Every morning as I woke, I relived the night of the fire over and over again. Finding her in the attic. On the floor. Barely breathing. I remembered nothing of my own pain but everything about hers trying to get her out of there.
And knowing it was all because of me.
It was because of me that she’d almost died, and though the fire weighed on my soul, it was because of her my heart broke. That day. And every day since. I thought I’d once more lost a woman I’d loved to Méchant and his fires, but the truth was, this time, it was she who’d lost me. And when that realization hit, I realized Esme was better off.
Better off believing I’d died. Safer. Freer.
She could have the kind of life she deserved and not the kind I was destined to lead. Even now, I wondered, could a forgotten man die? If the world hardly knew he existed, did they still feel his loss?
It didn’t matter. My loss didn’t matter.
What mattered was that Esme lived.
Esme lived, and the cathedral, in spite of the savage assault, was still standing.
“You are looking very well,” he uttered, scrutinizing me with the discerning eye of a medical professional. I didn’t know his past or what brought him to the abbey, but he’d obviously been some sort of doctor in a previous life.
I glanced down at my chest, the burn scars still red from where pieces of the decaying cathedral had fallen on me. Most of the scars, though, were confined to my back from passing out onto smoldering remains of the church, my clothes had burned off, and in some spots, Frère Pierre told me the skin had peeled off my muscles when the other agents dragged me from the building.
“I can’t stay here much longer,” I told him, folding my arms over my chest, and walked to the table by my bed. Taped above it were the few newspaper clippings that the monk had brought me about the cathedral when I refused to believe him that it hadn’t completely burned.
“It’s like losing a member of one’s own family.”
“This is the place where we have lived all of our great moments, the epicenter of our lives—the cathedral of all France.”
Realizing I was still alive had almost paled in comparison to learning that she—Notre Dame—still stood.
Even the darkest night will end and the sun will rise.
The spire. The ‘forest’ of the great roof. It was all lost. But the bones… the towers and walls. The stone vaulting and the stained glass. The bones still stood.
Turning back to the monk, I caught the end of his nod and the unfazed expression on his face. He knew I wasn’t going to stay though he’d recommended another month here to make sure my health and strength were completely returned. It wasn’t easy to pull someone back from the brink of death; he didn’t know what the complications of all my injuries would be.
“And when do you think you’ll leave us, Monsieur Quinton?”
I picked up the glass of water on the table and took a sip before looking over my shoulder and replying, “By the end of the week, I think.”
Again, he nodded, but remained silent.
“You aren’t going to ask me where I’ll go?”
For as cryptic as Frère Pierre was with his answers, he was usually very bold in probing with his questions.
“I would ask if I thought you had an answer,” he replied, his stare confident.
I inhaled deeply and then took another drink of water. He wasn’t wrong. I didn’t know yet where I wanted—where I needed to go.
“But, if you are going, then we should take dinner together tonight. There are things to discuss,” he informed me, and I knew better than to ask him to elaborate.
“In the hall?” I asked.
Once I’d healed enough to be mobile, most nights I’d eaten dinner with Pierre and the rest of the monks in the great hall of the monastery. Their company, even if stepped in moral and philosophical discussion, was preferable to the darker memories my mind tended to gravitate toward when alone.
“No.” His answer surprised me. “We’ll walk into the village. I’ll be back in an hour, and we can go together.”
We walked along the old, one-lane paved road that sat elevated next to the Cère river. The water bubbled softly into the evening stillness, filling the air with a cool conversation of its own. I ducked my head to avoid a low-hanging branch from one of the trees lining the sleepy street.
Frère Pierre remained quiet, always relaxed in his perpetual state of pensiveness.
There were things to discuss, but the walk wasn’t the time for them. Like the path to the executioner’s block, all confessions were held until we would reach the platform, and he would speak his piece—and see if it altered the course of my life.
In my pocket, my fingers rubbed over Esme’s necklace. The crescent moon and star a talisman—or perhaps a token of my abstinence. I held it to remind myself why it was better to stay away.
Turning down one of the small side streets, unpaved because it was too narrow for a car to pass, we walked past the collection of bicycles that slept against ivy cushioned walls.
The monk turned at the first break in the wall, a door sunken down two steps from street-level with the name Bonne Maman carved into the wood.
Stone walls, exposed beams, and old furniture filled the dimly lit wine cellar of the restaurant I could hear gently bustling above us. There were only three small tables and hardly enough chairs between them for me to believe this room was used for anything except very private conversations—like those between monks and France’s most secret society.
Opposite the racks of wine bottles, there was a small wood-burning stove, with a pipe that ran up the wall, along the seam of the ceiling, and finally exhausted outside the building. And Frère Pierre walked us to the table next to it, the old chair creaking as he sat and motioned for me to do the same.
I ran a hand through my hair, the length almost unbearably long—one more thing that would be carved and cut before I left the monastery.
The other man sat silently for a moment and I thought he was waiting for me but then I heard the cellar door open and a wiry man with large glasses came quickly but quietly down the stairs, his head tipped down, and approached our table.
“Water and the roast, Luc. S’il vous plaît,” the monk ordered, his familiarity with the man evident.
He must do a lot of business here.
Luc’s head bobbed and then he disappeared as unobtrusively as he came.
“Where were we,” Frère Pierre mumbled, reaching into the leather bag he’d brought with him and pulled out an envelope, the flap tied shut with a string and the name Quinton scrawled on top.
I recognized the handwriting. My father’s.
“Henri told me to give you this,” he began, pushing the envelope across our small table. But, he kept his hand resting on it, preventing me from taking it while he added, “This is your future, Quinton.”
I met his gaze steadily and, when he drew back, I opened the packet.
Information overwhelmed my brain.
Addresses. Accounts. Deeds.
It was all here—and I didn’t realize how much all it was. Henri had told me about the things he’d put aside for me. The properties. The recovered assets and funds. All the things he’d stocked and stored away so I could have a life beyond the Valois.
But this was more than a life. This was several lives.
This was the kind of portfolio I expected to be associated with only the wealthiest of men—not what remained of a monster.
“Frère…”
“Just Pierre here,” the older man muttered, folding his hands on the table and caring more about the expression on my face than what the documents revealed. “He wanted you to start over, Quinton.”
I glanced at him.
The envelope had been sealed underneath the tie, so the monk had no idea of its contents except in general terms—just like I had.
“He brought you to me to heal… and to keep you away.”
My jaw tightened.
&nbs
p; I tried to focus on the relief I felt knowing that the cathedral hadn’t perished—that perhaps, what I’d told the firefighters had prevented its complete destruction. But with every light, there came a shadow. And the shadow was that Méchant was still out there—Hubert was still out there. And they were both using the tragedy to further their plans.
I didn’t know what I was going to do. For so long, my whole life had been centered around revenge—around killing Méchant.
But then I met Esme and, even if she wasn’t a part of my future, that didn’t mean knowing her hadn’t changed its course.
I had to leave the monastery, but I’d yet to decide if leaving meant returning to my failed mission or embarking on something new.
“And if I have business to finish?” I asked through tight teeth.
Pierre reached out and rested his hand on top of mine. “The business of evil will never be finished, Quinton,” he said quietly. “But you… you can be done.” He sighed. “Henri wanted you to have what he never could… a life.”
I stared down at the papers. Photographs of properties that ranged from apartments in the south of France to a small chateau in the Loire valley. Registers for accounts from banks in France, Switzerland, and Monaco.
Henri Lautrec hadn’t just saved my life—he laid before me the foundation of a new one. One where I could do anything. Become anything—anyone I wanted—and never have to worry again.
“You know you need to leave.” He patted the papers. “Here is your answer where to go.”
My tongue felt thick and my lip twitched. “And if I don’t? If I go back?”
Back to her.
Back to Paris. And to Méchant. And, most likely, back to certain death.
The conversation paused when Luc returned with the food and water, the big bowls steaming aromatically. We both took a few bites, eating in silence while the monk let me stew on the consequences of such a decision.
“There is nothing left for you there,” he finally rumbled firmly. “Nothing but death.” His declaration was sharp. “Your father gave you a new legacy, Quinton, and Notre Dame… she gave you a miracle to be able to live it.”
I set my fork down in the bowl, breathing heavily.
“And the woman?” I asked so quietly, almost like I wished I wouldn’t have to hear how much my weak heart still wanted her.
“The definition of sacrifice is giving of what we want for a greater good,” he replied.
She was safer this way—safer by sacrificing a future with me.
“I have to get back for evening mass.” He rose, clearing his throat and gathering his things. Gripping my shoulder, he murmured, “Take this blessing, Quinton—this miracle to be reborn from the ashes. It’s time to be done being cursed.”
And then he disappeared like he always did from my room, before I had a chance to say anything else.
I sat for several minutes once we were done. I sat with the papers—the seeds of my new future spread on the table.
He was right. There was nothing left for me in the ashes.
Collecting all of the documents back into the envelope, I rose. A small commotion above me drew my attention and, instead of walking back out the door we came, my feet carried me to the stairwell to the main floor.
There, like below, the exposed stone of the walls wrapped around the front room of the small inn. A massive fireplace crackled with careful heat, but it was the people that truly warmed the space. I hadn’t been in a room with this many people in a long time.
I watched them for a moment like the stone gargoyles would watch over the crowds outside the church. But I wasn’t stone and the room wasn’t shadowed and, when the first glance of a middle-aged woman sitting with her husband and small son turned to me did a double-take, I remembered the need to hide.
I remembered that no amount of money and no number of properties would erase my past and protect me from this.
Turning my head to the side, I was about to descend the stairs again, having no interest in waiting around for the rest of the room to notice… to stare at my scars, when the small TV behind the bar caught my attention.
My heart stopped, seeing news coverage replaying footage from the fire.
And, like it was a live flame, I was drawn to the heat.
Thankfully, it was only Luc behind the bar, and his gaze never lingered too long on anything, let alone my scars.
The reporter recapped the destruction of the blaze and rehashed the aftermath. Ash and debris. A blistered monument that marked its own grave in the center of Paris. I heard her voice list off countless French companies whose donations poured in for the restoration effort.
Then the image changed to Macron speaking for the press and the public about how France would draw together to rebuild. The president’s voice rang with stately assurance, and the camera zoomed out.
I reached out and gripped the edge of the bar, scanning for any sign of Hubert.
The fire was only the first part of their plan—the demise of Macron was the second. And the French knew best how to keep their enemies closer.
I looked so hard for the face of evil that when my eyes snagged on the image of an angel, it felt like my lungs had been ripped from my body.
Esme.
I’d never miss those green eyes framed by golden skin and midnight waves, and I’d never not feel my entire body tremble at her beauty. Even now—on the old, tiny TV—she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen.
But then, I wondered where her scarf was—where her vibrant statement against laïcité was during a moment when it would be most poignant.
Maybe Macron had forbade it.
But then I realized there was more—more pieces missing of her personality that she wore like tattoos. The nose ring and the earrings were gone and her neck was bare. I shoved my hand in my pocket, feeling for her necklace—the Esme I loved would’ve found something else to wear, something else to make a statement.
Her scarf was gone. Her chimes were silenced. And her clothes… they were black and somber. But there was too much else missing for me to attribute that to grieving for the broken cathedral—or for the man she’d lost. The neckline of her dress was high—conservative—but it couldn’t hide the natural curves of her breasts—it couldn’t hide the way she’d look like temptation no matter what she wore.
Ma gypsy had lost her spirit.
And the thought that it was because of me—because she thought I was dead—almost crippled me until I watched a hand appear on her shoulder. Not in comfort. Not in comradery. It was a hand of possession.
My heart stopped, confusion and anger and jealousy splitting my heart in two.
Four months, and she’d moved on.
The man I told myself I would be—the one who wanted her to move on with her life—he died in that moment. There was no other Quinton except the monster who wanted her. The gargoyle who wanted his gypsy. Nostrils flaring with each heated breath, I focused on the screen like I could force the camera to pan with my mind so I could see all of him.
And it did.
Wider and wider, so I could follow his arm to his shoulder. His shoulder to his suit-clad chest. And then up to his—
My wounds erupted with a new kind of fire. One that was invisible though it burned right to my bones, singed my marrow, and ignited my blood.
Betrayal.
And I realized death would’ve been preferable.
For the first time in my life, I cursed God, Notre-Dame, my father, and all their fucked-up miracles for saving me in that bloody burning church. Because I would’ve rather died than live to know this—to know that the woman I loved, the woman I risked everything for, was now on the arms of the man who’d organized its destruction for his own benefit. The man who’d used her and put her in the church to take the fall, reducing her to nothing more than a terrorist.
Like a knife straight through my chest, I stared at Esme wrapped in the embrace of Gustav Hubert.
And I wondered if this was how
my father felt when he’d learned my mother had married Marcel Méchant—how he felt to know the woman he loved married the evilest man in France.
The difference was my mother hadn’t known who Méchant really was. Esme… she knew Hubert. She knew his relationship to Méchant, and still she chose him.
All this time, I thought she wasn’t the one to be trusted. It turned out it was my own heart that was the traitor, falling for something that could wound me so harshly.
I’d died to save her, and in return, she’d lived only to fall into the arms of my enemy.
I looked down at the envelope in my hands and then took the few steps over to the fireplace and tossed it in the flames. As the paper crinkled and turned black, I felt the edges of my soul and my pain singe with the same devastation. The rage burned away all thought of a new start—there was no future for the forgotten man.
The truth was the same as when I ran into that burning monument—there was either revenge or there was her. Before they’d been separate destinies, now, their paths had merged.
I would find the woman who’d stolen and broken my heart, and I’d make her pay for this tragedy they called love.
Keep reading here…
Standalones
Reputation
Redemption
Revolution: A Driven World Novel
Hypothetically
Carmel Cove Series
Beholden
Bespoken
Besotted
Befallen
Beloved
Covington Security Series
Betrayed
Bribed
The Sacred Duet
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy
The Heartbreak of Notre Dame
The Odyssey Duet
The Fall of Troy
The Judgment of Paris
Country Love Collection
Tequila
Ready to Run
The Gargoyle and the Gypsy: A Dark Contemporary Romance (The Sacred Duet Book 1) Page 41