Ever since I got back from Bordeaux, I’ve been racking my brain trying to figure out how to proceed with what I’ve discovered. Google is your friend for only so long, and it’s hard to know who to trust when it comes down to it. I need someone I can absolutely rely on, who will keep all this a secret, who’s a professional and will do everything I ask of him without anyone else knowing. I need to feel like I have someone in my corner, even if it’s someone who I’m paying the big bucks to.
It’s just too big and scary for me to handle on my own.
So I reached out to the last person I wanted to, the only person I know who is so far removed from the Dumonts that there would be no issue of misplaced loyalty. Someone who owes me a lot. Someone with few morals who knows a lot of people with even fewer morals.
My ex-husband, Cyril.
Believe me, I have my pride, and all of that was ripped to shreds the moment I picked up my phone and gave him a call, telling him my problem and needing him to keep it all a secret.
I’m meeting him tonight at a divey bar in the Latin Quarter, along with someone he thinks is the right person for the job.
It’s the last thing I want to do. I think I’d rather accompany Blaise to his movie, if he really is going to one. But I know it’s the only shot I have.
And the one saving grace in all this is that Cyril didn’t hang up. He didn’t laugh, and he didn’t call me crazy. He knows my family very well, and he’s hated them as much as they’ve hated him. Yes, he was cheating on me; yes, he only married me for money. Both of those truths tore me up inside for a long time.
You’d think I would be used to rejection at this point. It’s what an adopted child always goes back to: the rejection.
I managed to get over it, though. It still stings, it still makes me mad, but it no longer hurts like it once did. I’m guessing that’s because I realized I never really loved Cyril, I just loved the idea of him. I loved the idea of being married, of maybe being a mother, of having someone who loved me.
It turned out to be a lie, but at least I didn’t lose my heart in the matter.
I leave the office before Blaise can stare at me any longer. It’s almost as if he doesn’t believe me.
I don’t bother going home. I park my car around the corner from my apartment and head to my favorite café on the street corner. I live in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, one of the more expensive parts of Paris. At one point in my life, the status and the power and the money of this neighborhood fueled me. It made me feel like I had to work harder and harder to be deserving of a place like this. It made me competitive, though more against myself than anyone else.
Of course, I know I don’t have to work. I’m an heiress. With my father’s death, I inherited a lot of money, and even before, that silver spoon was lodged firmly in my mouth from the moment I entered the family.
But the last thing I want is to not earn my place here. And so I’ve worked harder, smarter, better, to ensure I belong. It’s probably why I didn’t want to leave the neighborhood after Cyril and I got a divorce. I should have wanted a fresh start, but my apartment was mine before I left him.
I sit down outside under the heaters, wrapping my scarf around my neck tighter and slipping on a pair of leather gloves with a zipper running across them. They’re by Acne Studios, a Swedish brand, and I was always so nervous to wear them around my father because he would immediately know they weren’t the Dumont label. The craftmanship pales in comparison, but these gloves were €200 instead of €2,000, and, well, I find them cool.
I stare at the gloves as the waiter brings me an espresso, appreciating the modern and almost punk rock design. I find myself gravitating to these styles more and more lately. The Dumont label has always been about refinement and elegance—the classic chic look of the typical upper-class Frenchwoman. But I’m not French, and I’m feeling the need to expand my horizons. Try something new. When I put on a Dumont dress, I almost feel like I’m pretending to be my mother. There’s nothing wrong with that at all—I love that it can make me feel that way, because I miss her so damn much.
But maybe it isn’t me anymore. Maybe this job, no matter how hard I work at it, doesn’t give me the joy and purpose it once did. Maybe this is a sign that I belong elsewhere, with a company I want to work for because I believe in the work, not because I’m bound to it out of loyalty and legacy. I’d never even given it a thought before, because I always did what my father wanted me to do, but now . . .
I sigh and sip my drink, bundled against the chilled breeze that sweeps through the darkness. Spring can’t come fast enough. It doesn’t help that I’m about to do something somewhat macabre.
When I’m done with the espresso, I move on to champagne. I’m not the only one out here on the terrace; there is a slew of Parisian smokers puffing away on their cigarettes, braving the cold to get their fix and partake in some conversation and people-watching.
I’m watching too. Seeing a couple of girlfriends laugh and lean on each other, smoking and drinking wine, and it makes me yearn for that. I should call Marie again, unless she thinks I’m too crazy to be her friend anymore. I should contact old friends, go out and have fun. I’m single. I need to get laid, or at least just a night of dancing.
But I can’t. Not right now, not while this loss burns inside of me and the truth is all I can think about. I need to know what happened to my father; I need to know if the man I’m now working for is the very man who killed him.
And so then what? a voice inside me asks.
And so then I do everything I can to take him down.
Even though I know I might lose so much more than I bargained for in the process.
I end up spending a few hours outside, drinking champagne by myself, until my nerves have subsided a bit. I’m still nervous, but I’m a little drunk and that helps. Anything to help me get through seeing Cyril again.
I pay the bill and get up at the same time another patron gets up. I hear the scrape of their chair, see their figure in the background, but don’t pay it too much attention.
Not until I’m crossing the street and heading to the métro to take the train to Cardinal Lemoine. I feel the presence at my back, like I’m being followed.
Once I’m on the other side of the street, I look around, expecting to see someone ominous-looking.
There’s a crowd of pedestrians behind me. Bundled-up old ladies teetering together, businessmen in long coats with baguettes tucked under their arms, women puffing on cigarettes and pushing baby strollers. No one is paying me any attention, no one is following me.
I’ve been paranoid ever since the car chase last year, and I’m even more so since I got back from the castle. I know the odds of anyone having seen me are slim. Yes, it’s possible that my car was spotted by a worker, but anything of concern with that estate would have been funneled up to Renaud, and I haven’t heard from him.
That said, even on the short métro ride to my stop, I’m staring at everyone on the train. Some people stare back, maybe because they recognize me, maybe because I’m acting like a total weirdo. Still, I refuse to keep my eyes down.
The bar where Cyril wanted me to meet him is called the Terrible Cat, and it’s in a part of the Latin Quarter that stops being charming and filled with broke students and now borders on dirty and unsafe. Figures this is the place we would meet.
I step inside the bar, surprised to see how busy it is, though not surprised that it smells like cigarettes, stale beer, and a pinch of urine.
Everyone’s head swivels toward me, taking me in. Some men take me in longer than they should, and I try not to show any fear or shame, because this place is full of men who take pride in that. Using their leers to make women uncomfortable, particularly a woman like me, well dressed and polished and hinting at money.
I spot Cyril waving at me subtly from a booth in the back corner.
Here it goes.
I keep my head high and stride confidently through the bar, though I feel anything but. I hear a
bald-headed white dude whisper, “Go back where you came from,” in broken English, assuming that I don’t know French, and it takes everything I have not to stop and pick up his beer and throw it in his face. I’ve done that before, and nothing good comes out of it, and the last thing I need is to draw even more attention to myself.
So I swallow my anger and keep going until I reach Cyril, who is trying to get out of the booth to get up and hug me.
“Stay where you are,” I tell him sternly, gesturing with my palm out. “We don’t need to play nice.”
He pauses, half out of the booth, and then shrugs. “Okay. But you are the one that called me, remember that.”
“And I wish I had another alternative,” I tell him, sitting down across from him.
“Well, you look nice,” he says. “Maybe too skinny. I liked you better when you had some meat on your bones.”
I raise my brow and look him over the same way he looked at me. “And your hairline is waving a white flag. Didn’t think it would recede so fast, but I guess that’s what stress does to you.”
He blinks beneath his black-rimmed glasses, and I know I’ve hit a sore spot. The truth is, Cyril looks more or less the same. He’s tall, slim, has short-cropped blond hair and a long nose. Pale. He banks on his nerd charm, and I know that fooled me into thinking he was handsome in a quirky way. Now all I know is that I can barely stand to look at him, knowing what this gold-digging asshole did and how he took me for a ride. Cyril works for the United Nations and has a lot of connections and a certain amount of status here, as well as in the rest of Europe. Little did I know he’d also made many bad business investments, many of which were questionable, and that our marriage was supposed to be his ticket out of debt.
Didn’t really work that way, though he fought me on it for some time.
“Still sharp tongued,” he remarks bitterly.
I shrug. “You have to be when you deal with idiots all day long.”
“You have an odd way of showing appreciation, you know that?”
I tilt my head and give him an impatient look. “And so, do I have something to thank you for? So far all I see is you, and if you think you’re going to act as my private investigator, then you have another thing coming.”
“He’ll be here in a minute,” he says.
“Who is he? And how do you know him? All you told me on the phone is that you knew someone who might be able to help. Is he a private investigator? Someone who likes money and has no morals? A lapsed police officer?”
“Let’s just say he’s all of those things and more.”
“I’m surprised you know someone like that. Almost as surprised that you wanted to meet in a place like this.”
Cyril is a notorious snob. He probably wiped down his seat with hand sanitizer before he sat down.
“You truly believe I don’t care about you, don’t you?” he asks, shaking his head. “Then why did you call me if you thought I wouldn’t help?”
I lift up my shoulder and start to unravel my scarf. It’s hot in this place. “You’re the only one I know that hates my uncle’s family as much as I do.” Cyril didn’t care for my family, either, but there’s no point in bringing that up.
“I care about you. I always have and you know it.”
“You sure showed it in a peculiar way, shoving your dick up a bunch of pussies,” I tell him, then look around at the bar. “Do I even want to risk having a beer in here?”
“I’ll get it for you,” he says, his face going red at what I just said. Can’t stand to keep sitting here while I let him have it. But even though I have plenty inside me left to hurl his way, I have to stay cool and remember why I’m here. He might be my only hope with all this, and if I push back enough, he’s going to walk away. Reminding him of what a shitty husband he was isn’t going to help.
When he comes back with a bottle of beer for me, I try to give him a genuine smile and tell myself to stay civil.
“So back to this guy and how you know him . . . ,” I say before taking a tepid sip of my beer. It’s warm but better than nothing.
“Let’s just say in my line of business, security is of upmost importance. This guy will have your back.”
“For a fee.”
“For a high fee. But he knows what he’s doing, and more than that, he owes me a favor.”
“And you’d waste your favor on me?”
“Nothing is wasted on you, my dear,” he says, and then his eyes flit over my shoulder to the door.
I turn my head to see a man walk in. He’s not exactly what I expected, but I know without a doubt that this is him. He actually looks very blank, like if I tried to recall him later, I’m not sure how I’d describe him. He has no features or mannerisms that stand out, only that he moves in a way that can be described as animal grace.
Or perhaps predatorial.
I shudder at the thought as the man heads straight for our booth and stands at the end, staring down at Cyril with quiet expectation.
“Jones,” Cyril says to him. “Thank you for coming. Jones, this is Seraphine, my ex-wife.”
I cringe internally at that term. I hate being reminded that the marriage was a failure.
I nod at Jones and give him a tight smile since he doesn’t seem like the shaking-hands or kissing-on-the-cheek kind of person.
“Here, sit down,” Cyril says, moving over.
Jones sits beside him soundlessly.
I stare at him some more. He’s average height, with an average build and average face. The only things that stand out to me are his dark eyes, pale skin, and the faint scars that run across his face, the kind of scars that look like they were earned in a few fights and then fixed with expensive laser treatment.
“So, ‘Jones,’” I say. “Doesn’t seem like a French name . . .”
“I’m from Romania,” he says, and his voice is so even keeled and quiet I lean in a little.
“Doesn’t sound Romanian, either,” I say.
“Jones can be whoever you need him to be, Seraphine,” Cyril says quickly, a hint to make me stop questioning his name. “So why don’t you tell him who that is and what exactly you want.”
I rub my lips together, my lipstick completely worn off at this point. I hope he doesn’t think I’m crazy. I hope that by repeating myself again to Cyril, it doesn’t start to make me feel crazy too.
I lean in and look around the bar to see if anyone is paying attention.
“No one is listening,” Cyril says, tapping his fingers impatiently against the table. “Why do you think I picked this place? They’ve all got their own deals and problems going on.”
I take in a deep breath and still I whisper. “Jones. I believe that my father, Ludovic Dumont of the Dumont empire, was murdered by his own brother or perhaps his nephew. Or maybe both. Or maybe even someone else. But I believe he didn’t have a heart attack—he was poisoned and it was covered up. And before you ask for proof—because I know you’d dismiss the value of gut feelings—the security footage of the night of the party when he died in front of everyone, that footage is missing. And only that footage. I believe someone deleted the files and deleted evidence of the crime. I need your help to get those files back. If you can do more than that, I’ll be even more in your debt.”
Jones stares at me with his dark eyes, and for a frightening moment I’m reminded of the way that Gautier looks sometimes—it’s like staring into a black hole you can’t get out of. But then he nods sharply.
“I can do that.”
“So you don’t think I’m nuts,” I ask.
“I have no idea about your mental state,” he says in his quiet, calm voice. “But never dismiss your gut feelings. A lot of what I do is based on gut feelings and backed by evidence. It sounds like you’re on the right track to the truth.”
But even though what he’s telling me should make me feel better, feel relieved that what I’m thinking isn’t so nuts, he still continues to stare at me with those eyes. My gut right now is telling
me to tread lightly with him. Those eyes hide a lot of lost souls, lives I’m sure he’s taken. I know that right now in the heart of me.
I look to Cyril, who is nodding his approval, and then back to Jones. “I know you want to discuss money . . .”
“I do,” he says. “But I also need you to give me some of your family history. Why your uncle? What did he have to gain?”
“There’s so much history there that I’m pretty sure it will take the whole night,” I tell him honestly.
“Don’t worry,” Jones says. “I charge by the hour. I have all night.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
BLAISE
Ten years ago
Paris
The Dumont Masquerade Ball has to be one of the fucking stupidest, most self-indulgent events of the year. And every time August rolls around, I’m busy thinking of excuses of why I shouldn’t go. Even if I’m traveling through Bali, like I was a few days ago, my family has some way of roping me into it.
The funny thing is, they don’t guilt trip me. Instead they act like they don’t care and that I ought to go for the sake of my reputation and career. Scratch that: they don’t act at all, because they actually don’t care. And I’m stubborn and stupid enough to let that spur me into going.
So that’s where I am now. Being driven to my parents’ estate outside Paris, where the party is being held. I’m wearing a $5,000 Dumont suit that I didn’t have to pay for, and in my hands is a purple velvet mask that I’ll put on before I go inside.
Of course, at these parties there is no masquerade. Most of the people there want to flaunt who they are, so the masks and disguises are minimal. It’s just an excuse for people to act like high and drunken idiots, indulging in fantasies that never feel so good behind closed doors.
My uncle Ludovic has always insisted that the ball is about celebrating the mystique of fashion, that people can use clothes to either show the world who they are or to disguise it. That always sounded so trite. My father, on the other hand, says the ball is about getting people to behave badly and have the tabloids report on it the next day. It creates more publicity for the Dumont label and makes the guest list even more exclusive, the party more in demand.
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