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He fell into the booth across from me, and before his ass even touched the seat, the waitress was there with his drink.
He gave a nod without actually looking at her.
Now we were alone.
He tilted his head back and took a big drink, like it was a shot rather than a glass of whiskey. He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand just behind his thumb then got comfortable in the leather chair, leaning back, looking at me with dark eyes that reminded me of shadows. He wasn’t much of a talker.
Neither was I.
No wonder we got along so well.
After a long staredown, he spoke. “On behalf of the Chasseurs, I demand a cut.” He picked up his glass and held it lazily, almost like it was a cigar between his fingertips. “You need fewer girls, you need to supplement us with something else.” Bartholomew was the leader of the Hunters, an underground criminal organization that was connected to every aspect of the underworld.
And his headquarters were literally underground.
The Parisian Catacombs.
“I don’t have the room.”
“Make room.” He turned colder when he didn’t get the answer he wanted.
“Not possible. You can thank Magnus for that.” We hadn’t spoken since that last conversation, and I had no desire to have another. He was already on thin ice, and then he decided to stomp his foot.
A long stare transpired, everlasting. “What’d your brother do?”
“One of our partners was unable to pay. I ordered his execution, but Magnus decided to spare him because of the circumstance.”
“The circumstance?”
“He’s got a blood feud with someone, and they decided to hit him hard. They took the money, half his men, and even his wife and one of his kids. Said he would produce the money in forty-eight hours.”
“Did he?”
“Deadline is tomorrow. But I don’t care about his sob story. Despite what many people may think, rules aren’t meant to be broken—especially mine.”
Bartholomew gripped his glass as his elbow rested on the table, and his direct eye contact lasted a long time, both hostile and indifferent. He was one of the few men I’d met who was truly impossible to read. It wasn’t a poker face either. He was just complicated. “No, they’re not. I wouldn’t have spared him either.”
“I’ve always liked you, Bartholomew.” I raised my glass before I took a drink.
He didn’t crack a smile. “Magnus has been dead weight for a long time. Cut him loose.”
I took another drink.
“And replace him with me.” He set his empty glass on the table then relaxed in the chair, giving me the floor to respond to what he said—because he was dead serious.
My eyes immediately flicked away and surveyed the scene of the club, seeing the girls cast interested glances our way but never making their way over. Maybe they knew we were the kind of men that would ruin their lives.
“He’s not cut out for this. You know it.”
My eyes moved back to him. Magnus had been pissing me off for a while now. He questioned every decision I made, tried to convince me to change our entire operation even when I explained to him dozens of times his suggestions would never work. When I wanted to scale up the operation, he was full of excuses.
“If he were anyone else, you know you’d kill him.”
Yes, he would have been dead years ago.
“You know what I’ll bring to the table.” His arms rested on the surface of the table, his long sleeves gripping his muscles. His eyes pierced into my face as he stared me down, forcing an answer. “What does he have that I don’t?”
I sucked in a long, slow breath before I finished off my glass. Melanie’s beautiful voice echoed in my mind. “He’s all I have.”
Thirteen
Take The Fall
Melanie
I looked at the clock.
Two a.m.
Fender said he would see me when he returned, but he hadn’t appeared. I spent my night on the couch watching TV in a language I didn’t understand and failed to learn, and when my eyes grew heavy from waiting, I decided to go to bed.
My room was cleaned every day when I had lunch in the garden room, so it was always a five-star hotel experience when I walked inside. The flowers were changed regularly, the sheets always so soft, and the vaulted ceilings made it seem like a palace—just my bedroom alone.
I pulled the sheets back and slipped inside before I turned off the lamp on my nightstand. A little bit of light always came into my bedroom because I kept the curtains parted. I hadn’t had curtains at the camp, so I was accustomed to looking outside as I closed my eyes and went to sleep. I was used to the moonlight, the distant flickers of nearby torches, the sound of the wind as it rattled the glass in a storm.
