Prologue
Lucien
Fifteen Years Ago
By the time I get to the house, I’m so angry I could kill someone.
Actually, that’s not a bad idea.
Considering whose house I’m at, murder might be the only option available to me.And I’d be lying if I said it didn’t hold a certain...allure.
After all, I’ve hated Dominick Landry my entire life, and being sent to his house on some bullshit errand by my father hasn’t made me like him any more.I don’t even understand why I’m here.Give him a message, my father said.Make sure he understands.Don’t leave until he’s given you some sort of reply.
What the actual fuck does any of that mean, and why the actualfuckdid I have to be the one to come down here?This isn’t our side of town, and Landry isn’t our ally.From everything I’ve heard, he’s the fucking devil himself, and I know for a fact that my father hates him with the strength of one thousand suns.
Of course that doesn’t mean much when it comes to Dear Old Dad.I could probably say the same thing about myself–that he hates me with everything he has in him–and I’m his fucking son.
I climb the steps to the door slowly, reminding myself to breathe, and look up and over the place.Gothic, just like so many of the mansions in New Orleans, but this one isn’t attractive like most of the city.Other buildings drip with history and a sort of shabby, rundown splendor.Everything looks like it was beautiful once, and could be again if someone just put enough love into it.
This house looks like someone reached in, ripped out whatever soul it might have had, and replaced it with an essence of evil that no house deserves.
Not that houses deserve anything, as they’re inanimate.Hell, now that I think about it, they don’t even have souls.
Devils, I’m only seventeen and I’m already jaded.
I let my eyes wander to the left and then the right, trying to get a better feel for the place, and start to realize that something’s wrong.The place is gothic and dark, no doubt about that, and made up of stone that looks like it never had any color to it at all.Sweeping lawns surround the place, and in the distance, a wall rings the property.I had to break through the gate in that wall, and did some major damage to the lock on said gate.
I won’t be apologizing.
If my father wanted me to come in here, he should have sent a fucking key.
If Dom was expecting visitors, he should have left the stupid gate open.
I narrow my eyes at the thought and reach into my pocket for the pack of cigarettes I shoved in there earlier.Pulling it out, I practice the trick I learned last month and pull a cigarette out of the packet using only one hand.This at least brings a grin to my face, and by the time I light the thing and slide it between my lips, I’m smiling outright.
And fingering the knife I also keep in my pocket.
I don’t know why I’m here or what my father is playing at–he has actual soldiers for this sort of thing–but if he thinks this mission is going to go off without a hitch, he has another thing coming.
He should never have sent the wildest card in his deck to the house of the man I know mistreats my new pet.
I let my eyes travel over the house once again, and then the driveway.Then the lawns, and back to the driveway again.At that point, my eyes catch on something and I turn in that direction.Because it’s the middle of the night at the Landry mansion and there’s absolutely no one around.No guards.No soldiers.
No Dominick Landry.
But there’s a line of ten or so dark vans at the end of the driveway, nestled up against the house itself like they’re fucking spooning.And that doesn’t feel right.What the hell is Dom doing with so many vans sitting in his driveway?The only people who live here are Dom, his daughter, and his son, plus one cousin who moved in for reasons I don’t remember.One man and three kids.
They don’t need ten vans to themselves, and his men don’t sleep in the main house.
Look, don’t judge me.Like I said, Dom isn’t our ally.My father considers him an enemy, which means the Boudreaux spies have been watching the Landry mansion for years.We know more about them than we should, and that includes where Dom’s soldiers sleep.
And whether we could get to him in the middle of the night if we wanted to.
That brings me back to my midnight visit and I face the door again, my hackles up and my hands suddenly twitchy.Why the fuck is it so quiet around here?Where are the guards who should be stationed at the gate and around the wall, and why are all the lights out in the house?
Is this a trap?
Did my father send me to spring it before his soldiers come in?
