“So, what’s going on?” Bastien asked.
“It’s fine. You’re done with this stuff.”
“Doesn’t mean we can’t talk about it,” he said. “What else are we going to talk about?”
I shrugged. “I wouldn’t mind hearing more about this little bikini Fleur has…”
He chuckled before he took a bite of his pancakes. “Can’t even describe it.”
4
ALIÉNOR
I slept with my gun under my pillow. Kept a low profile.
My apartment was small and cramped, and my neighbors were nosy and weird and clearly dealing drugs out of their apartment. The street was littered with people all throughout the night, some homeless and others who did their business between midnight and dawn.
Despite the obvious threat that surrounded me, I actually felt safer being buffered by low-level crime. I had a loaded gun and a solid right hook, so I wasn’t worried about handling myself if I needed to.
I was still trying to find a job, and with no real work experience or education, I was stuck in customer-service types of positions, like bartending and waitressing, work that would barely get me by unless I was in a Michelin-starred place where each table was spending at least five hundred euro on a single meal.
I was at the two-seater dining table in the small kitchen with a laptop in front of me, something I’d purchased with the cash Luca had gifted me when Dominic texted me.
I’m gone for a couple days, and you just leave?
Dominic was one of the waiters at Septime. The two of us had clicked the moment we met.Wasn’t working out.
Why? I know you hate Diane, but everyone hates her.
I wasn’t sad I wouldn’t have to see that bitch again.It’s not her. Too far from my apartment. If I’m going to make the same wage either way, may as well be closer.He didn’t know where either of my apartments was, so he wouldn’t know it was a lie.
Well, this sucks. Where are you going to go?
No idea.
So, you quit without a backup?
Don’t worry about me. I always land on my feet.
A cat with nine lives…
I had way more than nine lives.
Let me know where you end up. We should meet up for coffee.
Sounds good to me.He was the only friend I had right now.
The phone screen went dark, and I returned my focus to my laptop. It was nighttime outside, but the lampposts that made this place the City of Light were visible outside all my windows. The smart thing to do was leave Paris and start over somewhere else, in a place where I could really let my hair down.
But this was my city. I was too damn stubborn to leave it.
I drank from my wineglass until there was just a drop of Bordeaux at the bottom. Just when I reached for the bottle to refill the glass, I heard a creak. I stilled and strained my earsto listen, to determine whether the sound occurred because I’d shifted my weight in the chair or because the native sounds of the unfamiliar apartment were still foreign to me.
Or because someone was there to kill me.
I waited, breath stalled in my lungs, and I glanced to the door. It was dark in the hallway outside my apartment, so I couldn’t see a shadow in the crack. Couldn’t see the outline of a man’s boots.
I abandoned the wine bottle and reached for the gun I’d left on the table beside me. I gently lifted it and pressed my thumb into the safety until there was a quiet click. I heard another creak, and my eyes flashed to the door again.
