17. Bastien Montclaire #2
I reach across the table and take her wrinkled hand, the rosary still coiled around her wrist. I press a kiss to her knuckles.
“Pardon, Mamère,” I say. “Forgive my language.”
Her eyes narrow, but her fingers squeeze mine in that quiet, regal way she forgives—without words, but also without letting me off the hook.
My father sighs. “We can’t keep her in a glass box, son.”
Juliette’s voice softens, but she doesn’t back down. “I remember what happened to Aimee, Bastien. But I can’t stop living because she didn’t get the chance to.”
What she says isn’t cruel, but it hits hard.
Juliette was a baby when Aimee died. She didn’t see our mother fall apart piece by piece, trying to hold the rest of us together with hands that wouldn’t stop shaking. She didn’t see the grief harden behind Dad’s eyes. Or how he never cried, but never smiled either.
I look at my baby sister—this fearless, defiant girl who believes the world won’t bite if she bares her throat.
But at this moment, she doesn’t resemble a baby at all.
She looks like a woman—brave and certain and strong in ways Aimee never got the chance to be.
I swallow hard and nod. “I want to meet him.”
She meets my eyes and nods right back. “I told him you’d want to. He’s okay with that.”
Matt leans back, smirking. “Poor bastard.”
Juliette grins. “I warned him you’d try to scare him.”
“Try?” I echo.
They laugh, and the tension lifts enough to let the room breathe. But I file Marc’s name away as a mark on a potential kill list. No one will hurt another one of my sisters while I’m still breathing.
Juliette corners me after dinner, arms folded, chin up, ready for a fight. Everyone else has wandered off for coffee and dessert, but she plants herself in front of me, a human barricade.
“You’re mad,” she says.
“I’m not mad. I’m protective.”
“Same thing with you.”
I lean against the counter, watching her. “You want me to be excited some teenage boy who thinks he’s man enough to take you out?”
“I want you to trust me.” Her voice doesn’t shake, but her jaw does. “You’re not my father, Bastien.”
“No. But I’ve already put one sister in the ground because of what some boys did.”
That lands between us, cold and final.
“I’m not risking another.”
Juliette doesn’t flinch. “I think Aimee would want me to live, Bastien. To be happy. Not spend my life being protected to death.”
Juliette didn’t know Aimee. Not really. Juju never saw the way Aimee lit up a room or how fast she trusted the wrong people. She can’t speak for a person she’s only acquainted with through photographs and other people’s memories.
I look away, jaw tight enough to crack. “What do you really know about this Marc?”
“He knows not to touch me without permission.”
I nod once. “If he fucks this up—”
“He won’t.”
“I break bones, Juliette.” I let that settle. “And worse. That’s not just a rumor.”
She stomps on my foot, but I don’t flinch. “You threaten everyone.”
“I’m not fucking around. I mean it.”
“Oh, let her have her fun, Bastien,” Dad says, leaning against the doorframe behind her.
I exhale through my nose. “And if she’s harmed?”
Dad doesn’t blink. “Then you have my permission to kill the little bastard.”
He doesn’t know I have before, that this wouldn’t be new to me. And it wouldn’t even keep me up at night.
I don’t make empty threats. If this Marc crosses a line, there won’t be a warning. Only atonement.
I stare at Juliette—so young but not so soft.
“Fine.” The word scrapes out, rough as gravel. “But if he so much as makes you cry—”
“He won’t.”
“You think you’re grown, but I remember the day you were born. You fit in one hand.”
“And now I’m holding my own. So chill, bruh.”
Bruh.
Who comes up with the shit kids say?
Mamère sits in her chair with a grunt, eyes cutting to me, sharp and knowing beneath her crown of white curls. “Et toi, mon loup?”
And you, my wolf.
Funny, the timing. She hasn’t called me that in years. Not since I was a boy with scraped knees and too much silence behind my eyes.
And Laurette—of all names she could have chosen—calls me the same. My Wolf. As if she felt it too, the thing curled inside me, waiting.
And now, out of nowhere, Mamère reaches for that name again.
Coincidence, or something more? She’s always claimed to have a touch of the sight. A sixth sense. She says the women in her family line can feel storms coming. Births. Deaths. Betrayals.
“Any woman making you restless these days?” Mamère asks.
Every head turns in my direction, all eyes on me.
My mother pauses mid-step while clearing the table, a dish in her hand, gaze flicking to me.
Matt lowers his phone, attention shifting from the screen to my face, brows raised.
Juliette freezes mid-text, her thumbs hovering above the screen, unwilling to miss a single word.
My father stops flipping channels, the remote resting still in his hand, eyes on me now.
Mamère has never asked me that before. So why now when there actually is someone? When Laurette is under my skin like a splinter I don’t want pulled out.
I should lie. Deflect. Crack a joke. Anything to redirect the spotlight.
But I don’t. Mamère would know better.
And maybe… maybe I want to talk about Laurette.
“I’ve met someone.”
Juliette leans in with a grin. “Oh, do tell, dear brother. If you’re going to make my love life your business, I should return the favor.”
“You don’t have a love life,” I deadpan.
She rolls her eyes. “And you do?”
No, not love. It’s more like a hunger that waits, watches, and coils tightly beneath the surface.
“She’s a lawyer.” I start there because that part feels safe and respectable. Normal.
“And not just any lawyer,” I add. “This woman is sharp as a blade with the law. She doesn’t just study justice. She chases it. Stalks it.”
I look down, fighting a smile. “And she’s beautiful in a way that makes you stare too long and hate yourself for it.”
That earns a few lifted brows and a slow blink from Matt, even though he already knows about her. Even my father lifts his brows with interest.
Ah, fuck. I guess that was a little too poetic.
My mother smiles. “What’s her name?”
“Laurette.”
She nods, approving. “Beautiful name.”
Mamère’s eyes soften, but her tone is razor-edged. “And does the girl know she’s got you twisted up?”
I smirk, eyes dropping to my wine glass. “Not exactly.”
“Don’t worry. She will,” Mamère says.
Juliette grins, kicking her feet up on the ottoman. “I hope she twists you up good. Tell us more.”
I shake my head. “That’s all you’re getting about her.”
They groan, laugh, and push for more, but my lips are sealed.
The house is quiet when I leave, lights dimmed, Mamère humming an old French lullaby under her breath.
The Corvette waits in the driveway—sleek, black, and hungry.
I slide behind the wheel and turn the ignition. The engine answers with a low purr, deep and guttural. A sound that makes your bones hum.
I ease onto the street, the city bleeding shadows and neon around me as I drive.
New Orleans at night is something feral and alive. It wears its sins with pride. Sweat, jazz and ghosts are on every corner.
My hand tightens on the wheel.
Laurette.
She’s branded into me now—the way she whispered for me, the way she wears that necklace with my initial nestled against her throat.
Her hunger… fuck, it mirrors my own. She’s not just willing. She’s waiting, open and starving.
And the photo she sent me?
Christ.
That photo was a siren call. A fucking surrender.
I shift gears, letting the Corvette growl through the turns. The road slips under me, fast and smooth. I picture her fingers tracing that little gold B, her lips parting.
“Mine,” I whisper.
Not a question. A fucking fact.
Soon, Babygirl.