Page 43 of The Carver

“You stopped using.”

I ignored the statement.

“Good.”

It’d only been two weeks, and it had been the hardest two weeks of my life. The only reason I was there that day was by sheerdetermination. Something about that conversation with my brother had broken the habit. I didn’t like the way he’d looked at me, and I didn’t like the way I looked at myself.

I didn’t want to give him the credit—even if he deserved it. “What’s next?”

“Still looking for the asshole who did this. It’ll take some time, but I’ll find him.”

I gave him a long stare. “I’m sure you will, Godric. What about the business?”

“It’ll continue uninterrupted. Why fix what isn’t broken?”

Every muscle in my body tightened. I saw blood in the snow, smoke from the gun, suppressed rage on my father’s ugly face. “Why use trafficked underage women when you can pay for labor?”

He slid his hands into the pockets of his coat as he stood on the other side of Father’s grave. He was quiet for a long time, the tension growing between us. “Like Father said, hired help can snitch, prisoners can’t.”

I shook my head. “You’re better than this, Godric.”

He smirked slightly when he heard his own words echoed back at him. “That’s the difference between us. You are better. I am not.”

“It doesn’t need to be this way.”

“It doesn’t,” he said. “But it’s easier.”

“Godric, you and Mom have more money than you even know what to do with. More than you can even wash.”

“But if I change the system, and other dealers and enemies find out about it, they’ll know I’ve gone soft. I can’t let that happen.”

“Someone already killed Dad. You’ve got a target on your back as we speak. Do the right thing, Godric?—”

“If I do, will you come back to the business?”

The question knocked me off my feet because I hadn’t seen it coming.

“It’s what Dad would have wanted, the two of us together.”

“And if I agree, you’ll let those girls go?”

“Is that a yes?” He cocked his head slightly.

I wanted nothing to do with the business, even if it was clean. The memory of that night would haunt me for the rest of my life. But I’d accomplished little in my own endeavors, turned to drugs and alcohol like they were the loving arms of someone special. I’d taken my own path and had piss little to show for it. “If we employ hired help, then I’ll do it.”

Chapter 7

Bastien

Five Years Later

I smoked a cigar in the back seat of the SUV with the window cracked to let the smoke escape and dissipate into the cold winter air. It was a sunny day, a cloudless sky, the sunshine hitting the Eiffel Tower in the most glorious manner.

My phone vibrated in my pocket, and I pulled it out to see the text.

So you’re going to ghost me.

It was a girl I’d met last weekend, a friend of a friend of a friend type situation. The chemistry was there like a match to a cigar, and we smoldered and burned. But after the third fuck, I lost interest, like I always did.I told you it’s run its course. The last time we’d hooked up, I flat-out told her she wouldn’t hear from me again—but she texted me anyway.

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