Page 9 of Tell Me

A man who shouldn’t have been anywhere near Dominick Landry’s house.

I opened my mouth to ask what the fuck Daniel Boniface thought he was doing, but that was as far as I got. A bag came down over my head, cutting out Daniel’s smirking face. Moments later, something hit me, and everything went dark.

* * *

The smell of water and mildew were the first things I noticed when I came back to consciousness, and I grew still, nostrils flaring as I tried to figure out where I was. Damp and darkness, though I still couldn’t see anything. I felt the shadows pressing in on me, a drip, drip, drip in the distance telling me that we were near either the ocean or one of the canals.

No sound of waves, though.

We were near a canal, then. One of those that divided the city into pieces and let the ocean creep into the city without taking out buildings or people who lived there. Water was a constant presence, the Mississippi pushing the city one way while the ocean pushed the other. The canals had been built for commerce first, a way to move goods and people from the sea to the big river, but over time they’d become just as important for flood control. Ours was a city built where no city should have been, and the fight against the water had started early.

So far, the city was winning.

The damp, though...

I took a deep breath, breathing through my nose to try to keep it quiet, and narrowed eyes that couldn’t see. No fresh air. No hint of the sea breeze. No sound of cars or people. The air was thick and still, pushing against my skin like a living being.

We weren’t just near a canal. We were under one.

The catacombs.

Shit.

7

BROOKS

The moment someone yanked the hood off my head, I knew I was right.

Daniel Boniface was standing in front of me smirking like he’d just pulled the best con in the world, his men around him in the dim lighting of the catacombs. A quick glance to the right showed me that Camille had made the trip with me. She was standing tall with her arms wrapped around her, and though I was willing to bet she was shaking like a leaf, she also looked like she was going to keep it together.

Good. I couldn’t deal with her coming apart at the seams right now. Camille was great, don’t get me wrong, but she also had a low tolerance for being manhandled. Particularly when it was Boudreaux men doing the handling.

If she could hold it together, it would leave me available to deal with more important things. Like Daniel Boniface and whatever the fuck he thought he was doing.

Because I was furious.

“What the fuck, Daniel?” I snarled, lunging toward him.

A hand grabbed me from behind and stopped the lunge, and I realized that I wasn’t standing up against the wall of the tunnel like I’d thought I was. Looking around, I saw I was in the middle of the fucking thing. And we were in one of the smaller tunnels. The place was more shadow than light and hadn’t seen anything that looked like a cleaning rag in years. I could practically feel the moss dripping down the walls, following the moisture from whatever lay above us. And below...

A grimace grew on my face at the thought. The catacombs and tunnels around them held mostly clean water, but a lot of it was stagnant, which meant it wasn’t as clean as one would like. Particularly when one was literally standing in it.

Daniel tsked at me and stepped up, putting his finger under my chin like he had any right to touch me. I made a move like I was going to bite him, hating everything about this situation, and he stepped back quickly.

Which made me smile.

“So what, you come onto my family’s property without permission, and then you’re stupid enough to kidnap not only me but also my cousin?” I asked quietly. “I’ve known you a long time, Daniel, but I never thought you were reckless. How the fuck do you think you’re going to get away with this?”

He stepped close again, though I noticed he was smart enough to stay out of range of my teeth. “Keep your mouth shut, if you know what’s good for you. It’s been a long time since you were in our city, Brooksy. You don’t hold as much power as you used to.”

I snorted at that. “Last time I checked, Daniel, I was still Dominick Landry’s daughter. And that means I hold just as much sway as I ever have. My family is bigger than yours. In case you’ve forgotten.”

That was true on two levels. The Boniface family had been powerful once but had almost died out in the last decade, losing most of their money to gambling and all their power to drugs. Daniel was one of the last from the family, and though he was smart and willing to do just about anything, he wasn’t smart enough to bring his family back from the brink of extinction. The Boudreaux, who he’d chosen to work for, were more powerful. Richer, and with a bigger reach.

But they weren’t as big as my family.

Which meant Daniel had been taking his own life into his hands to go onto my father’s property and kidnap me.

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