Revenant paris mob book.., p.1
Revenant (Paris Mob Book 2), page 1
Revenant
Paris Mob Book Two
Michelle St. James
Blackthorn Press
Contents
Revenant
Copyright
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Rule
Links
Also by Michelle St. James
Revenant
Paris Mob Book Two
Michelle St. James
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright 2016 by Michelle St. James aka Michelle Zink
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Isabel Robalo
ISBN 978-0-9975464-5-3
1
Charlotte Duval sat in the car with the windows open, the ocean crashing onto the beach below, as she looked through the binoculars. The house was huge, a sprawling estate with ivory stucco and a tile roof in the small town of Miravet on the coast of Spain. The size of the property and its relative isolation made it difficult to see anything from the road that wound past the property.
Thankfully, she had the blueprints.
They hadn’t been easy to get, especially with her rudimentary Spanish. But she’d managed to sweet talk an older gentleman in the town’s building permit office, a location she’d only found after several halting conversations with locals. It had been hard to act nonchalant when she hardly knew the language, but she'd finally landed on the idea of calling a real estate office. She’d told them she was an American looking for property on which she could build a house, then spent two afternoons touring tracts of land outside town, asking questions about the building and permit process in Spain.
After that, it had taken three staged run-ins with Pablo, the manager of the permit office, plus a professed occupation as an architect with a special fondness for the modern Spanish style. He’d been proud, if a little nervous, to show her the original plans for Graciela Perez’s estate. Charlotte had even managed a snapshot on her phone when she knocked a cup full of pens to the floor, sending poor Pablo to the beige tile to retrieve the runaway writing implements.
The plans hadn’t helped her get closer to the house, but they had given her an idea of which side to focus on when she was observing the estate. It was better than nothing.
She panned to the living room at the front of the house, watching as the room came into view. Sometimes she caught a glimpse of Graciela there, standing on the terrace and looking out across the sea. It didn’t help Charlotte’s cause; she still had no idea how to approach the actress about Tucker’s Cross. But it made her feel like she was close to a solution, that a glimpse into the private life of Graciela Perez would somehow tell her how to approach the other woman.
But the room was empty, the sun just starting to slant over the big open doors separating the terrace from the living room. She put the binoculars down and drew in the briny sea air as she closed her eyes.
It wasn’t easy being here. It was too much like her little cottage in Malibu, Miravet’s beaches too much like the stretch of sand where Christophe had told her they would find a way to be together.
It hadn’t been true. All the hope and promise of that night had disappeared in the wake of the invasion at Randall Ayers’ house and the realization that Christophe’s brother, Bruno, was behind the murder of Stefan Baeder.
She opened her eyes and looked out over the sea, imagined the cross still covered by its depths. It had been that way for more than three hundred years until Teddy Tucker found it in the wreckage of a sunken Spanish galleon. The cross was a relic from another time, its gold frame embellished with emeralds. It had been donated to a museum in Bermuda where it was thought to have remained until the day in 1975 when they realized it had been replaced with a fake.
It had been missing for over forty years.
Stefan Baeder had devoted his life to finding it, and he had been close before Bruno Marchand had him killed. The determination to finish his work, to follow the trail until they could follow it no more, had united her with Christophe for a time. It had also ignited a passion she hadn't known existed inside her.
It had taken her by surprise: that she could fall so totally under someone’s spell. That she could give herself so completely to someone. That she would entertain the thought of leaving behind her career as a Curatorial Assistant in L.A. to be with him.
Most of all it had taken her by surprise that she could be so like her mother.
What had surprised her even more is that she could feel all these things for a man like Christophe Marchand. A criminal. A man who loved beauty beyond reason. Who relished perfection. Who would only see her as another trophy to decorate his houses. His arm. His life.
Except he hadn't seemed that way once she'd gotten to know him. Not with her. She'd found kinship in their shared love of art and history. Had been able to talk to him about everything from Hiler's murals to the merits of Art Deco furniture.
But it had been their time in bed that had really brought her alive.
It was then — his hands on her naked body, his mouth on her fevered skin — that she’d felt the power of their connection. It had been elemental. Beyond words. They hadn’t even spoken of it until that night on the beach in Malibu when he’d confessed his feelings, and even then the conversation had been restrained.
She'd understood perfectly. She’d never felt the need for words when she was moved, and they’d kept their confessions simple — that they had feelings for each other they hadn’t expected, that they didn’t know how to reconcile their lifestyles, that they would try anyway. It hadn’t been concrete, but she’d known in her soul that they’d been fated to meet, and she’d trusted in destiny to see them through.
Ducunt volentem fata.
The fates lead the willing.
The words had been inscribed on the ring that had started their search for Stefan Baeder. The one that had led them to seek the cross. They’d followed the trail to Randall Ayers’ estate in L.A., and then everything had been scattered to the wind when Christophe’s brother held a knife to her throat. They had shared one more night of passion in the house overlooking the water in Malibu. In the morning, he’d been gone.
She thought she’d been all right with it. Had understood Christophe’s inclination to leave, to protect her from his brother — and maybe himself — by putting miles and miles between them.
But it hadn’t been that simple.
She’d gone back to work at the Getty. Had tried to immerse herself in the installation of the Theodore Rousseau exhibit. Had attempted to spend more time with her mother, to be more sympathetic to the neurosis of an aging actress in a society that valued youth above all else.
It hadn’t worked. Nothing had been the same. She hadn’t been able to concentrate at work. Had found her few friends boring and shallow. Had found her house — the little cottage overlooking the beach that had sheltered her through so much — lonely and too quiet.
A month after Christophe left, she said goodbye to her life. She’d taken a leave of absence from her job knowing full well it might not be waiting for her when she returned. She’d packed up the little house. She’d said goodbye to her mother. Then she’d bought a one-way ticket to Reus, the airport nearest to Tarragona and Graciela Perez’s estate.
She hadn’t known Graciela Perez’s exact address then. She’d banked on being able to find it when she arrived in Tarragona.
She’d been right.
She’d been in Tarragona for nearly two months now, and while she wasn’t sure how she would proceed, how she would go about asking Graciela Perez if she was in possession of Tucker’s Cross, she knew that this was where she belonged.
For now at least.
A burst of wind rushed in through the open window. It caressed her cheek, and for a moment, she could have sworn she’d heard Christophe’s voice on the breeze.
Darling…
She remembered everything. Had replayed every moment in her mind until their two weeks together was like a book she’d reread time and again. She could conjure the feel of his hand on her stomach, steadying her body in the moment before he lowered his mouth to her sex. She could remember the exact scent of him as he moved over her. Could remember the way his body looked joining with hers. The way his lips felt when he kissed her, gently at first and then more urgently, his hands slipping i
nto the hair at the back of her head as his tongue met hers.
She drew in a breath, silently hoping the ocean air would banish him from her mind, though she knew it wouldn’t last long. She would think about him as she walked the streets of Miravet, as she wandered into the galleries dotting the old town. She would think about him as she lay in the little bed of her rented room while trying to fall asleep.
Would dream about him once her mind finally let go of consciousness.
She just wanted to be free of him, if only for a moment.
She picked up the binoculars and trained them on the living room of the Perez estate. And there she was. Graciela Perez, her voluptuous body barely visible through the fabric of a long white dress, her dark hair blowing in the breeze as she passed onto the terrace. Charlotte watched as she leaned on the railing, her eyes trained on the horizon, the sun lighting the water gold.
Was she thinking of a lost love, too? Had she kept the cross because it had been given to her by Randall Ayers before their messy, public divorce? Or had she gotten rid of it? Cast it back into the sea of lost and stolen art that was traded in the world’s most expensive homes, the most secretive circles of collectors and aficionados of art?
Charlotte didn’t know, but soon it would be time to find out.
2
Christophe Marchand watched as the coast of Spain appeared out the window of the private plane. He couldn’t look at the sea without thinking of her.
Charlotte. His Charlotte.
He still thought of her as his even though he’d given up his claim when he’d left her, naked and sleeping, the morning after his brother tried to kill her. There was no help for it. One thought of her, of her delicate face and exquisite body, and he could only think MINE.
It was stronger than anything he’d ever felt. Stronger than the pull to the estate on Corsica, which had been in the Marchand family since the 1800s. Stronger than his attachment to the antiques and art he’d painstakingly collected to make up for those that had been sold by his father to settle countless alimony demands. Charlotte was the finest work of art he’d ever seen.
And the only one that was unobtainable to him.
He missed her with a persistent ache in his chest. Like someone had drained him of something vital. Something necessary. Like he was trying to stay alive, to keep moving, without a vital organ.
There was a time when he’d tried to deny it. When he’d told himself he would get over her.
That time was long past.
He’d grown comfortable with his sorrow. Had come to need the constant presence of Charlotte’s memory. It was the closest he could come to having her with him, and while it was nowhere near as satisfying as feeling her body against his, running his hands through her hair, seeing her smile, it was better than nothing. He held it close like a rare and valuable object. Guarded it with his life.
“Getting ready to land, boss.”
Christophe looked up as Julien took the seat across from him and buckled his seat belt. His instructions to his second-in-command had been specific; keep an eye on Charlotte Duval. Make sure she was okay. But tell him nothing unless she was in danger.
He’d seen the expression of worry in Julien’s eyes when he’d given the instructions. Had known his friend wanted to help him. Julien had even approached him two months earlier, asking if he was sure about the instructions. If Christophe was positive he didn’t want to know anything.
Christophe hadn’t been sure. Not at all. But it was one thing to hold Charlotte’s memory close and dear — it was another to hear about her in real time. To know how she was spending her days.
To know how she was spending her nights.
It would be too tempting to board his plane, fly across the ocean, take possession of her all over again.
And that wouldn’t be best for her. It wouldn’t be safe.
He watched out the window as the plane banked toward Reus, the Mediterranean disappearing as they headed toward the runway. It was time to put his thoughts of Charlotte aside. Or to try and put them aside at least.
He turned his thoughts to business, the one thing that had occupied nearly as much of his mind as missing her. Things had deteriorated rapidly upon his return to Paris. The glitches that had seemed small when they first investigated them — the intercepted shipments, the missing money, the high rate of attrition among their men — had been more substantial when they’d given them a closer look.
And they’d only gotten worse in the three months since he’d returned.
There was the seizing of a shipment at Bayonne, an obvious tip-off to the authorities that even Christophe’s significant influence — and money — had been unable to avert. There was the execution-style killing of three underlings in the suburbs, the style and substance of which made it obvious it was a mob hit.
Except his was supposed to be the only organization in Paris.
There was a break-in at the cyber lab during broad daylight, the theft of money at one of his biggest book-making enterprises, the destruction of property at several establishments known to belong to him.
And it wasn’t just Paris. Farrell Black reported the same thing in London, and Luca Cassano had gotten wind of similar problems in New York, which had gone to shit since the departure of Nico Vitale.
None of it was good. And while normally Christophe would have been angry, determined to stamp out the rebellion at any cost, the unrest had an unexpected twist.
His brother.
Bruno had been missing since the day in L.A. when Christophe had shot him in the leg to prevent him from slicing Charlotte’s throat. Christophe hadn’t seen him in Paris or Corsica, and their father had said the same thing when questioned. A man meeting Bruno’s description had been seen at a couple of the scenes of disobedience, but otherwise, he had turned into a specter.
Christophe had spent the last months digging deeper into every aspect of the uprising, comparing notes with Farrell and Luca, trying to figure out who was really behind it. Bruno had always been ambitious. But he was also lazy. He wanted things — he simply didn’t want to work for them. And while Christophe wouldn’t disparage his brother’s intelligence — they’d both attended the same boarding schools — he didn’t think Bruno had the patience and foresight to stage this kind of coup. And he definitely didn’t have the money to stay hidden for three months in Paris.
Which meant he was being funded by someone else.
But weeks of running down leads had gotten them nowhere. They had looked into small time criminals and those who had tried to make plays for their territory after the Syndicate went down. All of them had come up empty. Every time they thought they had a promising suspect — someone with enough money, enough power, enough patience and ambition — they found evidence to prove they weren’t involved.
The plane took a sharp downward turn, and Christophe watched as the tarmac rose to greet them, the setting sun casting the town of Tarragona in shades of gold. It was foolish to be here, and he’d been relieved when Julien hadn’t questioned his decision to come to Spain. He should have been back in Paris, trying to unravel the mystery of their competitor.
But he’d grown weary of it. There was no beauty in money, in stolen goods, in the endless logistics of moving cargo to and fro, in collecting money from those who owed it. He missed the beauty of his quiet world, and the pieces he already owned now did little to inspire him. He needed to renew the spark of inspiration, to remind himself why he’d gotten into the business in the first place.
To restore the Marchand legacy. To return their estate to its former glory. To surround himself with beauty.
He couldn’t have the woman of his most passionate desire, but he could follow the trail of the cross. Not for himself. But for her, and for all who deserved to witness it.
There was no guarantee Graciela Perez still owned it, but the painting of her wearing the cross in the home of Randall Ayers was the only lead Christophe had, and Graciela had retreated to her estate in Miravet since her divorce.
It was worth a try. And if he managed to find the cross, if he managed to return it to the museum in Bermuda, perhaps once day his Charlotte would visit. Perhaps she would look at it through the glass and think of him.
