I was in jeans and a blouse, the attire I’d worn to work earlier that day. The clothes were cheap material with faded colors. My makeup was still on but it wasn’t fresh anymore, and it wasn’t perfect like it used to be. Without the luxuries he’d given me, I was ordinary.
I took a breath to steel my nerves and approached the gate. “I…I’m here to see Fender.” There were half a dozen of them, all dressed in black with bulletproof vests over their clothes. They hadn’t seemed so scary from my bedroom window, but up close, they were terrifying.
The men spoke to one another in French before the one in charge stepped toward the gates to speak to me. “Who are you?”
“Melanie.”
“Is he expecting you?”
I shook my head. “But please, tell him it’s important.” Now that I was nobody, I couldn’t get to him anymore. He could deny me, and that would be the end of it. I’d have to go back to that apartment alone, accepting that I would never see my sister again.
He spoke into his intercom in French. “Une femme est là pour voir le patron.”
A voice spoke back. “Je n’attends personne. Son nom?”
He pressed his finger into his ear. “Melanie.” Then he listened over the line, waiting for orders.
Please let me in.
He motioned to his men, and then the gate opened.
Oh, thank god.
A guy in a golf cart pulled up then nodded for me to sit beside him.
I got into the passenger seat, and we began the long drive toward the palace, around the fountain, the winding road through the gardens and brush, and approached the entrance to his mansion.
I’d been scared every moment since those men had come to the apartment. But I was far more scared now.
Because he was there.
Standing out front.
Waiting for me.
On the very bottom step, where his valet would bring his car.
Shirtless. Black sweatpants. Barefoot.
It’d been a long time since I’d last seen his face, and his expression made me breathless, because instead of just being scared…I was sad. I was sad because I’d missed his face every day that we were apart. He’d literally just taken my sister out of our apartment…and I missed him.
What the fuck was wrong with me?
His gaze was dark and intense.
But it was more than that.
It was fierce.
Angry.
Terrifying.
The golf cart came to a stop in front of him. The driver didn’t look at Fender, keeping his eyes forward as he waited for me to get out so he could drive away. My breath was shaky and I was suddenly weak, but I forced myself to rise.
The driver took off the second my ass left the seat.
When the noise of the small motor faded, the only sound was the fountain behind me, the constant splash as the drops struck the surface and the lily pads that floated there. I stood in the driveway while he remained on the step, thicker and bulkier than he used to be, the cords in his arms and neck so tight they would snap.
His arms hung by his sides, one foot planted slightly in front of the other, but the fury in his heart was palpable. The energy around him burned brighter, hotter, as if he was his own sun. His chin was tilted down so he could look at me, spraying with me bullets from the barrels in his eyes.
All I could do was breathe, frozen to the spot by that menacing look.
A minute passed and he didn’t speak. He didn’t blink. His fury had endless fuel because he continued to stare at me like he might snap my neck.
“Please…please don’t kill my sister.” Every word came out shaky, without the confidence required in a negotiation. But this wasn’t a negotiation. This was a plea. And if I had to get on my knees and beg, I would. “Please…” My eyes watered because the fear overwhelmed me. Life was too hard right now, and my mind wanted to regress and take me elsewhere. It wanted to put me under because this was all too much. All I’d had to do was listen to Raven that night, and none of this would have happened.
His fingers tightened until his hands were fists, and he released a loud sigh that sounded like a growl from a bear.
“I know I have no right to ask you for anything—”
“Were you there?” His voice was deep like the deepest chasm in the ocean, full of terrifying sharks and monsters that lurked beyond our sight. It was deep like a cave in the mountainside. It was deep like the lowest note on the spectrum.
My hands came together at my waist, using one to stop the shake of the other.
“Answer the question.”
“I don’t know what you’re asking—”
“Did you fucking burn my camp to the ground?” His voice came out as a shout, barking into the night, making the palace behind him shake.
I dropped my gaze and instantly stepped back at his ferocity. I shouldn’t have come. There was no point. I wanted to lie. The men hadn’t identified me. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have asked. But I just couldn’t lie to him. “Yes.” I kept my eyes down, as if a sword would slice through my neck and sever my head from my body.
Nothing happened.
I breathed.
He breathed.
Silence.
When I got the courage, I lifted my chin and met his gaze.
As if he hadn’t blinked once, his expression was exactly the same, like he was already so angry he couldn’t possibly get any angrier. “I’m sorry…but we had to. What you do is wrong—”
“Leave.”
“I know you know it’s wrong. And I know it’s not you—”
“Leave, Melanie.”
My eyes filled with tears, cut deep by the name he used. It wasn’t Chérie anymore. “You’re a good man. I know you are.”
He turned around, his back immense with power, and walked away.
“Please don’t kill her. Please…she’s all I have.”
He stilled at my words, standing tall with his shoulders back, his hands tightening into fists once more, knuckles turning white.
My breath stopped, my lungs full of hope.
He turned back around, and I had been wrong before; he could look angrier. A lot angrier. “The camp has been rebuilt. She will work every day to earn back every goddamn coin that I lost.” His dark eyes shifted back and forth as he looked into mine, impaling me from front to back. In the darkness, he looked as if he had stepped out of the underworld, his flames invisible because they existed beneath his flesh. “Now, leave—and don’t come back.”
I went to work because I had to.
I’d be homeless if I didn’t.
But I was a worse worker than I had been before, constantly distracted.
Without Raven, the apartment was unbearable. It was inhospitable, like a haunted house filled with spirits that stared at me as I slept. If Raven was condemned to work at the camp for the rest of her life, at least she would live.
But she’d probably rather die.
My only option was to take the road to the camp and try to free her myself.
They would probably expect it and send me packing.
There was no probably, no chance that I would ever succeed.
So, what was I to do? Live here in Paris forever? Go back to America and crash with a friend until I figured out what to do? How would I ever carry this guilt for the rest of my life? How would I ever move on?