Page 60 of The Saint

He stared like those words bounced off him. “He’s bribing all the groups in the city to roll on you. And those who don’t accept the bribe are getting a threat to their family instead. But a lot of them support the old Republic, only adhere to the Fifth Republic because you force them to. They’re looking for new leadership.”

My skin flushed before it prickled. As if a gun was pointed at the back of my head, I felt a sense of imminent danger, even though it was just the two of us in an empty room.

“You don’t have much time left.”

I had the best poker face in the world, so I didn’t react to what he said, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried. A snake was in my garden, and it’d eaten all my fruit before I’d noticed it was there. He was powerful enough to threaten the gangs that reported to me, and he was powerful enough that they were too afraid to tell me about the threats. “Why are you telling me this?”

The smoke continued to rise to the ceiling from the tip of his cigar. He regarded me for a long time with guarded eyes. But slowly, the walls dropped, and the resentment faded away. “Because you’re my brother, Bastien.”

“It’s late,” Luca said, wiping his eyes like he was dead tired after the long night. “The sun is about to rise. Last time I was up this late was when we burned Oscar from Notre-Dame.” He leaned against the table with his arms crossed.

“Godric asked to meet.”

Luca perked up, like this information was enough to defeat the fatigue. “What’d he say?”

“Heard of some Russian asshole named Ivan?”

He shook his head.

“Neither have I. But he’s bribing and threatening our guys to roll on me one by one. If Godric is telling the truth, and I think he is, that means the guys are lying to our fucking faces.”

Luca absorbed all this, his stare slowly sharpening like a buffed knife. “How do we know this isn’t a play?—”

“Because it’s not.”

“Godric has had it out for you for years.”

“He’s telling the truth.”

Luca studied me, his head slightly cocked. “Why are you so sure?”

Because I’d told Godric the truth. Spoke my truth and poured out my fucking soul to him. “I just am.”

Luca seemed to see something in my stare, because he didn’t push. “How are we going to handle this?”

“We tell the wrong person that we know, and Ivan moves in.”

He nodded in agreement.

“Which means we need to hit him first.”

“And execute all the assholes who supported this coup.”

14

FLEUR

Over the next couple days, I rarely saw Bastien.

He was barely home. Barely slept. He always replied to my texts and called to check in on me, but he was clearly distant, like his mind was elsewhere. I knew it had nothing to do with me because he’d just asked me to be his wife, still made love to me during the brief periods when he was around.

But something bothered him.

He came home one morning and went straight to bed because he was exhausted. When he woke up, it was the late afternoon. He showered then came out in his sweatpants, like he didn’t need to run off right away for once. But he didn’t seem to be in the moment with me, his mind elsewhere.

We had dinner, breakfast for him, and he continued to check his phone like he expected news. He was distracted, not invested in me or our conversation like he usually was.

“Babe?”

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