by Camilla Monk
Tears of shame formed in my eyes that I tried my best to hold back. “I’m not a child, and I’m not a package. Don’t you ever fucking touch me again, March,” I said through gritted teeth.
I felt him pull away, and I sniffed angrily. One tear had made it past the corner of my eye and was now rolling slowly down my cheek. When he reverted back to his usual Mr. Nice Guy act and tried to help me wipe it, I slapped his hand away.
I heard him sigh, and we resumed our walk, careful not to look at each other.
I had never been like this, never fought with anyone. You know how the Hulk says to Captain America, “That’s my secret, Captain. I’m always angry”? Well, until then, that was my superpower: I was never really angry. This wasn’t me. I didn’t snap back, and I never cried. For God’s sake, I hadn’t even been like that as a kid!
March might have been right when he called me a child. I was regressing by the minute, and if things went on like this, I’d be two feet tall and soiling myself by the end of the day.
Underground garages are bad.
Underground garages are where gang rapes and hubcap thefts happen. They’re also the place where creepy gypsy ladies jump at you to curse you into the flames of hell. Those were the thoughts I entertained as we waited for . . . whatever or whomever March waited for.
My ears perked up at the increasing rumble of an engine in the distance. A large black Audi appeared on the parking garage’s entrance ramp and stopped right in front of us. The driver’s door opened, and a Mediterranean-looking man in his late forties wearing a black leather jacket and cargo pants stepped out.
If this guy was Ilan, well, then Ilan was impressive, to say the least. I had never seen such large shoulders before. I even wondered if they were fake and there was some sort of padding involved in this business. His face was intriguing; a complex maze of deep wrinkles ran across his olive skin and circled his green eyes, as if telling the story of a harrowing life, and the thick stubble on his jaw was studded with white hair, giving it a silvery appearance that I really liked. But then again, I’ve always had a secret little thing for older men.
He walked to us, his tired gaze locking itself straight into March’s; his brow furrowed into a hostile expression. “March . . . still alive.” The words had been spoken in a low baritone voice, with a strong French accent.
I winced a little. Ouch. Apply cold water to burn area. Okay, March had crossed him somehow.
He gave Ilan a predatory smile. “It’s always a pleasure, Ilan. How are you these days? Still worried I might ring twice?”
I caught a flash of anger in Ilan’s eyes, and I would have sold a kidney to know what the subtext in this comment was. It looked like these two were standing in a ring. Well, if they had been, no doubt March would have lost against that giant.
“Vous êtes le pote à Paulie?” You’re Paulie’s pal? I asked.
He nodded, his lips pressed in a stern line. “I am. And I take it you’re Island, the crazy French girl . . .”
Toasty! Ilan wins. Fatality.
Dammit, I didn’t even know that guy; how could he blast me too, already? I also noted that whereas I had asked my question in French, he had replied in English, perhaps not to exclude March from such a friendly conversation. At any rate, I felt butt-hurt by his comment. “Did Paulie say that, that I was crazy and all?”
Ilan shrugged. “No, he said you were Franco-American. The crazy part I figured myself when he said you were March’s girl. Goes with the territory.”
My legs almost gave way. “He said . . . what?”
Through my anger, I noticed that a crease of displeasure had formed on March’s brow, and his lips were pressed in an expression of annoyance. I assumed that it would be bad for his reputation as a ruthless pro if word got out that he randomly banged his targets.
“Island is my client. Nothing more, nothing less. I’ll have a word with Paulie regarding the issue,” March clarified for Ilan, who nodded in understanding.
I couldn’t have agreed more.
“Let’s go,” March concluded.
Ilan opened the car, and we stepped inside. Once I was seated, I scrunched my nose at the strong tobacco smell and the telltale little pine tree hanging from the mirror and grinning at me. Ilan smoked a lot. Maybe that was the reason his voice was so deep. Looking at March, I noticed he had kept his black suitcase with him instead of putting it in the trunk. I wondered if there were weapons inside it, and whether he kept it because he didn’t trust Ilan.
The engine roared to life, and soon enough we were speeding on the A13 highway in the direction of Paris. Ilan had no regard for speed limits and a good radar detector; I found his driving immensely relaxing, much more so than March’s.
As we passed yet another herd of bored cows, Ilan shifted the mirror to look at me. “Say . . . it’s one strange notary you got,” he remarked, his tone knowing, almost playful.
I fidgeted uncomfortably by March’s side, noticing he was now staring at me as well, his eyes unreadable. “What do you mean?”
“Well, he’s not exactly the kind of notary that went to law school, and to be honest, I’m still trying to locate him.” He seemed to check for my reactions before continuing. “Paid a visit to his assistant early this morning. Obviously, I wasn’t the first one: she had some nasty bruises and a couple of teeth missing.” He shook his head with a sigh. “She told me her boss had gotten a tip around one a.m. that a bunch of gorillas were looking for him. Étienne managed to run away, and she’s the one who got wrecked instead.”
I grimaced at those macabre details and turned to March. “Do you think those guys were looking for the stone?”
He frowned. “Likely so. Did you tell anyone about your mother’s notary?”
“No! I think my dad is the only person I ever discussed this with.” Blood drained from my face. I turned to March, grabbing his arm urgently. “Oh my God, March! What if someone kidnapped him too! You have to let me check that he’s okay!”
The muscles in his jaw contracted. “Even so, there’s nothing we can do now.”
“Let me call him!”
His nostrils flared. “Island—”
“March, fais pas ton connard.” March, don’t be a dick.
I looked at Ilan in surprise. Could March understand that sort of . . . exhortation? Apparently yes. My eyes widened when he pulled out his phone and handed it to me with a warning glare. “You’re only calling to check on him. No games, Island.”
I nodded, although I did briefly envision myself calling my dad for help. I decided against it: There was no telling how March would react if I betrayed him again. I dialed my dad’s number. The phone rang twice, and when I heard someone pick up, I realized it was five a.m. in New York. My shoulders slumped in relief as his tired, grumpy voice resounded. “Simon Halder speaking, who the hell is this?”
“Hi, Dad, it’s me.”
“Island?” A typical grunt at the other end of the line. Thank God, my father seemed to be in perfect health.
“Sorry, I think it was a pocket call,” I stammered, looking up at March.
Another grunt, louder. “A pocket call—honey, how many times did I tell you that Apple was rubbish and we needed to buy you a new phone? Why do you call from a private number anyway? Are the settings on that damn phone broken too? We’ll go to the shop together, I’ll ask for the manager—”
“It’s okay. I’ll check the settings, it’s probably nothing.” He sounded his usual bearish self so far, but I needed to make sure. “Dad, I’m sorry I woke you. You seem tense, is everything all right? Did anything happen?” It was a stupid question, since my dad was basically born tense, but I figured it’d get me somewhere.
Two grunts. Bad omen. “Did Janice tell you?”
My fingers tightened around March’s phone. “Tell me what?”
“About the tapioca!”
I blinked, while in the receiver, the gates of hell opened.
“She’s having us go gluten-free! She fo
rce-fed me some goddamn rubbish tapioca pearls cake! Blocked me entirely! Haven’t been able to go to the john for two goddamn days!”
March cocked a suspicious eyebrow at the inflamed rant rising from his phone.
I winced. At least my father was okay. Well, badly constipated, but okay. “Dad, I have to go. I’ll call you soon!”
“Island, wait—”
I handed the phone back to March with a sigh. “I think it’s okay. He didn’t sound preoccupied or anything.”
Ilan laughed. “He sounded pretty preoccupied to me!”
“No . . . It’s just that his digestive tract got blocked by a tapioca pearls cake.”
I looked up to see March’s eyes, wider than I had ever seen them since our first encounter. “Tapioca is excellent. There’s something wrong with your father.”
I heard Ilan snicker some more, until he seemed to calm down. “So, back to business. Anything you can tell us about your mother’s notary?”
Much like March, he never lost track of his targets . . . “I already told March everything I know, which amounts to basically nothing. But you said he never went to law school; is he some kind of fraud?”
Ilan shook his head as he casually passed a semitrailer on the right, earning himself a disapproving snort from March. “Not entirely. He does oversee his clients’ assets and turns dirty money into clean wills.”
“A notary for gangsters?”
“Let’s not use big words!” Ilan laughed.
Past the initial shock, a terrible sadness washed over me. Once again, I felt like I was discovering my mom. “March said my mother was some sort of spy, a thief, but it’s . . . I still can’t believe it.”
“Didn’t your father tell you anything after she died?” Ilan asked, his voice tinged with surprise.
I blanched. “What do you mean? He said the notary had never sent him the papers, that there was probably nothing!” The idea that my dad might have lied to me knotted my stomach.
“To the best of my knowledge, he’s the one behind this. That woman I questioned told me she had been in charge of the rest of Léa’s assets. She said that when she contacted your father after Léa’s death, he refused to listen. He wanted nothing to do with them, even if they were technically your inheritance,” Ilan recounted. “She insisted, and he told her to let the money sleep. He never contacted her again after that.”
My fingers were itching to grab March’s phone again and call my dad back to treat him to some rage-fueled ranting of my own. I gritted my teeth and put a lid on my rising anger. “I’m not sure I follow you . . . HSBC sent me a check. I received the remaining balance on her account plus interest.”
March stroked his chin. “The six thousand dollars you told me about? I did find the amount a little surprising.”
“Yes, why would that be surprising?”
In the driver’s seat, Ilan broke into a gravelly laugh.
“What’s so funny?” I snapped.
“Island, your mother spent fifteen years serving the Board. Do you seriously think all she had was a little cash?”
I looked back and forth between him and March. “I don’t understand.”
Ilan shrugged. “I’m not gonna list everything, but I’d say you’re sitting on roughly twenty million euros. By the way, would you take an offer on that apartment in Monaco? My wife loves—”
I cut him off abruptly. “It’s a joke, right?”
“I don’t think so, Island,” March replied.
My eyes squeezed shut.
I often dreamed that I was taking an elevator, and it suddenly stalled for a few seconds before falling into a bottomless pit. That feeling of losing ground, that millisecond of dread and weightlessness, my stomach heaving before the fall . . . were precisely what I was experiencing at the moment. I wanted to laugh at the irony of the situation: minutes ago I had been talking to my dad—perhaps for the last time—and he had bullshitted me about tapioca cake. No mention of the fact that he had stripped me of every last bit of my mother’s legacy.
An “oversight,” no doubt.
Who was I kidding? This was exactly the sort of thing he would have done. Simon Halder was a kindhearted and generous man, a loving father, but also a damn controlling and anxious one, and I could guess that he had firmly intended to keep that secret from me until the day he died.
It wasn’t the money that made me angry. I had more than enough to live on my own. I didn’t need any of it. It was the idea that he had robbed me of a part of my mom’s identity, of something that might have helped me know her, understand her. To be honest, I already secretly blamed him for the way he had cleared our apartment in Tokyo and kept none of my mother’s personal belongings after her death. But this was worse. My dad had known about my mother’s activities, about her will, and he’d chosen to conceal the truth from me. And, in a way, I had allowed this. I could have told him I was hurt by the way he had meticulously wiped away all traces of her, told him that I hated the way he’d sometimes lock himself in his office to take certain phone calls after her death. I hadn’t. I had retreated into a shell of my own and chosen to forget about that open gash between us, for fear of having to confront him.
“If you try to talk to him about Étienne now, he’ll suspect something, and it might endanger him. What is done is done; he’s better not knowing that you learned about your inheritance for the time being,” Ilan commented, apparently reading my mind.
My eyes slanted at March. “Don’t worry, Ilan, it’s not like I have a phone anyway.”
I hoped I wouldn’t get killed, because I planned on having a long conversation with my dad when I got back to New York. I stole another glance at March, who seemed to be plunged in deep thought as well, his brow furrowed. March . . . who embodied every sort of trouble my dad had tried to protect me from by hiding that will from me. What was it that Paolo Coelho said in The Alchemist? “What good is money to you if you’re going to die? It’s not often that money can save someone’s life.”
Well, Paolo was damn right, and so was my dad, to some extent. Taking a deep breath, I made up my mind and looked at March. “I’ll help you find the Ghost Cullinan if I can, but I don’t want to know anything about the rest. I won’t take stolen money. I’m in enough trouble as it is.”
“No, it’s money paid in exchange for stolen goods,” Ilan corrected.
“Totally different,” March concurred with a little nod.
Aggravated by the fact that I was being given life advice by guys with failing moral compasses, I slammed back into my seat and crossed my arms. “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear this. This conversation is over.”
Ilan was, however, one of those “macho macho men” who decide when conversations are over and when they aren’t. “You know, if money makes you feel bad, you can always be like March. Save it all and live like a Jesuit in a cubicle,” he said with a cunning smile.
A mixture of embarrassment and annoyance flashed in March’s eyes. “My house is big enough, thank you.”
“I think you’re exaggerating, Ilan. A real tightwad wouldn’t fly private,” I offered in defense of my captor.
Ilan guffawed. “He negotiates Paulie’s prices!”
“I’m merely enjoying the benefits of his frequent flyer program,” March replied indignantly.
“Paulie doesn’t have a frequent flyer program.” Ilan snickered.
“Well, thanks to me, now he does.”
I couldn’t help it: witnessing the outrage in March’s expression, I dissolved into laughter.
Between two hiccups, I heard Ilan’s amused voice, addressing March. “Putain, c’est bien la première fois que je te vois faire marrer un client.” Damn, it has to be the first time I see you make a client laugh.
I was surprised, to say the least; Ilan had talked in a rather colloquial French for the second time, and I hadn’t realized March could understand the language so well. It was becoming obvious he had been here before.
I spent the rest of the ride in
silence, counting the cows and trying to figure what to make of all this. How many facets were there to the man people just called March?
TEN
The Goddess
“She was a mysterious, sensual goddess, gliding across the ballroom with effortless grace. Upon seeing her, Ryker immediately felt his pants tent: he had been hopelessly bitten by the potent arrow of love.”
—Gilda Sapphire, Scorching Passion of the Billionaire Werewolf
Ilan must have been a wedding planner before turning to a life of crime, because when we reached the outskirts of Paris, he took charge naturally, March letting him do so without questions. I doubted it was a display of submission, though, more like he didn’t care and would do as he pleased in the end anyway.
A series of text messages made Ilan’s phone vibrate in his front pocket, and after he was done checking them, he looked at March in the mirror. “Your guy was seen at the Rose Paradise two nights ago. He’s a regular there. I’m sending someone. Shouldn’t be long until we catch him. I booked you a safe room, and your car is ready, but we’ll stop at my place first. She said she absolutely had to see you if you were in Paris.”
As he introduced the program, I recorded each single word in that special area of my brain where I store all data that could lead to shocking revelations and drama. Who the hell was “she”?
Ilan drove us through Paris until we reached rue Saint-Dominique, a narrow, crowded shopping street resting in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower and mostly bordered by low nineteenth-century buildings. I marveled at the store displays: shoes, clothes, jewelry, perfume, pastries . . . The place was a Parisian girl’s dream. We turned right on a smaller street and stopped in front of a more modern white building. Fumbling in his pockets, Ilan pulled out a small remote and opened a garage’s roll-up door.
Once out of the car, he led us to an elevator. As I stepped in cautiously, my brain sizzled with curiosity. Who was the mysterious lady who wanted to see March so badly? A friend? A . . . girlfriend? Ilan’s mom? By the time we reached the seventh floor, I was busy weaving an elaborate scenario in which their rivalry stemmed from the fact that March was doing Ilan’s mom.
