Page 115 of When He Protects

“You know where she is?”

He did now. He and Kane had just gotten the message they’d been waiting for. An old friend—and sometimes enemy—had sent the information he needed. “The thing about me…” Tyler shoved the phone back at Kane. “I have friends in all sorts of places.”

Etienne pointed toward the operating room. “Like yourfriendClay Banks?”

“Clay fired the shot that took out Thaddeus. He saved my life.”

Etienne did not respond to that news.

“Yeah, this talk is fun and all, but I’m getting to Esme. Come on, Kane.” He brushed past Etienne and his goons.

“Your friend Clay did not set the bomb in Paris,” Etienne revealed.

That stopped him. For just a moment. This time, Tyler was the one who looked back. “How the hell do you know that?”

Etienne smiled. It was not Esme’s brilliant smile. It was cold and calculating and deadly. He crooked his finger at Tyler.

Tyler edged back to him.

“My daughter was nearly killed in that bombing. The person I love most in this world.” Etienne’s hand gripped Tyler’s shoulder. “You truly think I did not immediately use every resource I have to uncover the real mastermind?”

He thought Esme’s father might just be one dangerous bastard.

“Louis Turner was not the man he appeared to be. He wanted to take his betrayals and make them all disappear. He thought the best way to do that was by staging a very public death.”

What. The. Hell?

“He’d been trained. The gentleman had quite the background in detonations. Not that most people would know that. The CIA and the FBI hid his real past. But I discovered the truth. That man even worked for the bomb squad once upon a time, under a different name. In a different life.”

“You trade in secrets,” Tyler murmured.

“Just like my daughter.”

I need Esme.

“Louis realized that Thaddeus intended to eliminate him. What Thaddeusdidn’tknow was that Louis was onestep ahead. Louis was a tricky sonofabitch. Wearing wires with everyone. Always making videos. Trading secrets left and right. When Louis realized he was a target, he simply eliminated the bomber that Thaddeus had hired in Paris…and then Louis finished the job.”

Tyler’s stomach knotted. “So he never intended to turn information over to theright hands.”

“There was nothingrightabout Louis.” Bitter laughter. “Louis knew that Thaddeus was waiting for an explosion, so he gave the bastard one. Louis knew exactly where to put the bomb and exactly where he should be positioned, so that he would escape injury.” His voice lowered even more as he asked, “How was it fair that he got to escape injury when my daughter was driven into a world of silence? She had to undergo multiple surgeries for her face and for the injuries to her body. She had to suffer while that monster thought he could just slip away? No, not on my watch.”

Tyler understood that Louis Turner was truly dead. Now. He might have slipped from the wreckage of that café, but he hadn’t started a new life anywhere. “She never knew.”

“I don’t always like to shatter my daughter’s illusions.”

“Louis left a video saying you were guilty as hell. Basically pointing the finger at you for the bombing. And for the murder of my parents.”

Etienne’s brows rose. “I know nothing about your parents.”

“Yeah, turns out, Thaddeus Caldwell killed them.” He couldn’t touch on that pain. Not now. He had to focus on Esme. “Jorlan got hold of that video.”

“Jorlan gets hold of many things he shouldn’t, it would seem.”

He won’t keep Esme.“Why did Louis leave the video calling you out?”

“Because my Esme had to make a choice. He wanted her to choose between him and me. She chose me. Over and over again. She did not truly love him. He hated that. I suspect that, in the end, it made him hateher.So he did one last thing to try and wreck her.” His hand released Tyler. “I do not think she would choose me…over you.”

“She won’t ever have to do that. I would never make her do something like that. I want Esme happy. I want the people she loves in her life.” Questions slammed through his head. “What about the ones convicted of the Paris bombing? Esme said they confessed.”

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