Chapter 5
Residual shocks coursing through his veins should have been his first warning that what he was committing to might be a huge mistake. Still, he’d made a deal, and he wouldn’t renege on the handshake that had sealed it. After all, how much trouble could he get into in a measly week?
Realizing he still held her hand, he released it quickly and stuck his own into his pocket. “Will you be all right alone in the shop until four?”
“Sure.” Lissette rubbed her hand along the fabric of her skirt. “I doubt those men will attack in broad daylight.”
Xavier held out his hand. “I need your cell phone.”
She retrieved the device from under the counter and handed it to him.
He entered his information into her contact list and handed the phone back. “Don’t hesitate to call—day or night.”
“Already ditching me?” she asked, tucking the phone into the pocket of her skirt.
“Just for a couple hours,” Xavier said. “I want to secure backup in case anything happens to me and get our guy Swede and his tech team working on identifying the people who attacked you.”
“And who they work for,” she added. “They were just henchmen. The man who got our family’s reliquary box for me was Nub LeJeune, a local salvager.”
Xavier couldn’t help smiling. “Nub? Is that his real name?”
Lissette nodded. “He’s been the parish's quietest fence for thirty years. He’s also short two fingers after an accident with a winch cable.”
“Thus, the nickname Nub,” Xavier concluded. “I can see if one of our guys can round him up and take him to the sheriff’s office for a few questions.”
Lissette frowned. “Do we have to involve local law enforcement?”
“It’s the right thing to do,” Xavier said.
“It would be easier to get answers from him without the law present,” Lissette murmured. “I’d do it myself, but he’s one of those people my parole officer might have an issue with.”
Xavier narrowed his eyes. “You’re trying to stay out of jail. Roughing him up to get information out is not in your cards.”
“I know I can’t rough him up.” Lissette grinned. “But you can.”
Her smile was sassy and too sexy for Xavier’s own good. “Only if he takes the first swing.”
Lissette gave him an assessing glance. “I like the way you think.”
He shook his head, convinced he was heading into dangerous territory with the woman. “Did you recognize the men who attacked you?”
“Only one of them. Ron Cormier,” Lissette grimaced. “He has connections in the New Orleans mafia. He’s known for doing the heavy lifting for whatever boss pays him enough.”
“Heavy lifting, as in...?”
“Interrogation, kidnapping, torture, erasure.” She shrugged. “The bosses usually call the shots, but they don’t like to get their hands dirty. I got one of them sent to jail based on my plea bargain. I don’t think any of them were happy about that.”
Xavier didn’t like the sound of that. “All the more reason for them to want retribution. You’re a target.”
“The boss who went to jail based on my testimony died in his first month. They ruled it suicide.” Lissette snorted. “I think someone didn’t want him back as boss.”
“Do you know who took over for him?”
“From what I heard in the prison grapevine, the organization split into a couple of factions, and there was some infighting. I’m not certain who came out on top.
If they want retribution for my testimony, why did they wait until now?
I’ve been out for a few months. They would’ve come after me sooner—probably as I stepped off the bus into Bayou Mambaloa. ”
“Is there any other reason they’d come after you?”
Lissette shrugged. “No idea. Maybe they want me to work for them again.” She held up a hand. “Don’t worry. I have no intention of going back to a life of crime. One trip to prison was enough for this girl. The food was terrible, and I prefer a little more color in my wardrobe.”
The bell over the door jangled, and a woman entered, her gaze darting around until it landed on Lissette. Her brow furrowed. “Is Madame Gautier in?”
Lissette drew in a breath and let it out. “No. It’s just me.”
“Oh.” The woman raised a hand to the side of her neck, covering an angry red rash. “I just...she said she had a salve I could use...but never mind.”
Lissette took several steps toward the woman. “I know the salve she would recommend. Let me get some for you.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “No, that’s okay. I’ll just come back when she’s available.”
“She won’t be back for a while. I know all the potions, tinctures and salves. I can help you,” Lissette insisted.
“No, no,” the woman backed through the doorway. “I don’t think so. I’d rather do business with Madame Gautier.”
Lissette reached for a jar on a shelf and turned to the woman. “Try this. It’s what my grandmother would recommend.”
The woman didn’t respond, having left the shop, the door swinging closed after her.
A flush of color stained Lissette’s cheeks. “The woman obviously needed that salve. But she’d rather live with the discomfort than be in the same room as I am.”
“Does that happen often?” Xavier asked.
“Too often.” Lissette placed the jar back on the shelf.
“If my grandmother is out of commission for too long, we might have to close the shop. People don’t want to do business with an ex-con.
” She shrugged. “I don’t care that they snub me, but my grandmother set up the shop, so I’d have a place to work.
It has to bring in enough money to pay the rent and utilities.
” She shook her head. “At this rate, we’ll go under. ”
“Surely, they’ll come around when they realize Madame Gautier won’t be back for a while.”
Lissette’s lips twisted into a frown. “They’ll likely take their business to Bayou Miste and their Voodoo queen.”
He’d known Bayou Mambaloa was quirky, but he’d thought it unique to the area. “Does every town have a Voodoo queen in the bayou?”
“Not every town,” Lissette said. “There aren’t that many people left who practice the healing arts of Voodoo.
” She gave Xavier a weak smile. “I know a little, but I’ve only scratched the surface of the amount of knowledge my grandmother possesses.
She’s training me and my cousins Gisele and Holly, but we’re novices at best.”
Xavier narrowed his eyes. “Is she training you in the darker skills?”
Lissette cocked a pretty eyebrow. “Darker skills?”
“You know, like poking pins in a doll? Potions that could make someone sick or die? Not that I believe pins in voodoo dolls do anything, but the potions... Now, that could happen if you know what plants are poisonous.”
Lissette’s eyelids dropped low, and her lips curved in a wicked smile. “Worried?”
“Not at all,” Xavier said. “You said yourself you didn’t want to go back to jail. I’d think if you poisoned someone, that would get you a one-way ticket back.”
“If they knew it was poison or that I was the one who gave it to them—not that I would do anything of the sort.” Her full lips turned upward enough to capture and hold Xavier’s full attention, making him wonder how they’d feel pressed to his.
Whoa.
Where the hell had that thought come from?
One week and he’d be gone. He’d never see her again and never return to Bayou Mambaloa. Though he found her intriguing, he didn’t need to get involved with anyone with baggage when he had enough of his own to work through.
“I’ll have to take your word for it.” His lips twitched.
“At your own risk.” She tipped her head toward the door the woman had rushed through. “I think that the people of this town are convinced anything I touch could kill them.” She looked up at him. “But not you?”
“I’m not afraid to die,” he said.
“No wife?”
He shook his head.
“No kids you’re paying child support for?” Her eyebrow cocked again.
“No kids,” he said, his jaw tightening.
She tipped her head to one side. “No regrets?”
His thoughts shot back to the decision he’d made that had cost him so much and cost his buddy his life. “I have plenty of regrets,” he said softly. “One of them is that I haven’t already left to get my team moving on this project.” He touched a finger to his temple. “I’ll see you at four.”
Before she could ask any more personal questions, he left the shop, climbed into his truck, and drove to the boat factory. Though he was physically in Bayou Mambaloa, his thoughts weren’t.
He plunged into the dark memories of that day in the hills of Afghanistan when one decision had cost the lives of two of his Navy SEAL teammates and his fiancée and had sentenced him to years of second-guessing and self-loathing.
Second-guessing hadn’t brought back the men who’d died on his watch. Still, he hadn’t really let himself move on. While so many of his other brothers of the Bayou Brotherhood Protectors had moved out of the boarding house, he hadn’t bothered looking for somewhere more permanent to live.
He considered Bayou Mambaloa more of a temporary assignment than a home. He’d been there long enough. It was time to move on.
Attraction to the ex-con was nothing more than an indication that he’d gone too long without scratching that itch.
But he’d be insane to scratch any itch with Lissette Gautier.
He was only in it to protect her until she figured out who was behind the hits, or he had to report to his new job.
Xavier drove to the boat factory, parked and entered. He’d promised to be back at the Remedies and Roux shop by four o’clock. However, the longer he was away from the pretty granddaughter of the local Voodoo queen, the twitchier he got.
She believed the men who’d attacked her wouldn’t do it again in broad daylight.
Xavier wasn’t as confident of that assumption.
He hurried through the boat factory section of the Brotherhood Protectors Bayou headquarters, noting the men who’d been working on the hull of a new boat earlier that day had bugged out.
Once inside the war room, Xavier strode past the big conference table and sank into the office chair in front of the array of computer monitors.
Moments later, he placed a video call to the main office in Montana and Axel Svenson’s desk.