemed larger than life.
A mentor.
A lover.
A future.
I wonder how long it took before Alberte understood.
How many times he had to redraw the line between love and fear before eventually discovering there was no line left.
Henri smiles at me. “You’ll be safe now.”
That does it.
My hand moves.
Henri’s expression barely has time to change before I reach beneath my clothes and close my fingers around what I hid there.
A shout—Camille’s anger, a guard’s alarm—floods the room.
Then everything happens at once.
I yank the syringe free and drive it into Henri before anybody understands what I’m holding.
His head snaps back, eyes widening into saucers of shock. Flesh parts under my fingers as I shove the plunger home.
A hand slams into my shoulder so hard that I’m ripped sideways violently, my feet leaving the floor.
The syringe tears free and skitters across the floor.
I crash to the ground, and pain explodes through my shoulder and side, but I barely register it because someone is shouting, Henri is stumbling backward, Camille is screaming my name, and suddenly three guns that were lowered a second ago are no longer lowered.
And then everything stops. For a long, frozen moment, nobody pulls a trigger.
Henri looks down at himself, then at the syringe, then at me. His face is blank with incomprehension. “What did you do?”
I’m breathing so hard I can’t answer.
The gunman nearest me grabs the back of my shirt and hauls me upright.
Camille shouts, “Get your hands off him!”
Henri is still just staring at me. Eventually, his voice, tight and wavering, rings out. “What did you inject me with?”
I smile. “Mireille.”
Camille gapes. He closes his eyes for a heartbeat, then opens them. “What the fuck were you thinking?” he bellows.
One of the guys asks another, “What is Mireille?”
I answer matter-of-factly, “Actually, it’s ‘who is Mireille?’”
Henri pales. He knows. Well, kinda. He won’t understand how fucked he is until I tell him.
“Mireille is an inland taipan,” Camille breaths.
Henri looks like he’s going to vomit, then rushes toward Camille and fixes him with a glare. “Fix it.”
Camille’s laughter is hollow, brittle. “My hands are tied.”
Henri whirls on the nearest mercenary. “Cut him loose.”
The man shrugs, uncaring. “That isn’t happening.”