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Eight
Benton
Bartholomew was never in the same place very long. He had apartments throughout the city and a large estate farther into the countryside. Unless his enemies had inside information about his whereabouts, it was like pulling a needle from a haystack. They’d be met with the Chasseurs, and even if they did make it out alive, it would all be in vain. Their cards would be on the table, and the consequences would be dire.
From the outside, there was no indication that one of the biggest kingpins in France was behind the sea of windows, drinking, fucking, sleeping, whatever the fuck he was doing. I let myself in, moved past the guards on the bottom floor, and made my way upstairs.
Women were everywhere.
French whores in lingerie were sprawled out in his living room. One lay upside down on the couch, a cigar in her mouth. She looked at me, pulled it out of her mouth, and then blew a cloud of smoke. Another sat with a drink in her hand, her legs crossed, her hair messy like Bartholomew had already had a go with her earlier in the evening. The girls standing at the counter immediately pivoted their bodies to face me, ready to proposition another client.
I didn’t recognize any of them because it’d been seven years since I was last in the game. My bed used to be full of whores, too, in a different time, when it was just me and an obscene amount of money.
I didn’t venture into the hallway because I knew what I would find if I continued—based on the sounds that carried to the living room. A woman moaning like she was there on her own time. Two, actually. And then a loud headboard to accompany it.
I helped myself to a glass of wine and leaned against the counter as I waited for him to finish up.
Like I was a carcass in the desert, the vultures descended. A blonde came first, the most confident one in the bunch, even though I barely gave her a second glance. She positioned herself right in front of me, one hand on her hip, in a black bustier with matching panties and thigh-high leggings.
“It’s Benton, right?”
I took a drink of the Cab and switched my gaze to her.
“Bartholomew paid for us the whole night, so…”
“Leave me alone.”
Her eyebrows rose up her face like she’d never heard that one before. “I think infidelity is good in a marriage. Keeps the man satisfied, which keeps the wife—”
“I said, leave me the fuck alone.”
This time, her pretty face soured, and she strutted off like she was the one who had rejected me instead of the other way around.
The loud ruckus had stopped at some point, and Bartholomew emerged in just his black sweatpants, a gleam of sweat on his chest. He went straight for the wine like it was water after a hard workout. He tilted his head back, opened his throat fully, and took it all in a single swallow. Then he threw the glass against the wall. It gave a loud shatter, but none of the girls reacted, like they were used to this behavior. He wiped his mouth with the back of his forearm then sauntered over to me. “Help yourself—and not just to the wine.”
I set down my glass. “We need to talk.”
“You’re awfully serious tonight.” A few empty glasses sat on the counter, a small pool of red at the bottom of each, old glasses the girls had left when they’d switched to a new drink. He grabbed one and poured the bottle to fill it.
“After a freak breaks in to my apartment, it makes me pretty serious.”
He took another deep drink like there wasn’t already a pool of it in his belly. “What happened?”
“He left an angel statue on her nightstand.”
“That’s it?” He lifted himself onto the counter across from me, his hands gripping the edge as his glass sat beside him. The women seemed to know that this was business talk and kept their distance.
“That’s it?”
“Trying to get all the information before I overreact—like you.”
“If someone broke in to your apartment, you’d overreact too.”
“No, if someone broke in to my place, I’ll kill them. Why didn’t you?”
“Because I wasn’t home, asshole. No one was.”
He grabbed his glass and took another drink. “So that freak came inside when no one was home to leave a toy? Pathetic.”
“Well, my girl is scared.”
“You told Claire?”
My glass suddenly felt heavy in my hand even though it was only half full. I grabbed the bottle and refilled it, just to have something to do with my hands.
Bartholomew could read everything on my face—he just didn’t say it.
“He broke the truce. Now we kill him.”
He gave a slight shake of his head. “Technically, he didn’t break anything.”
My eyes narrowed.
“You told him not to come anywhere near Claire and your girl.” He looked at me over the rim of his glass as he took a drink. “There was no violation.”
