We stared at each other and it felt like the only time in our lives when anyone could’ve seen the resemblance between father and son—in the complex anger of needing to know and needing to confess.
I stepped forward toward his desk.
“You’ve become quite famous since we last spoke,” Henri broke the silence with a rough, worn voice which told me he’d been fighting fits of that cough for longer than a few days.
“Not my intention.”
“Wasn’t it?” He raised an eyebrow for a moment before switching course to the only common ground we’d ever had. Our work. “What have you learned?”
“Notre Dame is involved in Méchant’s plan.” Even as I spoke, my eyes assessed the little intricacies I could now see. The chest X-rays that sat in front of him. The pill bottles stacked on the corner of his desk. “Hubert sponsored a… professor… to capture 3D scans of the entire structure, accurate down to the millimeter. Of course, it’s masked by his support of the Ministry of Culture and their attempts to revitalize the cathedral, but I’m certain he’ll use her work for more nefarious purposes.”
What I didn’t see though, were any cigars. Or any cases with cigars or cigarettes. In fact, it was that moment that I realized the air was thick in the office with so many things—but none of them were the cancerous smoke which had always characterized the space.
He hummed though it seemed to be just a noise used to clear his throat to make way for him to speak. “Ms. St. Claire.”
The woman you risked this all for went unspoken between us and my jaw tightened.
“Yes.”
He hummed again, catching himself on a cough—a small one this time. “And what will they do with her work?”
I cleared my throat. “I’m not sure. I meeting with my explosives expert tomorrow to get his opinion.”
I’d left a message for Girard as soon as I’d walked out of the Palais Garnier. I couldn’t say I fully understood the scope of Esme’s work or what it produced. But if it created, in essence, blueprints for the cathedral, there were only so many things one did with blueprints.
Created something.
Broke into it.
Or used them to destroy it.
I reached forward and gripped the back of the chair I usually sat on in front of him, allowing my fingers to rub the smooth, stained wood. “But my assumption is they want to destroy Notre Dame, and they’re going to use her scans to make sure that, when they do it, they leave nothing left.”
No matter how matter-of-factly I put it, the thought of demolishing the cathedral was enough to make my heart slow and beat unsteadily. It would be like the World Trade Center attacks, only this monument had stood for centuries and survived wars; it stood as a symbol of hope and perseverance, along with forgiveness and mercy.
“That is a lofty… and devastating… goal,” he rasped, processing the information in between staving off the need to cough. “And are you sure the work wasn’t commissioned to find you, Quinton?”
My fingers froze.
Bile rose in my throat. Had I been so focused—so jaded—by the message that destruction was coming that I didn’t bother to consider it might have meant my own?
“I don’t think he would go through that much trouble to find the man he scarred,” I replied, willing it to be true.
I’d like to think I’d done my fair share of damage to Méchant’s organization since I’d sought to take it down, but had it been enough to shift the bastard’s focus from power to me?
“He might if he thought the game was changing.” Henri’s eyes dropped for an instant—a momentary weakness—before he demanded, “Who is she, Quinton?”
My brow furrowed. He knew that answer. “Esme St.—”
“I know her name.”
My jaw tightened, at once determined to both protect her secret and defend her to my last breath.
“She’s not a criminal,” I said tightly. Maybe this was his infamous moment when the truth held its power.
His face softened as he nodded. “Oh, I know she’s related to Djamel Beghal.”
There were two sides that warred inside me just as there were two distinct sides of my face. One, which felt the tightening around my heart to hear the prejudice Esme had endured because of a family she had no choice in. The other, which refused to blame my father for investigating her based on the horrors her uncle and his trained terrorists had inflicted on France. And the fine line between the two I believed was impossible for any person to tread perfectly.
Without knowing her, I could see it was impossible to entirely respect that she was her own person without concern that her motives may have been clouded by a man so close to her. Not when innocent lives were at stake. And so, that fine line between due diligence and discrimination had to be walked, knowing each step you took wouldn’t be good enough for either side.
“But who is she to you, Quinton?”
“The woman I love,” I said, holding his gaze and preparing for the worst.
The expression he returned made me feel as though he already knew.
Still, I dug my fingers into the wood of the chair and stood my ground, built my cross, and prepared myself to be crucified for the rules I’d broken.
“I’m in love with her, Henri.” There was no point in saying I knew it was wrong. No point in telling him I knew love wasn’t a luxury for the Valois. He knew it. I knew it. And it changed nothing. “Once I stop Méchant and Hubert, that is where this ends… after all these years.”
And there it was. My resignation.
To my surprise, his next words were, “And if you can’t stop them?”
My determination derailed. I’d never considered failing an option. I never thought I wouldn’t figure out what their plan was and put an end to it.
It had always been an impossibility because I’d made it my life. Either I would end Méchant or I would die trying—there was no failure.
Until Esme.
Until my purpose shifted its orbit, no longer centering around revenge, instead, it focused on her.
I thought I could let her go and focus on my mission like I had before. Until I learned she was at that gala and saw her with Hubert. Then I realized that love and hate are too big, too powerful and too possessive to share the space inside my chest. I’d held on to hate because I thought love was no longer an option—because I believed I could have both.
Until I realized I couldn’t both fight for my hate and protect my love.
And there was no decision—no conscious one, at least, when I’d approached Esme and risked my cover, my mission, and possibly, my life, in order to get her away from Hubert.
I’d chosen her above all else.
It took several minutes—or several very long seconds—before I nodded slowly and confessed my reality as the real choice I’d made last night became clear.
“If I can’t stop him, then I will stop myself,” I told Henri without even an ounce of the shame I thought I’d feel to admit such a thing.
My father’s eyes widened and I thought I caught a glimmer of… pride?
“If I can’t stop whatever he has planned, then I will stop hunting him as soon as I know Esme has completed her work and is no longer in his target.” All the tension I’d carried into the room evaporated off the slow, calm breaths I released. “My life with her means more than my mission, and I’m sorry, Henri, if that is unacceptable to the Valois or to you but—”
“Son.” My eyes snapped to his.
Son.
Always Quinton. Never ’Son.’
I watched as Henri rose from his desk, the movement shocking me even further with how hard it was for him and how ill he must really be.
Clutching the mask over his mouth and nose, he took several long draws to compensate for the exertion of standing before setting it down gently on the desk.
“I’m dying, Quinton,” he revealed with a voice that sounded as such.
For someone who spent almost a decade searching out and d
eciphering secrets, for someone whose skills of observation exceeded the norm, his revelation still shocked me.
Even though I could see it—hear it—right in front of me, sometimes, it’s the desire for ignorance which transcends the power of observation. I didn’t want to see he was dying, and so I didn’t.
“All those damn cigars…” he grumbled, his wearied laugh turning into more coughs which brought the mask back to his face for a moment before he continued, “Stage four lung cancer.”
I jumped in with the only thing one can say, “And there’s nothing they can—”
“Not a damn thing.” He shook his head with a sad smile. “Wouldn’t want it anyway.”
“What?” My face screwed. “Why the hell not?”
“Because I missed it,” he confessed with a shrug as he began to round the massive desk with weak and unsteady steps. “I missed the thing you found.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Love, dammit.” He paused, eyeing me. “I missed the part that makes living worth it.”
“But the Valois… and the missions,” I interceded.
Even though my priorities had changed, I fought to understand the man who stood in front of me like his life’s work had been pointless. Regardless of how I felt about him or our past, I wasn’t going to let a dying man believe there hadn’t been a reason for him at all.
“I’m proud as hell of what I’ve done for the Valois and this country,” he told me, some strength returning to his voice. “I never said my life wasn’t meaningful, Quinton. I said I missed the part that made it worth living,” he grunted. “But it doesn’t matter. I don’t have a say anymore.”
I didn’t realize my gaze had dropped or that my hands were on the verge of snapping the wood off the back of the chair when I felt his hand on my shoulder.
“I thought meaning was enough,” he continued roughly. “Until they did some routine bloodwork a few months ago because I thought I was having asthma and came back telling me I was going to die.”
My body vibrated with emotion. I shouldn’t be upset. He was right; he hadn’t even been a father to me in the rightful sense of the word. But he was my father, and he was fucking dying.
“Felt like a gunshot, really,” he went on. “Stung like a bitch at first but it was what came after that hurt like hell—the easy acceptance that this was the end.” He let out another bitter laugh. “All my life I’ve been fighting—fighting for good, fighting for what’s right—but when it came to my own life, I had no fight at all. I had no fight because there was nothing to fight for.”
He looked around the room, the walls steeped with not only his successes but others who’d come before and agents who he’d trained.
“This would still live on—the Valois, the work we do… the work I’ve done. There was no need to fight for that. But without it, I realized how empty the rest of my life was,” he said as his voice grew hoarser. “Maybe if you weren’t here. Maybe if your mother and I hadn’t… maybe then I wouldn’t know what I missed out on, not really.”
And now that I’d met Esme, I knew what he meant.
Before, it was easy to convince myself I didn’t need love in my life. Until I had it. And then, a life without it seemed like no life at all.
“Maybe I did know. Maybe it’s why I started donating to those charities. Or putting away some of the money you recovered. Maybe it’s why I put the properties you retrieved under aliases for you and donated to charities in your name. Maybe I always knew this wasn’t what I wanted for you.”
“Then why the hell didn’t you say that? Why didn’t you fucking do something differ—” I broke off with a growl.
“Because I’m not your father, Quinton,” he snapped, frustration and determination superseding the disease weakened him for a moment. “Yes, my genes run through your body, but I didn’t raise you. I wasn’t a part of your life. Even when you came to work with me, I maintained the distance I’d measured out decades ago.” He panted heavily. “Just because I fathered you doesn’t make me your father, and no realization, no apology, no different choices would make a damn bit of difference.”
The heavy weight of his hand dropped from my shoulder as it reached for the mask again. I wanted to reply, but I didn’t know how. And even if I did, I could tell there was more he had to say, so I respected the silence while he willed his body back into cooperation.
“There was no coming back from where I’d taken our relationship, Quinton,” he began again. “There was no apology that would magically undo the choices I’d made or build a foundation that had been absent for your entire life. And there was no changing the path I’d laid for myself… not at this point.”
His hand returned and a much weaker grip than I remembered turned me to face him.
“So, I did the best I could with the bed I’d made. I set things aside for the life you always wanted—the life I realized I wanted you to have. And I tried to figure out a way to undo the mindset I’d worked to instill in you.” He patted my shoulder. “But it seems I have Mademoiselle St. Claire to thank for accomplishing that.”
I dragged my eyes to his. “So, you’re not angry?” Not that I cared if he was or not; it wouldn’t change my decision.
He shook his head. “Relieved.” His attention drew to the crest above the door. “I’ve given my life to the Valois and I’ll never admit to believing anything to be more important than the work we do…” he trailed off as his gaze returned to mine. “But I also can’t say that, for you, I’m not relieved… and glad… you’ve found something—someone worth more.”
His hand on my shoulder drew back to clutch his chest and I saw the way his muscles seized to hold back another fit.
“I want a better life for you… for my son.”
I told myself it was his illness that made him sound as though he fought back tears as well as coughs.
“Even if I don’t know what that better life is.”
I swallowed over the lump in my throat that held emotions for a man I never thought capable of such things.
Life… death… love and loss… they have a way of bringing to light the most drastic realizations both when you can and cannot do anything about them.
“How long?” I rasped.
Another pause. “Weeks, maybe a month or so.” His eyes glazed over.
“And what happens here?” I asked with a low voice.
His eyes fell. “Someone will take my place,” he told me. “But if Méchant knows it’s happening, he’s likely to think that someone is you.”
And suddenly, his assertion that Hubert had hired Esme in order to find me made sense.
Maybe Méchant didn’t care about the wounds I’d inflicted on his organization, but he would care if he thought I was next in line, so to speak, to take over the Valois. Then I would be a prize worth capturing.
“Does he know?”
My father’s stance shifted. “I’m unsure. But you should be prepared that he does—and that it’s you he’s after.”
I nodded, already beginning to reframe all the information I’d gathered in that light.
Another coughing fit, much harsher than anything I’d heard attacked him, and when it was finally over, he said weakly, “You should go.” He stepped toward the door, prepared to open it and force my exit. “Be careful.”
As I walked to the door, I saw my arms reach out and draw the sick and withering man to me.
I might be a monster… but even monsters could have hearts.
I felt his surprise in the way he tensed when I pulled him to me.
The hug was awkward as all hell.
It didn’t magically fix our past, and it didn’t restore the father-son relationship we never had.
Rather, it was simply the tight grip of acknowledgment that circumstances meant this was as close as we’d ever be. And it was the steady strength of acceptance… Acceptance for who we were and the choices we’d made.
“I will have a better life,” I promised him as I pull
ed back.
And when I pulled open the door, I heard the weak strains of his voice behind me, “And you have my blessing to find it,” he murmured. “Whether you need it or not, Son.”
Whether I deserved that life and Esme’s love or not was immaterial—just like whether he deserved to be able to call me ‘son’ or not.
Sometimes, we receive more than we deserve in life, and to try to refuse it would be the greatest sin of all.
Esme
The soft click of the laser starting its scan might as well have been the gunshot that commenced the start of the Kentucky Derby.
For over a week, I’d done as he asked; I’d shown up and continued my work as though it wasn’t going to help the man who, at the root of it all, would kill Quinton if he had the chance.
All week I’d worked. All week without any sign of Quinton.
I tried to keep myself busy. First, focused on the task he’d given me, explaining to myself over and over how he was right and it was the best thing I could do. Then, I’d agreed to play another show with the guys—something small, something unorganized. After what happened in the Neuf Trois, I think the whole group was reeling from how instantaneously something so good could turn so wrong.
It took all of two days before I’d called and invited Giselle over for champagne and a movie, and all of two minutes in her reassuring and concerned presence for me to confess enough of what had transpired.
Though she hadn’t expected me to admit to falling in love with the Gargoyle of Notre Dame, she hadn’t been surprised.
“You always danced to the beat of your own drum, Esme. I’m not surprised you would be the one brave enough to fall in love with him.”
I could’ve told her it wasn’t a choice to fall, but it wouldn’t be the truth. I’d spent my whole life running from any sort of serious attachment, so I could’ve seen the cliff I was running toward when I found myself searching out the mysterious and grumpy inhabitant of the cathedral. But I didn’t want to see it.
Even though Giselle hadn’t been at the fundraiser, Mathieu had informed her of how Quinton had arrived and whisked me away. So, I’d apologized for lying to her on the phone, vaguely hinting at his injury and concern that the men who’d brought the devices could’ve still been looking for him.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 35