Page 80 of Explosive Vengeance

“We’ll wait for him to go home, where he’s most comfortable.”

Where he wouldn’t see her coming until it was too late.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Just received this from our source inside the coroner’s office,” Jean-Pierre said over the noise of the jet’s engines, holding out his tablet for Guillaume to see.

The images on screen showed a dead blond woman lying on an autopsy table, with a bullet hole in her upper chest. Her face was slightly gray from blood loss, purple showing around the eyes, nose and mouth. But even in that state he recognized her, and his pulse kicked up a notch.

Gabrielle.

“When was she brought in?” he asked, unable to stop staring at the images.

“Just before six o’clock last night, after the shipment was intercepted.”

“And the cargo?”

“Being held at a detention facility while the investigation is carried out.”

Guillaume studied the photos. It gave him tremendous satisfaction to know she’d been shot by one of his men. “What’s her real name?”

“They don’t know yet. She had no ID or other identifying items on her. They’re searching their databases now but so far no one’s reported her missing.”

“If she’s a Valkyrie, she won’t have any. And there would be a mark of some sort. A tattoo, maybe.” He’d heard whisperings about it through his sources.

“I’ll check into it.”

No matter. Finally, a bright spot had punched through the canopy of black cloud that had been hovering over him ever since the night Dom had been killed. Burying his little brother would haunt him always. The pain still raked him with sharp claws upon waking and whenever his mind wasn’t occupied with other things. But at least this bitch was dead. With her gone, Guillaume and his family were safe.

Now it was time to get back to running his empire.

He handed the tablet back to Jean-Pierre, satisfied with what he’d seen. “Have them contact me immediately once they know her real identity. Offer whatever incentive you have to.” He wanted to know the name of his brother’s killer. Find out who she really was.

“Of course.”

He leaned back in the plush seat, exhaustion weighing on him. “What about the latest offer?” With Dom gone, it was up to him to handle this less-savory part of the business. Guillaume didn’t relish it, but he was first and foremost a businessman, so he would be stupid to give up such a profitable revenue stream.

“Here.” Jean-Pierre tapped the tablet and brought up another screen. “I just received these this afternoon.”

Guillaume took the tablet back and began scrolling through the images. “They’re older than the last batch.”

“Yes. But a better price, and considering the loss we just took, I thought this was the best option.”

These women were in their twenties and thirties, by the looks of them. And not all of them were pretty. Guillaume frowned, trying to imagine them cleaned up. “They won’t get the same prices the last ones would have.” Gabrielle alone would have netted him a small fortune. He would have preferred to capture her and make her suffer the pain she’d deserved, but at least she was gone.

“They were the best I could get on such short notice.”

Their buyers would be impatient. The seizure in Le Havre had cost Guillaume’s bottom line, but more importantly, it had also left a black mark on his reputation in the business. Already there were rumblings that he had been exposed, that he posed too great a risk to do business with anymore. Several people had pulled him aside to ask him about it personally at the meetings.

He’d been humiliated, but the sidelong looks and the way people had stopped talking when he’d come close told him he needed to address this immediately. He and his network were busy doing damage control before it got even worse. Once rumors like that spread, they were impossible to stop. “All right, make the call.”

Recouping some of his loss was better than nothing.

Guillaume folded his hands across his middle and closed his eyes to get some rest, but his cell phone woke him several minutes later. His eldest daughter.

He smiled. “Hello, my angel. How are you?”

“Good. Papa, when are you coming home?”

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