Chapter 27
Bastien Montclaire
The moment Julian Lemaire threatened her, he etched his name into a headstone.
The glow from Laurette’s feed casts her living room in ghost-blue stillness. Her father is gone, but the aftershock remains.
A predator marked her.
Julian Lemaire.
The moment his shadow fell across her, the outcome was fixed. A non-negotiable death sentence.
And Julian signed his without hesitation.
On paper, he’s a man the city loves to parade. Philanthropist, patron, smiling sponsor of historic districts and children’s museums. His handshake buys goodwill, and his bank account buys silence. Photos capture him mid-laugh beside judges and senators, a man polished to an impossible sheen.
Camouflage.
The cleaner the image, the deeper the filth.
The further I dig, the more the truth surfaces. Not in official reports, but in the encrypted corners where no one uses their real name. Whispers and codes. Patterns that look harmless until you align them in the right light.
Properties tucked across the state. Cars registered to shell companies. And the crown jewel—his membership at a gated club with a pristine reputation.
Squeaky clean on the surface. Except encrypted forums don’t lie. They never do.
Power lives there and trades favors. Men of Julian’s dark caliber indulge every appetite they can buy and bury the evidence beneath charity galas and high-end wine auctions.
His name doesn’t appear once. It’s there dozens of times.
Board of trustees—that tells me everything I need to know.
Courtroom proof is irrelevant. Evidence isn’t necessary. Conviction isn’t the goal.
Once I reach him, the rest writes itself. Julian Lemaire will stop breathing, and Laurette will sleep safer for it.
The decision settles in my blood, familiar and final.
My preparation begins.
The hidden door clicks open, revealing a room that doesn’t exist on any blueprint.
It’s my sanctuary of steel, order, and quiet endings.
Shelves line each wall, everything arranged with surgical precision.
Rifles rest in shadow—restrained beasts, cleaned and oiled, waiting.
Knives sit in their sheaths, edges honed to silence, custom-balanced to my hand.
Tools rest in neat rows, untouched by daylight. They exist for these kinds of moments.
Tonight, this room earns its purpose.
Blades come first. I lift one from the tray, checking the edge, the weight, and the balance. Satisfied, I set it carefully on a black cloth, its sharpness gleaming under the faint light.
The garrote waits. A thin coil of wire strong enough to sing if drawn tightly enough. A contingency plan.
No adrenaline or rage is allowed. This is control and order.
Laurette will never understand how close danger has crept. She doesn’t need to. Her safety is a burden made for my hands alone.
I tighten my bootstraps and lock my gear into place. The plan sharpens in my mind, clean and precise. Tonight, I’ll shadow Julian—watch, wait, and end him before sunrise if the chance comes.
One last glance toward Laurette’s silent feed. She’s bent over her files, still fighting on the side of law while I prepare to fight evil from the shadows.
Good.
Her world can stay righteous. Mine won’t.
The night folds around me as Julian’s estate appears in my windshield. Polished stone, guarded gates, security designed to intimidate the average man. But predators don’t fear fences.
My patience pays off. The gate opens, and a sleek car rolls out, taillights bright as it slips into the dark. I follow at a distance, shadowing him through the city as the pristine neighborhoods fade into something softer.
Then he turns.
A two-story house sits ahead, warm light glowing through the curtains. Cozy without being modest. A place built for secrets, where one can relax and disappear.
Mistress territory.
Perfect.
Men are always sloppiest where they think they’re safe. And tonight, Julian Lemaire believes he’s out of harm’s way.
The front door opens before he can lift his hand to knock. A practiced rhythm. Two people who have done this dance too many times to pretend it’s spontaneous. She’s in her mid-thirties, sleek and curated, wrapped in silk that clings. The neckline plunges, and the hem flirts with indecency.
Julian leans in and kisses her cheek. This is the casual intimacy of a man who has cheated so often the guilt has worn off, the way a secret dulls once it’s told too many times.
He disappears into the house with the quiet confidence of someone who believes walls protect him from sight.
They don’t.
I move closer, sliding through the shadows until I reach the sliver of window where the curtain doesn’t quite meet. Their world glows golden inside—a wine bottle and glasses on the counter, heels already abandoned near the rug, and his jacket tossed over a chair.
He pours the drinks. She laughs and tilts her head the way women do when they want to be adored. His hand finds her waist with ease. Her hand slides up his chest, smoothing his tie, teasing the knot loose.
This is their ritual, a script neither of them are original enough to deviate from.
He kisses her with the dull precision of a man repeating a tired routine, mouth moving without urgency or heat. She angles herself into it, adding effort he doesn’t return. Their mouths work through motions that have lost meaning. An empty prelude, and not the reason he came here at all.
Clothes come off in pieces. Her silk slithers to the floor. His shirt is unbuttoned with performative slowness. He’s older, softer around the edges than he appears in photos. He maintains the illusion of power beneath a designer suit.
She guides him backward toward the bedroom with a hand at his chest, her body pressed to his, her mouth grazing his jaw.
From my angle, the room reveals itself in fractured glimpses: the curve of her back as she mounts the bed, his hands gripping her hips, his mouth claiming the places she offers.
Their bodies move together, not with passion, but with the transactional rhythm of two adults using each other to get off. Her movements are deliberate and measured. His are heavier and slower. Ego drives where stamina fails.
He leans over her, bracing himself with one arm, the other gripping her thigh. She arches beneath him, offering the response he wants.
He chases release, not connection.
She chases distraction, not pleasure.
The scene plays like a nature documentary. Two animals rutting because instinct and opportunity aligned, neither aware of the predator crouched in the brush.
There’s no heat or desire in watching them. Only analysis and assessment. A hunter observing prey at the water’s edge, vulnerable and unguarded.
Julian Lemaire has never been more exposed or more mortal. He has no idea that the last night of his life has already begun.
The movement on the bed shifts. Slow at first, then sharper.
His hand clamps around her wrist, turning her onto her stomach with a force that shreds any notion of tenderness.
The mattress jolts beneath her. She doesn’t cry out or resist. She glances back once, her expression unreadable in the narrow slice of window I can see through, then settles into the position he demands.
Whether it’s consent, conditioning, or convenience is impossible to tell.
Maybe she enjoys the edge of pain.
Maybe she’s learned not to flinch.
Maybe it’s the price of whatever he gives her.
Maybe it’s all of the above.
Who am I to judge? I have my own kinks.
Doesn’t matter. Their relationship ends tonight.
Julian grips her hips hard enough to whiten his knuckles, moving with a brutality he wouldn’t dare show in daylight. She absorbs it in silence, body steady beneath him.
He finishes with a shudder and a grunt, collapsing forward in a graceless heap. She lies beneath him, still and patient, waiting for him to peel himself off her.
When he does, she slides out from under him and disappears into the bathroom, shutting the door. He stays sprawled across the sheets, panting through the afterglow.
This is the man who thought he could frighten Laurette.
A man who mistakes intimidation for power.
A man who believes no one can touch him.
Wrong.
The water line kicks on, abrupt and pressurized. Pipes shudder behind the walls, a deep mechanical pulse that ripples through the house. Good. It tells me she’s stepped into the shower, and it tells me how long I have.
Of course, she went straight there. Women don’t hurry to rinse off a man they love. They hurry to scrub away the ones they merely tolerate.
She didn’t even pause—no lingering, no attempt to pull him back for another round.
Just up, off the bed, and into the bathroom with the efficiency of someone who’s done this too many times to pretend it means anything.
The shower isn’t for relaxation. It’s for erasure.
A reset button she hits the second his weight leaves her body.
Julian lies on the bed, smug and comfortable, sinking into the sheets. Chest rising in slow, satisfied arcs, mouth slack, limbs spilling wide. Every inch of him radiates the careless entitlement of a man convinced he’s untouchable.
It’s time.
The door lock is an insult—thin metal, decorative, chosen for aesthetics over security. One quiet twist and it yields beneath my hand. I push the door inward, the hinge offering nothing louder than a whisper.
Instinct takes over.
War zones built this part of me. Embassy extractions carved it sharper. Cartel compounds tested it under fire until nothing in a quiet house could ever register as danger.
Breaking into the home of a complacent man being entertained by his mistress?
Child’s play.
I slip through the entryway, weight balanced, steps controlled, breath measured. No squeak of floorboards. No shift of shadow. Nothing challenges me.
The bedroom opens ahead, a stage set for a man who doesn’t realize he’s performed his final act. He’s sprawled across the mattress, unguarded, and recovering from exertion.
He believes he’s safe, and the night is his. He believes no one would dare cross the threshold he claims as his domain.
Belief won’t save him.
The kill-zone shrinks with each step, the hum of the shower steady behind the walls—marking time, opportunity, and the beginning of his end.
Julian Lemaire doesn’t know he’s already sharing the room with the man who came here to finish him.
I move closer, the air tightening with each step, the blade balanced in my grip. A snore rattles in and out.
The knife touches his throat in a single, deliberate motion. Not a slice. No pressure. A whisper of cold steel settling over his pulse.
His eyes snap open. Confusion hits first, and fear follows.
“Don’t move.”
His breathing kicks up. His body is frozen, muscles coiled beneath skin perfected with touch-ups and Botox injections.
I bet this is a situation he never imagined himself in.
“We’re going to talk about Laurette Devereux.”
Recognition flares, then irritation. Smug arrogance slithers back over his expression.
“So you’re here about her,” he says, amusement tainting the edges of the words. “Let me guess. She cried to you about our little conversation. Did she also tell you I intend to kill her if she keeps pushing?”
He thinks power still lives in his voice, and his threats still mean something.
Julian’s smirk sharpens, confidence blooming in the face of his own delusion. “Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll double it. Triple. Name your price.”
A low laugh slips from my chest.
“Unfortunately for you, this isn’t about money.”
That stops him, a real pause, a flicker of unease beneath the arrogance. His eyes narrow, recalibrating, and searching for leverage.
He finds none.
He swallows once. “Let me ask you something. What would you do if someone was trying to ruin your child’s life?”
The attempt at moral ground would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.
I lean in, blade steady. “The first thing I’d do is teach my son not to drug women and rape them.”
His smirk fractures.
The facade slips for the first time, just enough to glimpse the coward beneath the charm.
He exhales, trying to deflect, to bargain, to survive. “Fine. I won’t touch the bitch. You have my word.”
I tilt the blade enough for him to feel the increased pressure.
“Too late. You already made the threat. Doubled down on it through her father. You don’t get to walk it back now.”
His jaw tightens. “You can’t just—”
“Oh, but I can.”
The words cut cleaner than steel.
His pulse jumps beneath the knife when he finally understands what this is.
There’s no deal, no mercy, no way out of this room that leaves him breathing.
I let that realization settle in his eyes before the darkness closes around him.
His gaze sharpens again, calculation clawing through fear. “What is she to you? Do you love her?”
“She belongs to me. And I protect what’s mine.”
The words fall between us, heavy as gravity. His breath stutters.
I lean in until he can feel the intent radiating off me, colder than the metal at his throat.
“And protecting her means removing you.”
Then the world narrows to a single, decisive motion.
No hesitation or rage. Just execution.
The blade moves in a clean, controlled line. It takes training to make death this silent.
His gasp catches, sharp and startled, before dissolving into the strangled quiet of a body realizing it has lost the right to keep fighting.
His eyes search mine for mercy.
They find none.
I watch as his life fades, calm as still water.
No adrenaline. No victory. Just necessity settling into place.
In the hush that follows, my thoughts turn to her.
She’s safe now.
I wipe the blade with practiced ease to contain the mess. Just surface work. The real cleaning comes later, when I see the process through to the end.
The house remains quiet, the steady hiss of the shower drifting from the bathroom. She’s unaware and untouched by the violence unfolding in the next room.
I retrace my steps through the hallway, shadows folding around me.
When I slip outside, the night air is cool against my face—almost cleansing—and I inhale slowly.
I would burn the world down to protect Laurette Devereux.
That isn’t a vow or a threat. It’s a truth carved into bone.
The street swallows me as I fade into the dark. Another danger erased, another step taken toward keeping her untouchable.