Page 30 of Phantom
“What?” My voice is stern and unforgiving. I don’t like to be examined, and Ben’s studious nature never ended after law school.
He shakes his head. “You like her.Reallylike her.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
I turn away to avoid his inspection and awkwardly look for something to do with my hands. But there’s nothing. I already cleaned myself up and I can’t move the body yet. It’s got to drain so it’ll be easier to cut him up and dissolve identifiable pieces before dumping the rest in Chatelain’s precious garden.
“Scarlett Day,” Ben insists. “I’ve seen you get obsessed, fixated, stalk your prey, but I’ve never seen you like this over awoman. You’ve got to let her go, Sol.”
“Why?” I ask, wheeling around on him and giving myself away in the process. “You have Maggie and Marie. Why can’t I have Scarlett?”
“Aside from the fact that Chatelain has made a claim to her? Because IdatedMaggie.” He enunciates each word like I’m an idiot and all I want to do is break his flawless nose. “We fell in love. Got married. Then we had our daughter. And we did all that in the daylight, which you avoid like the plague.That’sthe way things work. You don’t go outside, brother, and you use informants along with whatever Madam G hears from Masque to build this Phantom of the French Quarter facade. But when was the last time you evensawBourbon Street?” I open my mouth to argue but he tsks. “Notthrough a security camera. Real life.”
That caveat clamps my mouth shut, and I’m too stubborn in my own fears and shame to prove him wrong. I do what is necessary to run the security side of our operation, but I don’t venture outside the comfort of the House often if I can help it.
What happened to me is one of those French Quarter tall tales, like the legends behind the Sultan’s Palace and Romeo spikes on balconies. The kidnapping and torture of Sol Bordeaux is a ghost story. A cautionary tale to New Orleans boys not to go out in the middle of the night. But no one knows the whole story, and I never go out without my mask on to confirm theirs.
I don’t give a fuck what I look like, though. That’s not why I stick to the shadows. Half of my face is a grotesque ruin and my eye was stolen from me, but I cover the right side of my face because I’m ashamed the Chatelains got the best of me. And I’m horrified over the collapse of my family in the process. If I hadn’t been a stupid, impetuous child, my family would still be intact. We’d stillruleNew Orleans, and maybe even all of Louisiana. We wouldn’t be desperately holding on to the NOLA Port to keep it away from the sick Chatelain bastards.
“Listen,” Ben continues, more gently. “If I knew you’d step in the daylight for her, I’d fuckingencouragethis fantasy. Hell, I’d set up the reservation at Arnaud’s myself. But it’s just that, Sol. A fantasy. And your obsession is going to get one of you killed.”
That has my attention.
“How so?”
“You’ll break the truce and Rand will retaliate. You’ve already toyed with the clauses. There’s to be no harm in the opera house, and yet Jacques—”
“Unless provoked. The clause is ‘No harm in the opera house unless provoked.’ As Rand’s former proxy, Jacques Baron’s very existence here was a provocation.” The words growl out of me, emerging from somewhere deep in my chest.
“Okay, what about your latest victim? He’s a Chatelain man but you and I can’t breach sides except by invitation.”
“I haven’t done that, either. I’ve been waiting for this one to make the wrong move.” I nod at the corpse.
One of my shadows found him selling drugs to one of the drumming kids on Bourbon Street last night. The bastard was peddling the same poison that caused a child’s overdose death just last week. I’d been watching over my angel and I’d hated to leave her, but it’s my job to protect my people. It’s a good thing I left, because according to my security feed, this was the exact man we were looking for.
“He was already on my radar as a Chatelain man,” I explain to my brother. “He had information that I needed about the night of Gus Day’s murder. But then he came to the Quarter and committed a crime that resulted in death. See? No breach.”
“Seems almost convenient, don’t you think?” Ben’s eyes narrow at me.
His words make me pause. “What does?”
“That you’d so obviously reveal your obsession with Miss Day in front of Rand, and then the perfect snitch appears at the right time and right place. Do you not think Rand is tempting you to make one wrong move yourself?”
His points make me hesitate, but I shake my head. “No fucking way. That posh idiot couldn’t figure out how to tie Velcro shoes.”
Ben shrugs. “But what if heissmart enough? He hasn’t been in town since he buried his brother in Lafayette Cemetery No.1. Now he’s back from New York requesting to build a hotel in the Quarter and access to New Orleans’s port? You know Laurent was trying to reintroduce human trafficking after our father eradicated it here. Who’s to say Rand isn’t trying to fill big brother’s shoes?”
All the math is adding up except that it’sRand, not Laurent, who would have to be the mastermind.
“Not possible.”
“You still see Rand as the goofy blond kid from school. The annoying suck-up we loved to hate. You were trapped by Laurent, butIwas on the outside, witnessing Rand watch his older brother’s every brutal, calculating move. He had to have learnedsomethingbefore he ran away to New York. He left his side of New Orleans in the hands of his proxy for too long, but he’s back with a plan and I think your obsession with Scarlett Day has given him an opening. Think about it. We losthalfof this fucking city to them over one calculated incident. Either you and I can’t live up to our father’s name, or the Chatelains are actuallydangerous.”
I shake my head and point at my brother as I try to get him to see reason. “You were a child when you were forced to sign that bullshit truce. You only went along with it because you thought Laurent would return me if you did. Our father had been murdered days before and I was held as ransom at the time. No one expected you to live up to our father’s legacy at fifteen.”
“While that may be true, I, for one, choose to err on the side of caution. Rand is formidable, Sol, and he has an interest in Miss Day. What if he’s using her to get to you? That makes her a threat to our family and all the loyal people backing us. You need to accept that. Leave her—and all this—alone. ”
My hands squeeze into tight fists that make my knuckles ache more than the fight I just won. Ben has always been the twin with the logical brain and I’ve always been the one with the emotional brawn. I trust him with my life, but even as he states his case against getting involved with Scarlett, I can’t shake the compulsion to check my many security cameras set up all throughout the House to see what my obsession is up to.
