Chapter 6 - WHAT HE WOULD BLEED FOR
Lucian did not fall.
That terrified Mireille more.
He stood between her and Victor as though the bullet in his side were merely an inconvenience.
Security slammed Victor onto the table.
Someone shouted for an ambulance.
Mireille caught Lucian when his knees finally weakened.
“Sit down.”
“I am.”
“You’re collapsing.”
“Technical distinction.”
“Stop talking.”
His mouth twitched.
Even bleeding, the impossible man was amused.
At the hospital, Mireille waited four hours.
Margaux sat beside her.
Neither spoke much.
At dawn, a doctor appeared.
“The bullet passed through. No major organs were damaged.”
Mireille’s knees nearly gave way.
She entered Lucian’s room twenty minutes later.
He was awake.
“You look terrible,” she said.
“So do you.”
“I haven’t been shot.”
“You’ve been crying.”
She touched her cheek.
Annoyingly, he was right.
She sat beside him.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“You stepped in front of me.”
“Yes.”
“You could have died.”
“So could you.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Lucian looked toward the window.
“When I was twenty-two, I carried a fourteen-year-old girl out of a burning building.”
Mireille said nothing.
“I remember thinking she weighed almost nothing.”
His voice was quieter now.
“She had blood in her hair. She wouldn’t let go of my coat even after the paramedics arrived.”
Mireille swallowed.
“I don’t remember that.”
“I do.”
He looked at her.
“For fourteen years.”
Something shifted inside her.
Lucian continued.
“When I saw you in your father’s house, I recognized your scar.”
“So that’s why you chose me.”
“At first.”
The final two words hung between them.
“At first?”
He reached for her hand.
His fingers closed carefully around hers.
“I didn’t expect you to argue with me.”
“That must have been devastating.”
“It was irritating.”
“Better.”
“I didn’t expect you to make jokes.”
“I rarely do.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“I notice.”
Mireille looked down at their hands.
“What happens after thirty days?”
“That depends.”
“On?”
“You.”
Not the debt.
Not Edmund.
Not business.
Her.
Before she could answer, Lucian’s attorney entered.
“We found the deposit box.”
The bank was in Geneva.
The key had been registered to Celeste Voss.
Inside was not money.
It was evidence.
Ledgers.
Photographs.
Shipping manifests.
Payments connecting Victor Dane to illegal chemical sales and several organized-crime networks.
But one document changed everything.
A signed statement from Celeste.
Mireille read it twice.
Edmund had discovered Victor’s operation and threatened to report him.
Victor retaliated by arranging the warehouse fire.
Celeste had brought Mireille to Building Seven because she was secretly collecting evidence.
The fire started before they could leave.
Edmund had not caused it.
But afterward, Victor threatened both daughters.
So Edmund lied.
For fourteen years.
He let Mireille believe the accident was meaningless because the truth could have killed her.
Mireille lowered the paper.
“He protected us.”
Lucian’s attorney nodded.
“In his way.”
“Where is he?”
“We don’t know.”
Victor refused to speak.
Then Margaux called.
Mireille answered.
Her sister was crying.
“Mireille.”
“What happened?”
“Dad called.”
Mireille stood.
“Where is he?”
“He said he was sorry.”
“Margaux, where?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
Lucian was already reaching for his phone.
Margaux continued.
“But there was a train announcement behind him.”
Lucian looked at Mireille.
“Which station?”
Margaux repeated what she had heard.
Lucian knew immediately.
Grand Central.
Despite the doctor’s orders, Lucian left the hospital.
Mireille threatened to physically drag him back.
He replied that she was welcome to try.
They found Edmund sitting alone near Track 24.
He looked twenty years older.
Mireille stopped several feet away.
Her father saw her.
His eyes filled.
“I’m sorry.”
She wanted to hit him.
She wanted to embrace him.
She did neither.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because Victor said if I ever spoke, he would finish what the fire started.”
“You let me think you were ashamed of me.”
Edmund’s face broke.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“No, Mireille. I was ashamed of myself.”
She stared.
He whispered, “Every time I saw your scar, I remembered that I failed to get there sooner.”
Mireille’s anger cracked.
Not disappeared.
But cracked.
Edmund reached into his coat.
“There’s more.”
He handed Lucian a flash drive.
“I kept copies.”
“Of what?” Lucian asked.
“Everything.”
Lucian studied him.
“Why disappear?”
“Because Victor has someone inside your organization.”
Silence.
Lucian’s expression changed.
Edmund looked directly at him.
“The attack at your house. The club. He knew everything before it happened.”
Mireille felt cold.
Lucian’s phone rang.
Mrs. Calder.
He answered.
His face became still.
“What happened?”
May you like
Then Mireille heard Mrs. Calder screaming through the phone.
The line went dead.
