My lips twitch.Daniel Boniface is my second, and my best friend, and takes his job very seriously.But he never calls me ‘boss.’The term must mean he’s with someone he’s trying to impress.“Daniel.What’s going on?”
“You need to get home.Things down here are...not going well.”
The smile drops off my lips.“You’re going to need to be more specific, Daniel.”Because there are a range of things that aren’t going well right now.A quiet war in New Orleans between some of the most powerful families, including my own.Shady deals that never see the light of day.The Big Easy has always believed in a less organized version of organized crime, and when I left a week ago, it had reached a truly disturbing level of chaos.
I need to know whether there’s anything new.
As usual, Daniel gets straight to the point.“More girls missing.Some of them from families we know.Many of them from the same classes we’ve already guessed at.Word is, whoever’s taking them is expanding to other cities, too.Word is, they’re coming for specific families.”
And now I’m flat out scowling.Not new, then, but definitely more serious than I realized.He’s talking about the sudden rash of kidnappings in New Orleans.Girls are disappearing right and left down there, and there’s no rhyme or reason to it.No patterns, and nothing I can see that connects the victims.The thing is, this isn’t a new phenomenon–we’ve heard rumors about sex trafficking in the city before–but it’s escalating.In the past, my sources told me there were shipments of ‘inventory’ coming through our port.Girls being shuffled from one ship to another in the dead of night as they made their unwilling way to the cities where they’d serve new masters in the sex trade.
But they weren’t girls from our city.At least not that we could discover.They’d been from other cities and countries, brought through the New Orleans port because it was conveniently understaffed when it came to law enforcement.And they’d never been my problem.
My family didn’t deal in flesh.We ran weapons and owned clubs, making our money from guns and cards, the way nature intended.
We would never have touched people.And we certainly wouldn’t sell them.
But when girls we knew started disappearing as well, I started to ask questions.Unfortunately, I hadn’t had the contacts to make quick progress in that world, and I was still in the process of breaking the walls they’d erected around that operation.
Then Brooks turned up in New Orleans, asking for my help in some war she’d started in New York–or maybe one that she just wanted to finish–and I’d put my New Orleans affairs on ice, leaving Daniel to continue the research.
If what he’s saying is true, I’m overdue for getting back.I have friends who need saving.
And a friend here who doesn’t yet know what sort of danger she’s in.
“You made me a promise,” I tell Brooks, ending the call with Daniel.“If I came to help you finish your war, you’d come home.And yet you’re still in New York.”
She makes a face at me.“Promises extracted under duress don’t hold any weight, Lucien, and you know it.”
I finally take a step toward her, and then another, bringing my body close enough that I can feel the heat coming off her.Smell her perfume, and the scent of the absinthe on her lips.Sazerac.Of course she was up there drinking Sazerac.
She still has more New Orleans in her than she’d like to think.
I lean in and turn my face down into her neck, inhaling the deep amber scent of her skin, and then lift my hand to run a thumb over her lower lip.Straightening up, I find her deep blue gaze and press my tongue to the pad of my thumb.
The tang of licorice greets me, with an undercurrent of rye whiskey and bitters.
“Sazerac?”I ask.“I didn’t know you still drank it.”
Her eyes go wide and dark and she stiffens.“I don’t,” she whispers too quickly.
Her response sends fire scorching through my veins.Christ, this woman.Get too close and my need for her is already taking over.I take her chin between my fingers to hold her still, and brush my lips gently against hers, reveling in the tremors that run through her body.“And yet I can taste it on your lips and smell it on your skin.You’re a terrible liar, Brooks Landry.”
For a moment, the air between us is so thick you’d need a knife to cut through it, and I nearly take another step toward her, just to feel the brush of her body against mine.My cock is straining in my pants, fighting to get to her, and my skin feels as if a million razorblades are slicing into it.
Devils, just being around her makes my body forget everything my brain has learned.
Suddenly she jerks away from me, though, taking three steps back and tipping her chin up.“You don’t know anything about me, Lucien.Not anymore.And my name isn’t Landry.It’s Peterson.”
Her words douse whatever tension I might have been feeling, and I get down to business.
“I know a hell of a lot more than you think I do, Brooks, and it’s time you started listening.If you’d taken any time to ask what I was doing in New Orleans when you showed up, you’d know that things aren’t going well down there.Wars are being fought that could change the city.”
“Hard to ask for news when I was busy running for my life,” she retorts.
This time I do grab her, then spin and pin her against the car.I’m suddenly furious at everything.The fact that she was promised to me and then left like it didn’t matter.The lack of any news after that.
The way she never called to tell me she was safe.
