I laughed. Poor bastard, I was beginning to feel a little sorry for him. But it was a fleeting feeling. Regardless of the who, he’d approved the murder of an innocent person for the financial gain of a scumbag like Maximoff Richards. It was just his bad luck that it happened to be my family.
But now I had a name, someone to cross off my shitlist. And I had Louis Trousseau to thank for that.
“One last question, Louis, and then we’re finished. The overseer, and the representatives for Shine out at the camp, did they know that people were being stolen to be sold to the highest bidder?”
“I don’t know.”
My sword whipped back up, and settled against his chest, right over his heart. “I don’t believe you.”
“I swear it on my children’s lives. I was given my orders, but they don’t give us any other Tenebre contacts in the same area. I think it’s to prevent us turning on each other. My contacts are from Hong Kong, Sydney, New York,” he swallowed hard, “but I don’t know any other who are in France. They are here, but I wouldn’t recognize them if I walked past them in the street, or shook their hand.”
There was a wild fierceness in his face now, the kind of crazed truthfulness that people get before their executions or on their deathbeds.
I dropped my sword again. “I believe you. Hang tight, Louis. I have to talk to my friends. Rou, watch him.”
My Beta did as he was told, and I walked over to talk to Romanus and Naz.
“I believe him, but now I’m not sure what to do. He’s guilty, as guilty as a man can be, but taking out the Mayor of Calais is pretty high profile, even for us.”
Naz shrugged. “We can do it. Why would anyone suspect us? We’ve never met the guy before today.”
Romanus was silent for a moment, contemplating our current situation before he spoke. “We cannot kill them all. He said thousands. Murdering a person in cold blood does things to a man,” he looked to Naz, then back at me. “Or woman. I say we let him live. But we will pass on his name to someone else. He will get his karmic returns, Rella.”
I thought hard about both of their opinions, but in the end, my mother’s soft heart won out. I couldn’t kill an unarmed and restrained man.
I turned back to the room. “Let’s take a vote. All those in favor of letting the Mayor live, raise your hand.”
I got a sick sense of satisfaction out of watching Louis Trousseau struggle to raise his hand against his bindings. I was glad Hope wasn’t here to see me now. I raised my hand, and so did Romanus. Surprisingly, my normally even tempered Beta’s hand stayed firmly down.
I gave him a questioning look, but he just shrugged. “He’s a scumbag. The world would be better without him,” he said evenly, like we were talking about a cockroach rather than a human.
“Noted. Well, Trousseau, looks like you are the deciding vote. What do you say?”
The bound man looked at me like I was crazy, which probably wasn’t all that wrong at this point.
“I vote to live,” he said slowly, ensuring I couldn’t misconstrue his answer.
“Looks like the ayes have it. Sorry boys, no bloodshed tonight.” I walked up to Louis Trousseau and punched him hard in the face. The satisfying sound of his nose crunching under my fist made me smile. “Well, minimal bloodshed.”
I got down closer, so he could see how serious I was about my next words.
“Mayor, I strongly suggest you retire, abandon Tenebre, move to the country and raise chickens. Because if I hear even the faintest stir that your corrupt ass is still in politics, I’m personally going to come back here and shred your flesh so finely that they’ll be able to bury you in a cigar box. Are we clear?”
He nodded, his eyes watering. Ugh, he was about to cry. That was our cue to leave.
“Let’s go,” I said to the guys, leaving behind a sobbing Trousseau tied to the chair.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
I lay in bed early the following morning, trying to judge the time difference between Hope and I. Ah, fuck it.
Hope?
The sensation of her surprise came back through the bond, Shit, Rella, uh… hey, how are you?
She sounded flustered, and I grinned.
Am I interrupting something?
What? No! I’m just in bed. Sleeping.
I grinned harder. Liar, liar. She’d never been good at lying, but I’d let it slide this time.
Can you talk? I’ve got some news.
What is it?
I took a deep breath. I’d agonized over whether I should tell her at all, or just get rid of the problem myself and let her continue moving on with her life. But the fact remained, I was in Europe and she was in Manhattan and until I was home, she was at risk if she was unaware of what stalked her.
I found out who ordered your kidnapping. It was Maximoff Richards.
I didn’t have to explain who that was to Hope. She had an almost eidetic memory for names and faces. I could feel the shock rocketing down the bond and I wanted to wrap her in my arms and tell her there was no reason to worry.
Oh. That was all she said as she let it sink in. Why? I mean, I know why, but what I can’t understand is why bother going to those lengths to take me out. I’m a figurehead at most. The NRH would still have continued our pharmaceutical plans without me.
I wasn’t so sure about that. The NRH would continue, sure, but the disappearance and possible death of Hope would have destroyed us all for a long time. She was an integral part of the NRH, and the beating heart of our family.
Is Blue Halloran back from Boston yet? Are you protected?
Hesitation. Yes.
Hmmm not a lie, but she was hedging all the same. I sighed to myself. There was nothing I could do about it now. I’d be back in two days, and then I’d get to the bottom of what the hell was going on with her and the Mulligan Family’s favorite enforcer.
I better go. Love you, Hope. Say hi to Memphis for me, I teased.
You can’t see me, but I’m flipping you the bird right now. Love you, Rella. Be safe, she answered, and we both slid our mental shields back into place.
I rolled over in bed and wrapped my arms around Naz, feeling Romanus at my back. I snuggled down between them, loathe to get out of bed. But we had appointments to keep, and I desperately wanted to go home already.
I heaved a sigh and wiggled my way out from between them. I shifted around on floor, looking for yesterday’s skirt. I peeked over my shoulder to see Romanus’ eyes heavy with lust. I gave him a little butt wiggle and he growled. Damn that sound just went straight to all my happy places.
I blew him a kiss over my shoulder and walked toward the bathroom. I turned on the shower and hopped in.
“Five,” I whispered under my breath. “Four, three, two…”
The door clicked open and there was suddenly a body in the shower with me. I let out a little oomph as I was picked up and pressed between the wall and Romanus’ hard chest.
I smiled against the lips devouring mine.
“One.”
My heart ached as I walked past another small child with eyes that were too big and limbs that were too thin. As I spoke to the people, I came to understand why the camp was colloquially called Quicksand. It seemed the more desperately people tried to leave, the more they were dragged deeper into hopelessness until some gave up altogether. Charlie’s eyes were uncharacteristically somber as he took in a level of poverty around us. I reached out and grabbed his hand, but I wasn’t sure who was supporting whom.
John Pierre Romaine, the overseer of Sable Mouvants was a French expatriate who lived in London until five years ago, when he came over to do a university placement with an aid organization, but stayed even when the organization left. He seemed like a genuine enough guy, but I no longer trusted my gut instinct after the Louis Trousseau debacle.
He walked us through the haphazard streets of The Quicksand, tents and shanty houses put together from building waste and trash. “I couldn’t leave. I tried to go back to universit
y, back to downing beer with my mates at the pub every Friday night, but all I could see was the sad eyes of a kid who’d never known an actual bed. The place really is quicksand. You can’t just walk away.” We stopped outside a shed made of sheet metal. “This is the closest thing to a restaurant we have here. The people in this camp know how to make do with what little we get, and I try to ensure that the money stays in the camp, you know. We have a couple of teachers who run a school for the kids, and we try to ask the city for money to feed the them lunch every day. A guaranteed meal, even if it’s just rice or beans.”
The woman inside had a bright smile, but a face that was lined so deeply it told of a life that was marred by worry. She handed us a plastic cup of rice, a thick stew on top. I gave her a hundred bucks from my purse.
She protested in a language I didn’t understand, attempting to hand it back, but I insisted.
“Tell her to use it for produce or use it wherever it’s needed,” I said to John Pierre.
JP, he insisted I should call him JP, translated what I said, but the lady let fire a rapid spill of Arabic, I think.
I leaned closer to Naz. “What’s she saying?”
“She’s insisting we come to lunch. JP is telling her that you might be busy.”
I placed a hand on JP’s elbow. “Tell her we would be honored to join her for lunch.”
JP’s face lit up with respect, and then explained that we would come. The bright smile made its way to the elderly lady’s eyes this time.
She turned to a boy in the building behind her, and gave him an order that had him tearing out of the shanty and away down the alley between the buildings.
After eating our stew, which was amazingly tasty despite the limited ingredients, we moved along.
JP showed us the school, and the woefully under-resourced medical center. But while the strong sense of desperation permeated everything, there were also kids playing football in the streets, laughing and arguing, while old men talked in fold up chairs out the front of makeshift houses, and weathered women scrubbed linens in big tubs of water. It was its own little microcosm of life, irrefutable proof of the tenacity of the human race.
An hour later we stopped out the front of a house. Well, it was several rough buildings jammed together to create the idea of a house.
“This is Helena’s place. She and her husband Farouk live here with their daughters and grandchildren. Farouk is a carpenter, and spends most of his days weatherproofing the more basic shanties, getting people out of tents. Their sons-in-laws have gone to England searching for better work, but they have no status there. They are illegals. Aliens,” JP explained.
He knocked on the doorframe. A man a decade older looking than Helena answered the door, but his smile was just as wide.
“Come in. John Pierre, are you staying for a meal?” he asked in heavily accented english.
“No, sorry Farouk. Too much work to do. Helena fed me earlier though,” he laughed as he clapped the older man on the arm. He turned to us. “It was a pleasure meeting you all.” His eyes met mine. “I hope we can work together some time in the future. We need your help.”
I reached out and shook his hand. “You have my word.”
I meant it too. There were always too many people in need. It was like bucketing water from a well during a monsoon. But we had to try.
Farouk showed us through to what I assumed was the communal living area. “Please sit, sit,” Farouk insisted, rattling off the names of his daughters and grandchildren so fast I would never remember them as he pointed to woven mats on the floor and indicating we should sit on them.
But I did recognize the boy from earlier, who’s name apparently was Sunny. I smiled and thanked them for their hospitality. The women bustled between the room and the kitchen, eyeing my four guys who took up way too much space in the little shack.
As soon as Farouk realized that Naz spoke arabic, they were engrossed in a conversation that was so rapid, I had no chance of keeping up. I had no idea that Naz still spoke the language of his childhood, but I was glad he did.
At some point, a toddler came over, and poked Romanus in the chest, her grimy little fingers reaching up to rub his stubble covered cheeks. Romanus, my big, mean looking Alpha, turned his face to the side and blew a noisy raspberry on the toddlers pudgy little hand, making the baby emit the most adorable giggling sound. The baby shuffled closer until she was sitting on Romanus’ knee, poking his face again, until more raspberries were given. It went straight to my ovaries.
When another of Farouk and Helena’s daughters came out and saw, she smiled, waggling her eyebrows at me in the universal female sign language for ‘what a hottie, you should get you some of that.’ I laughed, well, until she handed me a baby.
For the lack of son’s-in-law here, there was an awful lot of tiny humans. I looked down at the little baby, who’s tiny, serious eyes were searching my face, and wondered what my kids would look like. Could we even have kids, now we were all kind of half gargoyle? It was a question for Romanus, but I didn’t think he would know either. Our situation was pretty unique. Maybe, I’d just get my IUD removed, and see what fate and mother nature had to say about the whole thing.
I held the baby out and away from me, worried I’d drop it, or suffocate it on my shoulder or any of the million other ways I could break such a fragile little being.
“Can I hold?” Rouen asked from my other side, and I looked to the baby’s mother. She nodded, as she dropped off a platter of food, and then walk/ran back to the kitchen.
Rouen cooed at the baby as he tucked it into the crook of his arm, making cutesie noises that sounded completely ridiculous coming out of the mouth of a gargoyle.
“Please, eat,” he said, shooing the older kids away until we’d each picked up something from the tray. I chose a cabbage leaf stuffed with some kind of spiced rice, and it was amazing.
Eventually, all the food was on the floor between us, and the kids had their own little plate of food in the corner so Helena and her daughters could sit with us. We talked about life in the camp, their worries for their husbands, their worry that they would never leave The Quicksand, and neither would their kids.
I told them all the suggestions I would make to the board of the NRH. A purpose built clinic and school room, scholarships and sponsorships for teens and young adults, to help them get started in life. Better shelter against the cold seaside winters.
I hesitated. “Have there been any weird disappearances in the camp?”
Helena and Farouk looked at each other, and when Farouk spoke, he chose his words carefully. “Always, people are leaving camp, disappearing across the channel. But even if they do not tell John Pierre they are leaving, always the camp knows. Lately, people have been leaving without a word. Just vanish.”
I’d suspected it was true, and Louis had said as much, but a tiny part of me was hoping I was wrong.
“I’m going to try and fix that too.” I nodded, and we stood. Rouen handed the sleeping baby back to his mother. Romanus smiled at his toddling friend, who was stuffing so much rice in her mouth that it was dribbling out the sides.
Helena and Farouk showed us to the door. “Thank you for your hospitality,” I said again.
Helena reached out, holding my forearms tightly. “You will do good,” she said in very halted english. I didn’t need to ask what she meant.
I stared at her in the eye, giving her a look that promised her I would try, even if she didn’t understand my next words. “I will do everything in my power to make sure no one else vanishes.”
We said our goodbyes, and I left with a sick feeling in my stomach that had nothing to do with Helena’s cooking and everything to do with her confirming my suspicions.
“Let’s go talk to the Shine rep,” I said, and strode back the way we came.
Both JP and Franco de Moines’ offices were housed in one of the few proper buildings in the camp. Our SUV was parked next to a banged up old Toyota and some kind of three wh
eeled utility vehicle that hardly looked roadworthy.
Franco, I found out, was a slightly pudgy older man with worry lines an inch deep on his forehead and a lot of grey hair. He wore grandpa cardigans and spoke with a slight lisp that made his accent, which was somewhere between Spanish and French, almost unintelligible.
He gave the guys standing around me only a cursory glance before handing me a huge wad of paper and telling me everything he’d been trying to achieve in the camp, including graphs and projections. If this was a front, I had to hand it to Franco de Moines, he’d done his due diligence.
I suddenly wished I had Hope's ability to be a human lie detector. But I had a pretty good bullshit-o-meter and two gargoyles with supernatural senses, so that was going to have to do.
“Did you know that the Shine Foundation is a front for a people smuggling operation?”
If it hadn’t been such a dire situation, it would have been almost comical. His jaw fell open, his eyes went so wide they almost took up half his face.
He let out a squeak, then a huff, before he said, “Pardon?”
I was kind of worried the old guy might have a stroke. But then he straightened his shoulders, an angry flush rising up his neck and into his cheeks. “How dare you? I have worked night and day crusading for this camp, trying to make this awful place something a little bit better. And you think what, that I’m here stealing people?” His voice rose higher and higher with each word until he was whisper yelling at me.
I gave him a reassuring smile. “No, Mr de Moines, I don’t think you are smuggling people. But I know for a fact Shine is a front for a consortia of people who do bad things, and that someone is stealing people from right under your nose here at Sable Mouvants. What I’m telling you is that you have to find out who, and do not go to Interpol. I’ll leave you the number for someone I trust, and they will make the problem go away. But be careful. They are dangerous and will do anything to protect their interests.” I leaned forward, placing my hands on his folding table which was doubling as a desk. “But if I find out you do have anything to do with this, I will find you, and turn you inside out. Clear?”
Hell's Redemption- The Complete Series Boxset Page 58
