Covenant (Paris Mob Book 1) (15 page)

"
S
o we're
all set for tomorrow then?" Charlotte asked.

They were lingering over espresso at Grotto, a tiny nook of a restaurant tucked below ground in Beacon Hill. Christophe hadn’t offered details about his afternoon, and she didn’t ask. She had so far avoided the questions about his profession. It simply didn’t matter when compared to the immediacy of the threat against her, the questions surrounding Baeder’s death and the possible location of Tucker’s Cross. But she knew he ran some kind of business, probably an illegal one, and she assumed that business required attention from time to time like any other.

“I think so," Christophe said. “We’ve learned all we can about Mr. Montoya through the cyber lab. We won’t know more until we speak to him in person.”

“I have to admit to being curious,” Charlotte said, dipping her spoon into the remains of the tiramisu that sat between them on the gleaming table.

“I don’t blame you,” he said. “It is curious.”

Christophe had gone back and forth with his associates in Paris, unearthing detailed background information about the man to whom Anna Muller had referred them. Even so, he seemed an odd person to have knowledge of something like Tucker’s Cross. A thirty-year-old research assistant at the Gardner Museum, he’d graduated from university in Madrid with a degree in Fine Art. He’d worked a series of small jobs for galleries in Spain before coming to Boston. The pictures they’d seen depicted Peter Montoya as a small man with dark hair and delicate, otherwise unremarkable features. The only thing remotely interesting about him was the fact that his aunt was Graciela Perez, a Spanish actress who had gained some notoriety in Hollywood fifteen years earlier as a Latina bombshell before more or less disappearing from the American movie scene.

“Do you think he’ll speak to us?” Charlotte asked.

“He’ll speak to us.”

She heard something hard in his voice, a kind of resolve that was a window into his world. She suddenly didn’t envy Peter Montoya. Didn’t envy anyone who might stand between Christophe Marchand and the things he might want.

A shiver ran up the back of her neck. She sometimes forgot that he was a dangerous man. That was a mistake. Whatever his business, it was clear that he was practiced in violence. More than that, he posed a unique danger to Charlotte. He was a man who would soak up every bit of her without regard to her well-being. Who would revel in whatever he saw in her that pleased him — until the moment when he found nothing pleasing at all.

Or that’s what she’d believed when they’d first gone to Vienna.

It had been easy then. She hadn’t known him. Hadn’t felt his touch on her skin. Didn’t know the tenderness with which he could kiss her. The passion with which he could claim her body. She didn’t know the particular softness with which he looked at her when he first opened his eyes in the morning. The way he brought her coffee in bed, sitting gently on the side of the mattress, stroking her hair until she came slowly awake.

Now she didn’t know what to think. Didn’t know who he really was.

The waiter returned with Christophe’s credit card. He signed the slip, then pulled out her chair and guided her out of the restaurant with the gentle pressure of his hand on the small of her back.

They emerged into the warm evening air. Boston’s Beacon Hill was lit with the old-fashioned lamps that dotted the sidewalks, and Christophe tucked her arm into his as they started down the street. It was a lovely part of the city, steeped in history and the stately brick buildings that had been home to Boston’s oldest and wealthiest families. The city’s traffic was a distant hum in the background, the air slightly salty from the harbor in the distance.

She leaned her head on his arm, trying to memorize the solid feel of him under her cheek, the scent that filled her with a heady combination of lust and affection and something more complicated that she didn’t dare try to name. The last five days had been a magical kind of interlude. Other than the occasional visit from Julien and the few times Christophe had left to take care of business, they’d been in a world of their own making. It was a world filled with long conversations about art and history. A world filled with lingering meals and long walks, with late night sex more erotic than any she’d ever known and lazy mornings marked by strong coffee and twisted sheets, desire still thick in the air.

She didn’t know what would happen next, but their impending meeting with Peter Montoya meant the end of Boston. She assumed it would mean the end of her and Christophe as well. She refused to let it sting. She’d known what she was getting into with Christophe Marchand. Had known she was just a passing infatuation. That he would eventually be onto his next acquisition. She was a big girl, and she had a life of her own in L.A. It was time to get back to it.

They turned onto a side street with a sharp incline and started up the old cobblestone. They were tucked away here, the street narrow, the buildings rising on either side. The street-lamps cast a soft glow, making the whole scene look like a landscape come to life. She sighed softly against his arm, and before she knew what was happening, he’d pinned her gently against the old brick of one of the buildings. His face was inches from hers, and she could feel the press of his body through their clothes.

“You sigh just like that when I sink into you,” he murmured. "Did you know that?"

She shook her head.

He lowered his mouth to her neck, inhaled, touched his lips to her neck. “It’s the loveliest sound. Like waves rushing softly onto the beach. Like the wind in the trees.”

She leaned her head back against the brick and closed her eyes, lowing herself in the warmth of his tongue darting out to touch the skin near her ear in the moment before he took her lobe in his mouth, tugged with his teeth.

“I like to watch my cock move inside you,” he said. “But I like to watch your face more. To watch your lips part as that lovely sigh escapes your mouth.”

His words were a whisper against her skin as he kissed his way along her jaw to her mouth. He was hard, his erection pressing against her belly as stopped at her mouth. She opened her eyes to find him looking at her, and a flood of wet heat bloomed between her legs. It was always like that with him. All it took was the sound of his voice, the touch of his lips, the knowledge that he wanted her. She would be ready then. Ready to feel him push into her without any preamble at all.

“Then take me to bed," she said, her voice huskier than usual.

He hesitated, looking into her eyes. She thought he saw everything then. That he saw all her loneliness and pain. That he saw every part of her, even the ones she tried to hide from herself.

He stroked her cheek with the back of his hand. “But then I have to stop looking at you long enough to get you home.”

She smiled, touched her lips to his. “It will be worth it. I promise.”

He groaned, pressing his lips to hers, plundering her mouth with his tongue as he pressed his cock between her legs. She snaked her arms around his neck, slipped her hands into the hair at the back of his head as she angled her mouth to give him better access. When he pulled away, they were both breathless.

“Let’s go.”

He took her hand, pulling her back onto the street.

H
e was nearly asleep
when he heard the buzzing of his phone. He turned toward it quickly, not wanting to wake Charlotte, tucked into his side after a ferocious few hours of lovemaking. It was 2:32 a.m., and the name on the display read JULIEN.

He slipped out of bed and took the phone into the living room of the suite.

“What is it?”

“Sorry to call so late,” Julien said. “I made the inquiries you requested. It turned up some interesting things.”

Christophe glanced back at the bedroom door. The allure of Charlotte’s body, sprawled out and naked in his bed, was strong enough to make him want to put off any conversation about business.

“Can it wait?” he asked.

“Everything can wait.” Julien hesitated. “But you might want to hear this now.”

“Meet me in the hotel bar in ten minutes.”

He disconnected the call and went to the bathroom, gently closing the door. The light was harsh, but it was what he needed. If he was right, there wasn’t time to be sentimental — even about Charlotte Duval. And yet that’s how he felt. Like he’d been pierced in the chest with the tip of a spear. Not badly enough to kill him, but enough to weaken him. To open up an ache at the center of his body that was present when he was apart from her — and just as present when he looked at her.

She was too beautiful. Too gentle and graceful for his world.

He turned on the tap and splashed cold water on his face, then grabbed a towel and looked in the mirror as he blotted his wet skin.

“What are you doing?” he muttered.

His reflection offered no answer, but there was another voice inside him. One who knew exactly what he was doing, even as he tried to deny it; he was falling in love with Charlotte Duval.

And that was the last thing either of them needed.

He dropped the towel on the counter and slipped into the bedroom. Charlotte had flipped onto her stomach, the sheet barely covering the pillowy rise of her ass. He looked away and pulled on his pants before he could change his mind, call Julien back, tell his second-in-command that he didn’t care what the fuck was going on in Paris. That nothing was more important than the woman in his bed.

He grabbed his shoes and shirt and left the room. He buttoned his shirt haphazardly in the living room, the lights of Boston glittering on the other side of the glass. Then he slipped on his shoes, picked up his wallet, and got into the elevator.

He took a few deep breaths as the elevator descended to the lobby. He wasn’t often afraid. He’d faced off with some of the most deadly men in France, in the world. He’d risked his life more than once, in some cases for nothing other than principle.

But he was beginning to realize the kind of brashness that had allowed him to face death so often in the past was a result of one simple thing.

He’d had nothing to lose.

He’d had nothing to lose, and therefore he risked nothing by engaging in his business, by facing fearsome men, danger, his own mortality.

Now he felt suddenly that he had quite a lot to lose. And even more now that he was under dual attack by the woman asleep in his bed, a woman he was beginning to doubt he would ever be able to let go, and by the assault she’d gently waged on his heart.

His soul.

What was more dangerous then: losing the woman who made him feel like he was breathing for the first time since he was a child? Or losing his heart, relinquishing control to that same woman? Becoming like his father who risked everything for love?

He pushed aside the question as the elevator doors opened on the lobby. He didn’t have an answer, and he didn’t want to analyze his suspicion that he might not like it when he found it.

He made his way through the lobby, relishing the quiet. Hotels had a particular atmosphere late at night. Hushed and vacuous, it was like being tucked away in a small, lit corner of a darkened world. The silence calmed him, and he continued to the hotel bar feeling more in control.

Julien was already at a table far from the bar. It was protocol to keep one’s distance from prying ears and eyes, and Christophe went to the bar, ordered a bourbon, then crossed the room with the drink in hand.

“Better be good,” he said, sitting down.

“It is,” Julien said. He seemed to think about it. “Or maybe bad. But either way, I think you’ll want to hear it.”

Christophe nodded. “I'm listening.”

“You were right,” Julien said. “There have been problems — more problems than usual. I made contact with every district, audited every shipment, every new hire, every set of books. Then I compared them against data from last year at this time, and the year before that.”

“And?”

“Sixty percent increase in lost shipments, fifty percent more attrition, three moles caught disseminating information to minor competitors…”

“I get the feeling there is something else,” Christophe said, taking in the information.

“There’s been a slow siphoning of funds in every district.”

Christophe gripped his glass tighter. “How long?”

“Six months.” Julien winced, like he was bracing for an attack, then hurried to continue. “I take full responsibility. I should have kept a closer eye on things. I make no excuses.”

Christophe heard something unsaid in his words. “But?”

“It looks… deliberate. And… careful.”

“What are you saying, Julien?”

“The missing money, the missing men, the moles… it’s not enough to be obvious. Not enough in and of themselves to raise any alarms. There are potential explanations for the decrease in profits, the intercepted shipments — market fluctuations, the occasional intervention by law enforcement. And every organization has an occasional mole, either from a rival faction or from the law. It’s hard to raise an alarm on a small increase in that area.”

Christophe turned his glass in his hand. “You think it’s deliberate.”

“I do,” Julien said.

“Who?”

Julien shrugged. “Hard to say. There are the usual pockets of competition, but it’s hard to imagine any of them making a real play for territory or income. They don’t have the muscle to back it up.”

Christophe leaned back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the table. He hadn’t loved being under the thumb of the Syndicate, but that had been the organizational structure when he’d taken over for Nicolas Perrot, and he had honored it. It would never have occurred to him to try and stage a coup against Raneiro Donati. The man ruled with an iron fist, and he’d been doing so long before Christophe came onto the scene.

But then the shit had hit the fan with Nico Vitale. Most of the Syndicate leaders had gone to prison, two of them had committed suicide, and at least a quarter of the territory bosses had traded amnesty for testimony. Organized crime around the world had been thrown into upheaval, and while the average citizen might think that was a good thing, Christophe had seen firsthand how false the idea really was; the only thing worse than organized crime was disorganized crime.

He’d used the opportunity to grow his organization, to re-vet every man on his management team. He’d worked with people like Farrell Black in an effort to maintain alliances with other territories. He’d quickly and efficiently squashed minor uprisings to make it clear that the absence of the Syndicate didn’t mean the Paris territory was up for grabs.

He’d thought it was working. Certainly there were problems. There had always been problems, even when the Syndicate was in charge. But they hadn’t seemed unusual in the wake of the Syndicate’s dissolution. Now he was beginning to wonder if he was missing something.

He thought about his brother, about seeing Felix in Vienna, an obvious sign that Bruno had been part of the threat against Charlotte.

Which probably meant he’d been involved in Baeder’s death.

He felt a swell of anger. He didn’t delude himself that he was a good man. But he did have standards. He didn’t kill lightly or indiscriminately. He and Nico had that in common. And he certainly didn’t kill men like Stefan Baeder — men who dedicated their lives to the preservation of art and history.

He didn’t want to believe his brother was capable of such a thing. But he had never been one to lie to himself, and he immediately thought of Bruno’s beloved knife.

When they’d been children, their father used to take them hunting. Christophe had enjoyed the weight of the rifle in his hand, had worked to refine his aim to minimize the animal’s suffering.

But Bruno had enjoyed those times when Christophe missed the mark, when they had reached the animal to find that it was not-quite-dead. He’d relished using his knife to finish the job, often making it seem like he was unintentionally sloppy, forcing their father to teach him again and again how to kill mercifully.

But Christophe had seen the shine in his brother’s eyes. The pleasure.

He’d stopped hunting with Bruno as soon as he’d been old enough to assert himself. Now he couldn’t help wondering what else his brother was capable of.

He looked at Julien, grateful that the other man had remained silent, allowing him time to process this new information.

“And Bruno?”

Julien shook his head. “No sign of him. We sent another crew to Lille to meet the shipment, got it off the grid before it became a problem.”

“Does he have the kind of infrastructure to stage this kind of coup?” Christophe asked.

“Not that we know of,” Julien said.

Christophe shook his head. “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to one of the territories.”

“You’re thinking of New York,” Julien said.

Christophe nodded. These problems — missing money, missing men, an increase in problems that would be minor in a vacuum but which looked more sinister in context — had all preceded the efforts by Raneiro to oust Nico Vitale from his territory in New York — territory that had been run by the Vitale’s for decades.

“But Raneiro is in prison,” Julien said.

“Yes.”

“So who?” Julien asked.

“I don’t know.” Christophe stood. He was tired. He wanted to lay next to Charlotte. To hear her soft breathing beside him, to feel the brush of her hair against his cheek, the silk of her skin. “I’m going to bed. I’ll call you tomorrow.”

“All right.”

“You were right to call,” Christophe said. “Thank you.”

“Of course.”

He had turned to go when he thought of something else.

“Julien?”

“Yes, boss?”

“Keep things under control until we figure this out.”

Julien nodded, and he saw in the other man’s eyes the same unease he felt in his bones.