Page 25 of The Wolves Come at Night
“An old friend of mine. Others will be searching, too. But this woman, she has a vested interest.”
“What’s her name?”
She was shocked when Santiago’s handsome face turned cruel, and Avery realized that yes, all the rumors she’d heard about him were very, very true.
“Vengeance.”
Thirteen
Château Rodaune, Burgundy, France
Angelie Delacroix stared in abject horror at the man in front of her, standing with his hand outstretched, the small package dangling precariously from his thick fingers. He was tall, heavy through the shoulders and brow, covered in dirt, and to this point, had done everything she asked perfectly. But now, he had deviated from the plan, and she had to get him back in line. Her heart raged in her chest, and her first instinct was to simply kill him immediately and dump the remains in the river, despite the fact she had no gun to hand. No matter. Angelie had myriad ways to kill.
Breathe. Focus. Fury gets you in trouble. You need him.
In a clipped, tight voice, she said, “Please put that down. Carefully. It’s worth more than your home. Perhaps more than your life.”
The workman dubiously eyed the small sculpture that could fit into the palms of his calloused hands, but complied, setting the box holding its precious cargo gingerly on the table, as if it carried a grenade instead of an original Rodin she had unearthed from a niche in a forgotten bedroom. He backed out of the room before she could lose it, closing the battered French doors behind him.
Smart move.
Angelie collapsed onto a Louis XIV chair that she suspected might be original but hadn’t yet had time to track its provenance and sighed in relief.
Another disaster averted.
She’d had no idea when she tackled the restoration that she’d be just as tense as if she were on a job.
She’d been restoring the château for almost fourteen months now, and each room, each hallway, each cracked wall and fallen chimney and tarnished iron gate, brought new and interesting problems to her door. Rotting tapestries, gaping holes in the roof, flooring eaten alive by termites, cracked Napoleonic-era marble mantels tumbling into the fireplaces. The château had once been a grand and seductive summer palace for the kings of France, but now was a shadow of itself, not so gently collapsing into the forest that guarded its rear.
She’d visited this place once when she was a child. It was in ruins then as well, and her father had stood in the gravel drive with tears in his eyes. “It is a beautiful place, ma chérie, one worthy of its history. Look at the carved wolf head above the door! If I had the money, I would snap it up and restore it, top to bottom.”
Her mother, Genevieve, laughed. “You know nothing of restoration. How would you do this?”
A grin, white teeth flashing. “I would quit my job and hire you and Angelie as decorators. I would buy a donkey to carry timber from the town, and a hundred men to swarm over the ruins like bees. We would buy art books and interview craftsmen to determine what it was supposed to be like originally. And we would dance in the ballroom at midnight and give offerings at the folly under the full moon. It would be glorious, my darlings. We could live here, be happy here.”
Angelie had no idea at the moment that this would be the last time she heard her father laugh. The last time she’d spy the small kiss on the forehead her mother gave him when she was amused, as if a promise for later. An hour hence, they were dead, butchered, ambushed at a crossroads, and for all their assassins knew, so was Angelie.
She rubbed her left shoulder. A bullet had caught her deep in the muscle almost a year ago, and the wound still ached when she did too much with the arm.
She owed the woman who’d shot her a visit, a conversation, perhaps a bullet in return, but this, too, she’d been putting off. She’d lost her taste for blood. After she healed, after she’d finally put the traitors who murdered her family into the ground, she’d hung up her guns and had since been consumed with continuing the fulfillment of her father’s last dream, restoring the decrepit château.
Was it punishment, spending all of her time in the last place the sun had ever shined for her, where the memories of that horrid day were tempered with sweetness and joy, even if only for a moment? Perhaps. Was it punishment that she had to drive the small interchange where they’d been ambushed all those years ago every time she went to the south, to the closest town, where the majority of bistros, shops, and artisans existed? Perhaps. Was it punishment that she had given up her job, the one thing she was good at, to secrete herself in the French countryside with only a crumbling monolith of a house and a bevy of terrified Corsicans in dirty jeans and work boots for company? Perhaps.
Was she happier here, doing this time-honored labor, than she had ever been before, when revenge was her only true companion? Definitely.
Angelie Delacroix, wolf, domesticated.
She pushed herself out of the uncomfortable chair with a grimace, favoring the permanently sore arm, and took in the room. This was once the ballroom, and when she finished, she would honor her father by dancing through the space at midnight, as he’d promised her mother. For the moment, though, there was a large hole in the middle of the floor, and she had to get the joists rebuilt. At least the stairs to this floor were intact, solid French oak, as yet unstained but no longer black with mildew after years of disuse. She trailed down them, admiring the satiny finish that had taken her a week of sanding until her hand cramped, running her mental checklist for the rest of the day. She had no more deliveries, no more artisans coming. It was still sunny, but a chill lingered; there would be fog curling around the gate in the morning, and she would need a fire to warm the kitchen.
She had a small apartment on the first floor, went there now. Yanking open the vacuumed-solid door of the Sub-Zero with her good arm, she unearthed a bottle of Sancerre and a block of Laruns from the cavernous interior. She took her treasures to a small wooden table. The kitchen was the first room she’d tackled, updating appliances, repairing the monstrous hearth, tiling the floor with the encaustic terra-cotta ubiquitous to the area. She’d put a bed in the scullery and outfitted a serviceable bathroom with a toilet, bidet, and shower—the barest necessities. There was no heat yet; the kitchen, though, was thoroughly warmed by the fire, and the thick stone walls held enough warmth to get her through the nights. Soon it would be freezing again, and she would be forced to move her bed nearer the fire, or get the wiring in place for the water heater, but for now, she was comfortable enough. She’d slept in worse places, with far less armor around her.
The cheese was hard and salty, the wine crisp and cold, and she felt the tension leave her shoulders. This project was going to take her years, and as sore as she was, as stressed by the little things, she was happy to bask in the journey. She could see where life was ready to spring into being, feel the walls shuddering with happiness at their careful repair.
As far as Angelie was concerned, she was going to spend the rest of her days making this place the masterpiece it once was, and to hell with her old work, and the people she did it for. She’d gotten out, for good this time.
She toasted the not-so-empty air around her and drank deeply.
A small beeping brought her back to earth. Her phone. She never knew what excitement a call held these days, which artisan or restorer or inspector or local antiquity board member was coming to help—or hinder—her progress.
