My mother, however, in her somewhat scattered version of wisdom, had thought it was a good idea to take me back to the Big Easy twice a year to visit my father.I’ve never understood why she did it, and she’s never been able to give me a good reason.Maybe it was some misbegotten idea that I should still know my father, even after she kidnapped me to get me away from him.
Maybe she just needed him to keep giving her a monthly check, and saw me as a sacrifice to keep him sweet.
Whatever the answer, I regularly found myself in New Orleans over my winter and summer breaks from school, always terrified of my father and counting the moments until I could return to New York.Until I was out shopping with my mother and cousin one day and saw the most beautiful boy I’d ever experienced.Dark hair and even darker eyes, tall and gangly in that way teenage boys are before they grow into their bodies, and yet somehow graceful, as if he knew exactly how to use himself.He was conning other kids at the park, cheating them out of their lunch money, and I watched him, fascinated at how quick his hands were, and how brilliant his smile.When he turned and caught my eye, we spent several moments staring at each other, our gazes clashing in a way that should have felt terrifying but was instead heavy with importance.
I know a lot of people don’t believe in love at first sight, but when Lucien and I first laid eyes on each other, the world rearranged itself around us and laid a path that meant we would walk through life together.
We began finding ways to meet again and again, and two years after I first saw him I was leaning up against the wall of the library, his arms caging me in and his lips brushing against mine.Three years after that, I found out that my father and his had brokered a deal for an alliance, and the knot that tied it all, pun intended, was my marriage to Lucien.
I’d been brutally in love with him by that time, head over heels, and we’d been happier than I thought possible.I’d been looking forward to a future as the queen of the Boudreaux enterprise, and had spent more and more time in New Orleans just to be with Lucien.
Then I found out that my father had only brokered the deal to get a mole into the Boudreaux world so he could steal their rackets, and my world came crashing down.Moments after my father told me as much, I started to wonder whether Lucien was involved as well, and if he knew exactly what was going on.If it was a deal he’d agreed to for business reasons rather than the love I thought we had.
I’d already known I couldn’t trust my father.My mother might have been empty-headed, but she taught me to recognize a man for what he was, and my father was my first test dummy.But when I started to doubt Lucien, my entire world had come crashing down and that had been the end of the engagement.I turned eighteen and started using my brain, and could see a range of potential reasons for Lucien to be lying to me about how much he knew.Power.Money.The alliance his father and mine wanted so badly.
It had taken no time for me to start seeing everything he did as suspicious, and within a month I skipped New Orleans and never returned.
I didn’t say goodbye.
And he didn’t come looking for me.
I swallow the sob that wants to emerge with that thought, the shooting pain of a knife twisting in my heart at how long I waited, certain that he was going to find me, and remind myself that the situation made me the new version of myself.I stopped waiting for men and began figuring out how to do things for myself.I stopped trusting people I didn’t know.
I learned to handle everything with my own hands rather than counting on someone else.
And I put my heart and all its soft, squishy feelings to the side, along with my memories of Lucien Boudreaux.Because nothing good had ever come of trusting a man like that.
Now I give him my most charming smile, though, and wonder whether I can play off whatever feeling he still has left for me.
Lucien’s eyes snap to the folder in my lap and then back up, his gaze clashing with mine.“What are you thinking?”
Ah, we’ve switched to Right to the Point Lucien, then.
That makes this easier.
“Probably nothing you don’t already know.Too many girls are missing and it’s been going on too long.We need to know who’s taking them and why, and where these girls are ending up.Why are they focusing on girls who should be safe?Where’s their security when they’re taken?Where are they being held?”
He nods once, his eyes going distant, then jumps to the next point I was going to make like he already knows where I’m heading.“And why are they going to other cities?If this started in New Orleans and comes down to a New Orleans family, why are they taking girls from Boston, Atlanta, and New York?”
His gaze sharpens on that last word, and I know he’s thinking more than he’s saying there, too.
Because he’s guessed exactly what I’m thinking.He’s just not saying it.
“And if Aislyn is the first girl taken in New York, why did they go right for a girl connected to my friends?”I ask quietly, letting my mind run through the implications.I don’t know Aislyn personally, but that hardly matters.She’s a Brennan, cousin to my best friend, and her disappearance comes on the heels of three families attacking the Brennans on what has always felt like a flimsy excuse.Sylvester Poffo and his underlings, the Massimos and Carusos, came after the Rossi and Brennan families because Sylvester Poffo wanted more power in New York and thought he’d get it if he took out the largest families in the city.He paid the Massimos to attack the Rossi and Brennan organizations, and the Massimos hired the Carusos to do the dirty work.
Operationally, it makes sense.
As far as Poffo’s motivations, though...I’ve never bought it.It feels too simple.Like something a high schooler would come up with, not a major player straight from Italy.I haven’t had time to put too much thought into it, because we’ve been busy fighting a war, but now that I have a moment to breathe, my brain can’t let go of the idea.
That excuse was too simple, and if it feels too simple and looks too simple, it usually is.
What if Poffo was working for–or with–someone else, and attacked the Rossis and Brennans for reasons that had nothing to do with power in New York and everything to do with power somewhere else?And were those families truly a random target, or were they picked because that was where I found a home?
“I think you’re right,” Lucien says quietly.
I jerk back into the present and stare at him, trying to remember what we were even talking about.Did I say something that requires a response?Is he answering a question?
Or has he been watching me work through the problem without him?
