“Lucien told me to make sure you don’t leave,” he says suddenly, taking a step back.“Why are you out here?”
Ah.Show time.I shrug like what Lucien said means nothing to me.“He might have told you that, but what he told me is that I can go visit my family while I’m here.He said to borrow any car I want.Or bike.”I turn big eyes up to him, forcing myself to look as innocent as possible.“He didn’t tell you that?”
Luke shakes his head quickly.“Nope.”
“Typical,” I snort.“Why don’t you go ask him for me?Remind him that I specifically want to see my brother, and he specifically promised that I could.And tell him I’ll never forgive him if he thinks he can keep me prisoner here when I want to see my family.”
Luke opens his mouth and closes it once, obviously torn.
“You don’t want to get in trouble, do you?”I ask quickly.“If you don’t let me go when he said I could, he’ll be furious.”
That does it, and Luke nods and mumbles something about there being nothing wrong with checking.Then he takes off for the house...and I sprint for the Ducati I’ve already spotted, praying that the keys are in the ignition or close to the bike.
Because I don’t think I have time to hot wire the thing right now.
***
I dump the files on the couch in the apartment, drop the thumb drive on top of them, and throw myself into my cousin’s arms, laughing.
“It’s been too long,” I say, grinning so hard my cheeks hurt.
Camille chuckles into my ear, her long blond hair tickling my cheek.“I saw you last week, you goon.”
This makes me laugh even harder–partially because hearing her insult anyone in that drawl of hers will never get old–and I draw back.“Seeing you for an hour when we’re being held hostage in the catacombs hardly counts.”
She raises a perfectly manicured eyebrow and shrugs.“Seems perfectly on brand for time spent with you, honestly.Now what are we doing?Tell me everything.”
Typical Camille.I learned a long time ago that the girl was no good in any active situation.Get her into a chase or a gunfight and she’ll immediately freeze, leaving you to do all the work for yourself–and save her in the process.I tried to get her to help me figure out what was happening to the girls in the basement, once, and it was such a fiasco that I never asked for her help in that way again.The girl is no Sloane Brennan.Hell, these days she isn’t even a match for Penny Lane or Dante Rossi.
But when it comes to research, she’s the sharpest tool I have.She can dive into a stack of files and have them organized and memorized in half an hour.
And that’s the talent I need right now.
I turn and fan the files out on the couch, then pick up the thumb drive and lift a brow in her direction.
Camille looks from the files to the thumb drive and back, and then grins.“I’ll take the files.The laptop is on the dining room table.”
And that’s all it takes.Camille and I head for our relative workstations–conveniently close, thanks to the fact that the apartment is relatively small–and get to work.I find a bowl of beignets on the table and lift one to my lips, inhaling the smell of fried dough, and catch Camille’s eye just before I bite into it.
The first bite is an explosion of sweetness in my mouth, and I moan in ecstasy.“God, I’ve missed these.No one in New York makes them right.”
Camille chuckles.“That’s because those heathens insist on boiling their dough rather than frying it.I don’t know how you eat anything in that God-forsaken city.”She’s silent for a beat, and when she looks at me again, her eyes are serious.“I don’t know why you stay there at all.”
I share a long look with her, thoughts flying through my head as I try to decide what to tell her.Camille is my oldest friend–even older than Sloane, who I’ve known since I was six and my mother started taking me to New York to spend time with her family–and she knows everything about my life.
Or rather, she knows everything about my life down here.Which means she knew Brooks Landry, the girl I was up until I turned eighteen and deserted New Orleans.Camille knows why I left.She’s the only one I told.Her mother, my father’s sister, died when she was young, and she moved into my father’s house, so we grew up nearly sisters.Her room was right next to mine and I’d run to it any time I needed anything.When I first saw the girls in the basement, I ended up in Camille’s bed, whispering to her about what I’d seen.
When my father started beating me, her room was where I hid from him.
And when I learned what my father had in store for me, and that he planned to use me as a spy in the Boudreaux operation, I’d gone to her with my heart in my hands to ask for her help.I was madly in love with Lucien by that time and couldn’t stand the thought of leaving him, but also thought he had to be involved in my father’s scheme in some way.I’d spent too many years on the rough side of my father’s temper and didn’t trust any man, and as much as I hated it, that had included Lucien.
Camille had tried to get me to stay.She’d said that Lucien couldn’t know what was going on, and pointed out all the reasons that was true.She’d told me to go to him and ask him for help, and that it would be okay.And a part of me had agreed with her.
The bigger part, though–the part that didn’t want to let another man take advantage of me and was finished being a pawn for my father–didn’t have the patience to wait.That was the part that decided to run for New York in the middle of the night without saying goodbye to anyone.
And Camille doesn’t know who I became once I hit the streets of the Big Apple.She doesn’t know the girl who has a million and one contacts and can get you anything you need, or the girl who kills without thinking twice if it means she can protect her friends.
Though I doubt she’d be surprised about any of that.
