Corinne, my little sister and the baby of the family, stands at the door to the room, looking as bratty and entitled as ever, and for a moment my heart warms.She’s six years younger than me, so by the time she was born, I was old enough to help, and I’ve loved her with my entire soul ever since.When my mother died, four years after she was born, I took her under my wing and made sure my father couldn’t touch her.
She’s the only member of my family I would die for.
Unfortunately, she knows it, and is not opposed to taking advantage of my soft side.She tips her head back and forth, her long brown hair swinging, and I wonder if she practices that motion in the mirror just for the effect.
It would be like her.
“I heard my big brother was acting strangely.Creeping through catacombs in the middle of the night and fighting with men he shouldn’t even be associating with.I also—” She turns large, dark eyes to me and lifts a brow.“—Heard you have a friend in town.I figured I better come make sure she hasn’t skinned you alive yet.”
I grit my teeth, caught between extreme anger at her butting into my affairs, uninvited, and amusement at how freaking good she’s gotten at this game.Officially, she’s not supposed to be involved in the family business.My father’s worked hard to keep her clean, or so he says, and he would be furious if he knew I was dragging her into things.
Except she drags herself, because she refuses to stay out of it.And she’s getting good.One of these days, she might even be a match for me in her intelligence gathering.
But right now, she’s still a kid, only twenty-two to my twenty-eight, and she does not need to be caught up in an investigation on a trafficking ring that kidnaps and sells girls her age.She’s pretty and young and looks innocent, though she’s not, and if she’s in the wrong place at the wrong time, she’ll make herself a target.
“All of that is exactly none of your business, Corinne.And you know it.”
“And yet here I am, making it my business.”She shrugs in a way that makes her look more French than American, and now I’m annoyed.
“You’re here putting your nose into someone else’s business, as usual.That doesn’t make it okay.”
She just grins and starts walking toward me, her eyes already on the computers.“What are you going to do about it?Kick me out?”
I step into her path, grab her shoulders, turn her around, and start pushing her back toward the door.“Yes.We’re looking at something that I don’t even want you knowing about, much less helping with.And I won’t risk you.”
I don’t tell her what we’re doing, because it’s none of her business.
And because she’s still a kid, innocent and naive—despite what she’d tell you—and doesn’t need to know about the seedier things that happen in this city.She definitely doesn’t need to see it.And there’s a voice in my head screaming that we’re lucky she hasn’t been caught up in it yet.She’s the right age, and beautiful in a way that’s made me uncomfortable for years.
She’s from the right sort of family.
The Boudreaux haven’t lost anyone important yet.Some distant cousins.But that doesn’t mean it won’t happen.Particularly if she starts making herself obvious to the very men who might steal her.
She jerks out of my hands, though, and dashes around me back to the computers.“That’s not your call to make, Lucien, and you know it.”
I grab her again, and am in the process of pushing her out when Daniel stops me.
“Boss.”
I look at him, my hands on Corinne’s shoulders, and see that he’s holding up another picture.Two of them.
“Two more girls who disappeared from a Landry property.”
Shit.
I drop my sister and head for Daniel, mind spinning.“What do you mean?”
“The last footage of them has them in the same parking lot.The one with the van from Under the City.Footage of them heading for the van, and then nothing.These are them.”
He lays the two photos on the table and spreads them enough to let me see.Two girls who could be twins, I think.Both pretty in a generic sort of way, blond and blue-eyed, and very young.Nothing stands out about them except their names.
Both are Masons.
They’re not attached to the mafia, then, or not that I know of.Because I know the Mason family.They run the city, but not from the underworld.They’re the biggest above-board businessmen in New Orleans, though.Construction, permitting, development, and rentals, to start with.Their girls aren’t mafia molls or wives.They’re debutantes.Party girls.Society darlings.
They’re even less connected to crime, and should never even have contact with the sort of men who would kidnap them and sell them to slavers.
I knew girls like this were involved.Hell, I’ve told Brooks as much.But there’s something about seeing it in full color that makes my stomach turn with even more disgust.I’ve grown up in this world and have the heart and soul of a pirate.I’ll kill men for looking at me the wrong way, and never regret it.And I’ll cheat you out of your entire fortune in one of our gambling dens.
