“What happened?”
I tensed, usually preferring to leave out the endings of my foster home stories, if I spoke of them at all. But there was a freedom in talking to a man with no name and no face to see his pity.
Or maybe it was the freedom in knowing I wouldn’t find pity in his lethal dark eyes because he knew what it was like to be shunned, too.
“I learned too well, and instead of being motivated, the girl became bitter and jealous. She hurt herself and told them it was me. I was from the outside and therefore, easily expendable.” I shrugged it off like it hadn’t hurt. And I left out the bigger reason I’d been returned, as though the Vanello’s had ordered a child in the wrong size and wanted a new one.
Or in my case, the wrong nationality with the wrong family connections.
It had happened too many times after that for me to truly recall what being hurt by people who were supposed to love me felt like. Too many times after that being judged for what rather than who I was.
“And did you wear hijab then?”
My heart slammed so hard against the front wall of my chest that I took a small step forward to compensate.
He had been watching.
“You were there,” I said softly, brushing my hands together and avoiding an answer. “I made out in the separation since I was able to take the violin with me, and they were left with a little liar who was tone-deaf.” I hated the sudden twinge of pain I felt in the corners of my eyes. “From there, I taught myself until I could get a job and pay for my own lessons.”
Setting the camera down on the nearest pew, I walked toward the center of the pathway and looked down to see my laser still scanning the interior of the entrance.
“You had your hair covered the other night, but not now,” he charged. “Because of the church? Or because you won’t risk any symbol of subservience in front of me?”
My lips parted. Though his words were demanding in the way that everything about him was, though he reached right in and wrapped his questions around tender topics, I felt no slight. I sensed whatever happened to him—whatever brought him here—was no less ostracizing than my own experience with life.
Notching my chin up, I said, “Do you forget where we are, monsieur? Here, à Paris, hijab is more an act of empowerment rather than subjugation.”
No matter how infrequently he ventured outside these walls, France was universally infamous for the legal restrictions it imposed on covering oneself. Here, wearing hijab was a screaming solitary protest in a sea of secularization.
“All the more reason since I’ve come to expect every measure of defiance from you within these walls,” he declared with a low tone.
I shuddered. Of course, he would recognize my bold rebellion.
“I wear it because it is part of who I am, though I don’t actively practice the religion. And I wear it, especially when I play, because there is a freedom of expression everyone should be able to practice, Monsieur Gargouille,” I said, though it didn’t fully address his comment. “Everyone should be able to speak out whether it’s by voice or by veil.”
There were many myths about hijab and Muslims. But the one truth that rose above them all was that the personal choice of how to cover one’s body, whether it was religion, custom, or solidarity, should be just that—a personal one.
He grunted. “I think you wear it to hide yourself.”
I gasped, spinning and searching for the source of the blunt charge. “How dare—”
“The jewels, the scarves. A magical gypsy flouting the distortion of society’s fishbowl, hiding behind declarations of defiance,” he accused harshly.
Each claim stripped away another layer, baring more of my wounded, wandering soul. The raw sensation like walking out into the sun after spending years in complete darkness. Bright. Burning.
“Says the man holding a conversation from the shadows,” I snapped with a shiver. I’d started this to find out more about him, and instead, all my pretenses were the ones under scrutiny. “Spurning society from the pillars of a crumbling cathedral, claiming it as your own.”
“I never denied wanting to remain hidden,” he snarled loudly, the words tolling like the bells through the empty space, making my knees quake with their force. “From society. From the world.” And then, a much quieter—much more significant afterthought was snarled onto the end. “And especially from you.”
I felt him. I breathed him. I stared in front of me, knowing he was right there, standing just out of sight and almost within reach. His hurt. His secrets. My skin rippled with their proximity.
“But you aren’t hidden here,” I said so softly that it was only because of the design of the cavernous cathedral that my admission carried to the corner that concealed him.
His responding growl withered when I reached up and tucked my fingers under the edge of my headband scarf.
“And maybe, I don’t want to be hidden here either.” Pulling the fabric down, I let the full weight of my hair drape freely over me.
“Monsters aren’t meant to be free, madame.” The statement was imposing, but the shadow of sadness it carried worried me far more than the warning it wielded.
“I don’t think you’re a monster.”
“Only because you don’t know me.”
“Then tell me who you are,” I demanded with an urgency that barely concealed how much of a plea it actually was.
The seconds dragged on and I gave up trying to decide if the slight movement in the shadows of the nearest alcove was real or only a figment of my desperate imagination.
“Please.”
There was a low rumble like thunder from an approaching storm.
“I am still the same man in charge of this place, madame. The same man who wishes for you to pack up your things and leave.” I sucked in a breath, wincing at the sharp sting in my chest. “The same man who does not have time for your distractions.”
I pulled my back straight and folded my arms over my chest, feeling it push my sensitive, peaked breasts against the thin fabric of my shirt.
He’d made clear he still didn’t trust me, but it didn’t change the rough rasp of need woven into each word.
My guardian gargoyle wanted me, and he didn’t want to want me.
Wanting me was a greater distraction than distrusting me.
“No one is forcing you to be distracted by my presence, Monsieur Gargouille.” I turned away from him, ignoring the frustration that came from reaching so close only to tumble back so far. “Surely by now, you can imagine that I’d be doing the very same things regardless of whether you are here or not.”
My steps resounded on the stone floor as I returned to my computer, assessed the progress of the current scan, and tried to decide if I would have time for one more this evening.
“So then I’d have to be disturbed by your conversations with yourself,” he returned sharply.
I tensed, but felt a small sense of victory as he continued the conversation. I did talk to myself while I worked.
“Well, it would certainly be more pleasant company,” I retorted, my lips working their way into a small smile.
In spite of his coldness, I wasn’t giving up.
My guardian gargoyle was a mystery I ached to solve.
Why he hid.
Why he thought me a threat.
Why his face was scarred so horribly.
And why I still wanted him like I did…
“Though I have to wonder, what keeps you watching even when I leave? Even when I’m playing in a park several blocks from here?” My voice dropped slightly in the warm depths that pooled in my stomach. My tongue darted out over my lips. “Perhaps I have a secret admirer…”
I felt his frustration quake through the church.
“You certainly have secrets, Madame St. Claire. I’ve yet to decide if they are admirable or not.” The back of my nape prickled with the low exhale of his reply, revealing that he now stood right behind me.
My skin electrified wit
h need.
He was close. So close.
The volley of our words, the ebb and flow of our proximity, it was a crescendo—each rise higher than the last, each dip not quite as harsh as before—the melody carried by conversation and the bass thudding with desire.
“Monsieur—”
I spun breathlessly only to confront a vast, empty space; he was gone. A chill swept over me, knowing our conversation had ended for the night.
But not forever.
There was something that would pull us back together and, whether it was distrust or desire, not only did it have the power to devastate, the devastation was unavoidable.
Quinton
Henri Lautrec was a force to be reckoned with though it was hard to tell at first glance.
As one of the highest-ranking members of the Valois, it was few and far between who were taken through the passage in the catacombs below the Arc de Triomphe, up the biometrically secured elevator, and into his sanctuary that looked out in every direction from the center of the star of Paris.
Tomes of knowledge packed like leather-bound bricks against the walls, making the air stale with secrets obscured with traces of smoke from my father’s cancerous habit. Eras of history, politics, and spies were neatly organized into museum-like collections of half-truths, though only few would ever see what was in the documents and live to talk about it.
While the high-flung bookcases held wisdom on their shelves, they concealed weapons behind their backs—on par with how the Valois operated. Knowledge and influence above all else. Force when necessary.
Letters, medals, photographs of commendation left no question as to Henri Lautrec’s commitment or valor, though it was only within these walls that he would ever be recognized.
The only thing that was missing from his desk or the small tables interspersed between leather-coated couches were any personal effects. And perhaps, that in and of itself was indication of the sacrifice he’d made to protect his country and the people of France.
There was no evidence that he had a son. But then again, maybe my presence in his office was the only show of partiality he could afford.
“Quinton.”
Never ‘Quin.’ Never ‘Son.’ Always ‘Quinton.’
There was a price that came with being the head of the Parisian Valois. A price in the form of any personal attachments.
And it was hard to fault a man who’d never promised anything more to my mother when he’d told her he couldn’t be involved in our lives. The risk was just too great.
For us.
For him.
He hadn’t loved my mother and she hadn’t loved him. They’d shared one night together and all of the things that should have prevented my presence failed.
When I was eighteen she introduced me to Méchant, and I’d finally demanded she tell me who my father was before she replaced him. It was an exaggeration but it produced the desired effect. All my life, she’d told me my father was no one and it was time I knew the truth. With a resigned nod, she sat down and said she’d met Henri Lautrec at a benefit ball hosted by her parents—her father the president of the National Assembly at the time.
She’d wanted one night with the handsome stranger and he’d promised only that.
When she realized she was pregnant, she contacted Henri and gave him the choice to be part of our lives or not, making it clear she didn’t need his financial support.
Knowing what I did now, even though he’d only been an agent of the Valois back then, Henri hadn’t told her much about his job or the Valois except that he worked for the government and having a child would be a danger to everyone involved.
Whether it was as strictly transactional as she made it out to be, I would never know. All I knew was that he walked away and never looked back, and she went on with her life—our lives—with no indication of a previously broken heart.
She promised me it was the truth, and I promised to keep her promise—to never share who my father was.
My mother had many strengths and my throat thickened with the thought of all of them. But unfortunately, she was easily swayed by handsome men who effused power. First, Henri Lautrec. Then, Marcel Méchant.
Henri had cut all ties with us.
How could she or I have known the kind of man she was really falling for?
The day after she’d married Méchant, the father who biologically contributed to half of me but nothing more reached out with a simple invitation to come and work with him. I should’ve seen it as the first indication that something wasn’t right about my mother’s new husband.
But I was at school. I was chasing my own dreams and she was building a new life for herself. Our paths drifted and what she thought was truth became a lie—a violent one.
And the cross I would carry until my last day was knowing that the night I’d confided my father’s name to the woman I thought I was going to spend the rest of my life with, I was signing my mother’s death certificate. And still, quite possibly, my own.
Rage burned through my lungs like the scent of alcohol.
I coughed and violently speared my hand through my hair to force those memories back.
Love was both a weakness and a luxury a member of the Valois couldn’t afford. It was why I’d turned down his offer to join the society at eighteen. And it was why I sought him out at twenty-five and demanded a position.
Because who could love a liar with the face of a beast?
“Henri.” I nodded and took a seat in one of the upholstered chairs in front of his desk.
He didn’t bother to look up from his papers as he spoke, “We haven’t heard much from you.”
“There hasn’t been much to hear.” Information had been sparse and even while helping Léo track down my salope of a stepsister, Amélie, I’d still come up with nothing on her father—or the man that killed my mother.
His eyebrows rose for a moment before he continued scrawling his notes onto whatever report was lying in front of him, sharing his attention with me.
“Until now?”
I gritted my teeth.
I didn’t enjoy coming to him like this, but I’d exhausted my contacts with regard to Hubert. From the looks of it, he was completely aboveboard and I’d built my contacts in the darkened alleys below deck.
I didn’t have political or proper connections.
I didn’t even have the fucking face that would easily gain me entrance into those circles.
The monster is always the outside. He always lives in the shadows. Ugliness and lies don’t belong in the light.
“Gustav Hubert.”
The pen stopped and familiar black eyes met mine doused in intrigue.
“The upstart?” he replied as he lay the expensive fountain pen back down in its bed.
I nodded.
“What has he done?”
My jaw ticked. “Nothing. Yet.”
“But he’s involved with Méchant?” he clarified, sitting back and propping his elbows on the armrests of his chair.
“That’s what Le Père has informed me.”
Names were never used when speaking of sources. Even at the very top echelon of the organization. Instead, simple descriptors like ‘The Father’ for my priest inside Méchant’s church served the purpose.
He stared at me, his thumbs rubbing over one another in his lap.
Silence wasn’t an encouragement to speak. Silence meant his mind was working through the vast stores of information he possessed, adding this to the other pieces and seeing if any pictures fell together.
Because I didn’t see him frequently, each time I visited my father, I noticed the toll age was finally beginning to take.
The curl in my hair I got from my mother, but the rich obsidian shade was my father’s. Only now, I began to see the stark stabs of white in the black sea.
The slight purpling under his eyes showed the weight of the information contained inside them was finally taking its toll. Faint lines trailed out from the corners tryin
g to hold them up, and matching the set at the corners of his mouth, worn into the skin from the frequent frowns that accompanied this line of work.
“He can’t be aiming for the presidency,” my father finally spoke. “It’s too far—too high for Hubert. There’s no way.”
“Even with all the unrest around Macron?” I rasped.
“What else do you know?”
If I knew more, I might be inclined to hold back, wary of trusting even my own father with the information. But I didn’t, so I shared the ominous piece of intel.
“Something is coming. Some sort of attack.”
“Something grand to pull the presidency right out from under Macron,” he finished.
I nodded.
“Mon Dieu.” He wiped a hand over his mouth.
“I need to find out more about him. I need to find his connection to Méchant.” What went unsaid was that I needed his contacts or some sort of lead from him to be able to do it.
His eyes narrowed into thin black blades and after a moment, he pressed a button on his desk.
“Olivier. Malik. Éntrez.”
The intercom didn’t even click off before two men, sharply dressed in suits entered the room.
Henri motioned to the new guests. “Olivier Dumas. Malik Toussaint.” Then he motioned to me. “This is Quinton Bossé.”
The fact that Henri Lautrec had a son was a secret that would die with only the two of us for company.
It was rare that members of the Valois were introduced to one another. Rather, they worked like ships passing in the night, reporting to the same lighthouse that kept them safe from crashing into one another.
Then again, learning that one of the most wanted, most vile criminals in Paris might be behind an attempt to rocket a squeaky-clean politician to the presidency was also a rare situation.
“Bonjour,” we all greeted each other roughly, and I caught the slight adjustment of their eyes as they took in the deformed half of my face.
I noted their appearance. Olivier with his cropped blond hair and light brown eyes stood like a lethal model compared to the slightly shorter, yet more well-built Algerian man, Malik, whose face tugged at the strings of familiarity in my mind.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 10