Even though I shouldn’t have, I checked on Esme every day. Knowing she’d been a pawn in Hubert’s plan—one that was easily used and easily destroyed—I couldn’t bring myself to keep completely away.
Instead, I stayed in the far-reaching rafters of the cathedral where even she couldn’t sense my presence. And I never stayed long. Just long enough to drink my fill—to let just the image of her soothe the raw, open wound that existed now that I’d ripped the scab of revenge from it.
I checked on her, and I checked for any messages—not that I expected them.
And I checked on the church.
If Méchant was planning something inside the cathedral, I told myself I would find it. And after a decade of living in the damn structure, I knew every crack and crevice. I knew every sculpture and shadow. I knew the altar and the artifacts. And I would’ve known if something was different.
And each day that passed, my agitation grew, feeling as though it was one more day that put Méchant ahead again.
But the real problem wasn’t what his plan was. It was what it had become.
I felt the tide shifting like the sky before a storm. I could see the darkening, the flashes of lightning in the far-off distance. I knew something had changed and I was waiting for the hammer to fall.
Every single night, I contemplated saying fuck it to everything, taking Esme, and running.
But as easy and safe as it might be, I couldn’t do it. More than that, I knew she wouldn’t.
“…I would rather die for a love that puts me in peril than live the rest of my life alone under the shield of safety.”
Her words sung me to sleep every night as the memory of her touch held me close.
I knew who she was. She was fire and defiance wrapped in gilded chains. She was the woman who would defy them all to do the right thing, to help those less fortunate, and to set the record straight.
Maybe there were some in this world who could run from this situation, happy to make it out with their lives and their love and never look back.
We were not those some.
We loved each other because we stayed and fought when no one else would. We loved each other because we risked taking the blame and enduring the fallout in order to do what was right.
I growled as the sky began to darken. Where was he?
I’d been watching over the small church in the eighteenth arrondissement for the last hour, determined to see my priest enter before I did. But no one came or went.
I knew it had to be a trap, but what choice did I have?
If I didn’t go in there, what was I risking? Or more importantly, who was I risking?
My jaw tightened, images flashing back to the last night I’d walked into an abandoned church; though this time, I knew what I was facing; I knew who I was up against.
Now, like then, I was met with silence when my feet crossed over the old timbers of the sanctuary and greeted by the dust of time gone by.
And, like then, the first thing my eyes went to was the sparse array of lit votives to the side of the altar. If that alone hadn’t confirmed my suspicions, what I saw as my eyes rose above the candlelight did.
Staked to the top of a wrought-iron pole behind the votives, the contorted and bloodied face flickering ominously in the candlelight, was the head of my priest.
Mon Dieu. My lip curled.
I’d lived in this world too long to allow myself to feel regret or remorse for those who lost their lives in service to the Valois and their country. If I did, I would’ve drowned in the sorrow long ago.
Instead, knowing energy could neither be created nor destroyed, I took it and transformed it into further fuel for my vengeance. Further rationale for my revenge.
Dragging my eyes from the still bleeding, severed head, I looked to the other side of the church, and the back of a man’s head who sat in the front pew.
“It’s been a long time, Quinton.” The voice of the devil would speak with calm and soothing tones.
I didn’t know what to expect after all this time. Certainly, the rage that burned through my veins was as bright, if not brighter, than it had been all those years ago. But my heart was calm. My breathing steady.
“Méchant.” His name was like a curse. A blasphemy in such a place as this.
“I’m sorry for your loss,” he taunted me with a tone that held every ounce of pure sympathy all the while being responsible for its cause.
“Don’t be,” I said tightly, approaching him with slow and determined steps, while my eyes scanned for any of his men, expecting them to attack me at any moment. “I’d never consider your death a loss.”
Cold spread through my spine like a frozen web when he looked at me, his face hardly appearing changed since the last time I’d seen him. He was like a living Dorian Gray. Remaining pristine on the outside, while his sins continued to decay away everything underneath.
He still wore an impeccably cut and untarnished suit, as though it had been freshly made that morning for him and would be tossed at the end of the night. His hair had grayed more and there were more lines carved into his face from age, but there was that inhuman fire of evil that still burned in his gaze—an unquenchable quest for power that would never be sated.
A smile scaled over his face at my words. And though I knew we were playing a deadly game, I couldn’t help but feel, even with all my skills, I was playing with a handicap.
“You look good, Quinton,” he told me as he stood. “Your face healed nicely.”
I fought not to snarl at him. His eyes looked over my scars like they were his property. His masterpiece. Never had I wanted to cut the disfigured flesh from my face more than I did at this moment.
I let my knife slide from my sleeve into my hand, my fingers twitching to open the blade and drive it through one of his eyes.
“You know I’m going to kill you, right?” I growled, taking another step toward him.
Still, no one else appeared and the older man, instead of stepping back or letting even a shadow of worry cross over his expression, met my step with one of his own.
“It’s certainly a possibility,” he said and glanced at his watch. “Although I think you’ll find that you’re going to make a different choice.”
A pit opened up in my stomach, bubbling and spitting with the hottest lava of uncertainty.
I’d missed something.
And I was going to pay for it.
“I’ve had a decade to make sure I’d never make another choice,” I continued to assure him, baiting him to reveal whatever it was his fucked-up mind believed. “Though I only needed one night.”
“Oh, no?” His head tilted to the side. “Not even for love?”
For a second, I saw red as I lunged for him, wrapping my hand around his throat and holding him up until he was hardly standing on his own weight.
And yet, even with the lack of oxygen, Marcel Méchant still managed to continue to smile at me gleefully.
“You were always too hasty to respond,” he rasped through his constrained airway.
His eyes flicked behind me and my head snapped around—two burly men slunk into the room like shadows, waiting for the signal to come out and swallow me whole.
“Is my death worth more than Esme’s love?”
My lip twitched as a low growl emanated from my throat. I had everything I wanted in the palm of my hand. Literally. Revenge. Vengeance. Freedom. Even at the price of my own life.
But it was no longer everything I needed.
And now, instead of the fires of rage pumping through my blood, it felt as though the arctic ocean chased away the flames with its chilling fear.
I’d tried to save her, and I’d failed.
I’d tried to keep her safe and now, she was in danger.
With a vicious grunt, I flung him from me, demanding, with my knife pointed at his chest, “What do you want?”
His smile grew as he rubbed his neck and adjusted the collar of his shirt.
“For so lo
ng, almost equally as long as you, I wanted you dead,” he told me. “I made the mistake of underestimating your mother. She’d always been so blinded to my work, I never expected she’d react the way she did when she realized I wanted you to be a part of it.”
The knife was slick in my grip. My perspiration not from my fear but from restraint. The restraint it took not to run him through as he spoke about my mother like her painful death had been nothing but her own fault.
His death wouldn’t bring her back. But my restraint? It was the only thing saving Esme right now.
“But then you disappeared—a fine accomplishment with the face I left you with,” he complimented me acerbically.
“I find it’s worth it to know this face you left me with was the last thing so many of your men saw,” I bit out through clenched teeth.
The false air of cordiality disappeared from his expression as eyes as sharp as nails pinned me with their stare.
“Yes,” he snarled. “You have become an increasing problem for me over the years. Hence, why I’ve hoped for your death for some time now.”
“And is that what they’re here for?” I asked with a low voice, nodding to the two goons who held steady at their post. “So you don’t have to dirty your hands?”
He smirked. “That, Quinton, is up to you.”
I glared at him. I wouldn’t play into his games.
“You see, I thought killing you would be satisfying. Of course, it still would, I’m sure,” he mused nonchalantly. “But I’ve had some time to think about it lately, and I’ve realized with current events being what they are, killing you wouldn’t bring me the greatest enjoyment.”
“Oh? And what would?” I demanded tightly.
“When I look back on our last meeting like this, I recall how much I enjoyed watching your mother’s face as I made a masterpiece of your face.” The muscles on that side of my face twitched with the memory of the searing pain they’d suffered. “And I recall how much I enjoyed watching you as she burned over those candles.”
“You fucking piece of—”
“Ah, ah, ah,” he stepped back from my lunge, holding up a finger because the culmination of his little performance was coming.
My breathing was finally labored as I remained frozen—poised to say fuck it all and kill him—when the smile he had grew to almost splitting his face in two.
“I’ve decided I’d rather watch you suffer as I burn another woman you love from your life.”
“What have you done?” I growled with a deadly voice—one that finally caused a small fracture in the confidence in his eyes. “If you’ve harmed Esme, there is no corner of the Earth I won’t burn down to find you.”
“Who said I was talking about Esme?”
My heart stuttered. What?
Who the hell else would he be talking about?
“I guess I’m talking about her, too.” He checked his watch again. “I’ve already taken your mother, Quinton. Now, I’m going to take your woman… and your lady. And I’m going to enjoy watching you walk into the flames, sacrificing your own life to me, as you try to save them.”
I seethed. My anger and my fear for Esme making it difficult to process his words.
But he didn’t wait or want me to process them. Instead, he pulled a phone from his jacket pocket, tapped on the screen twice and held it up in front of me.
“The Cathedral of Notre Dame is on fire.”
I reeled at the sight of flames licking toward the sky from the roof and scaffolding atop the building.
That was what I’d missed.
He hadn’t planted anything inside the church. He’d built the means of its destruction right on top of it.
Before the news anchor spoke again, Méchant clicked the screen off.
“So, like I told you before, you have the option to kill me right now and fulfill your vengeance.” He looked to his two associates. “At which point, those men will kill you and, more importantly, Notre Dame will continue to burn to the ground.”
I staggered back a step.
“Or, you could walk away from me, choosing to leave me alive, and maybe, just maybe, you might make it to the church to see Esme one last time.”
My gaze which had fallen slightly under the weight of the destruction he’d caused jerked back up to his.
“Where is she?”
He calmly tucked his phone back into his jacket before answering. “I think my son put her in an attic somewhere close to where the flames began.” He sighed and lamented, “Just one more soul trained by Djamel Benghal to inflict terror on this city. From the embassy to Charlie Hebdo to the Hypercacher… and now, his niece sets flame to our beloved cathedral.”
I moved toward him again.
“Remember your choice, Quinton,” he said harshly. “My life or hers.”
There was no choice.
I’d spent most of my life fighting the darkness, but it wasn’t until I met Esme that I realized fighting against the darkness wasn’t the same as fighting for the light.
It wasn’t the same as fighting for love.
And so, I accepted my choice. My past for my future. My hate for my love.
Though it hurt, it would be a lie to say it was hard.
It would be a lie to say it was difficult to turn away from the evil man who’d defined my life for so long, and stalk out of that church with his maniacal laughter chasing me.
And it would be a lie to say I thought of anything or anyone else except Esme as I raced toward the billows of smoke I saw in the distance, rising from the towers of the place I’d called home.
Because the truth was that I loved her, and I would do anything for her.
I would sacrifice anything, including my life, for her.
There was no choice when it came to love. There was only love.
Esme
Whether it was another hundred steps or a thousand to the attic, I’d lost track.
My mind felt as though he’d disconnected it from my body. My jewelry was the only thing that fought the silence with its tiny cries as we finished the countless stairs.
Burn.
Notre Dame.
It was similar to the feeling the day I’d been returned from my third foster home. And finally, Dora, my caseworker, took pity on the little girl who couldn’t understand why no one wanted to keep her and explained, in the gentlest terms possible, that my uncle had been responsible for my parents’ deaths.
I’d been told it was an act of terror. But it had been kept from me that my father’s brother had been the one to perpetrate it.
This moment was similar to that, only worse, because back then there was nothing I could do to change the past. Now, tonight, I knew the terror before it happened.
“No more questions, madame?” Racine jeered at me as he pushed open the door to the attic and we filed into the room.
“Why are you doing this?” I demanded, my shoulders feeling as though they were going to pop as I strained against my captors. “You’re a Frenchman. How could you think of doing this?”
Dumb question. I knew why. But in these situations, it was the only thing in my mind.
Why?
Why would someone ever think—ever want to do this?
There was no reaching him because reaching someone meant connecting with their soul. And Andre Racine, the right hand of the vilest man in France, had no soul.
He whipped around. “I’m doing this to secure my place in the new order. I’m the one who realized your involvement with that disfigured piece of shit, and I’m the one who’s going to fix it… and be rewarded handsomely for not only bringing about the destruction of this place, but also of the cunt who put everything in jeopardy.” His eyes blazed with unabashed, acidic ambition.
I shook my head. “I won’t do it. I won’t help you. You won’t get away with this.” I said it because I had to believe it, and I had to believe it because the alternative was unconscionable—the alternative was the complete desecration of one of the world’
s most beloved monuments.
“You won’t have a choice,” he informed me, nodding to the man behind me to move me into the far corner of the room. “You don’t have a choice.”
I shook my head and insisted, “Quinton will find me.”
He was my only hope.
He snickered. “Is that really what you want?”
My face screwed in confusion as he walked closer to me.
“You see, madame, there are only two scenarios here. Either, Notre Dame burns at the hands of Djamel Beghal’s radicalized niece or…” He paused and brushed my hair from my face. “Or, Notre Dame burns at the hands of the disfigured terrorist who set off a bomb in the Neuf Trois and killed three men in cold blood.”
The pain I felt in my chest was unreal.
I’d hurt before.
I’d hurt from loss, from prejudice. From hate.
And I’d take all of those again. Together. Times a thousand. But this kind of hurt… the kind that wasn’t mine… was the worst.
“Do you still want him to come save you?” he whispered into my ear, and even in the toneless voice, I could still hear the hint of his glee.
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye as I admitted the truth.
“No.”
The word rang out like the deep, somber toll of Emmanuel, signaling my defeat.
I could bear that this was the end for me. But I couldn’t bear that this would be the end for him.
I couldn’t bear the thought of leaving this world, knowing it would blame Quinton.
He was not the monster.
“No, I don’t,” I repeated, meeting his gaze.
“That’s what I thought.”
And then, the explosion of pain on the side of my head registered for a second before it was cut off like someone pulled my power cord from the electrical socket, and everything went black.
I choked violently, hacking out pieces of my lungs with each heavy heave.
The smoke was heavy and thick, the kind that assaults your throat and burns the ash directly into the lining of your lungs.
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 37