The cane is still leaning against my father’s desk.
The sword inside.
Interesting. He obviously knows that this isn’t a friendly visit between two brothers.
“Come in here and talk, then,” he says, gesturing to the study and heading for the desk.
He leans back against it, legs crossed at the ankles, seeming ever so casual as he reaches for the cane, as if he fiddles with it out of habit. Perhaps he does.
I stop in front of him, just far enough so that the sword couldn’t reach me, not about to let my guard down and sit down.
“So what do you want to discuss?” he asks carefully, slowly twisting the horse’s head around and around.
“Pretty much what I told you before,” I say. “I want to quit.”
His brows knit together. “So then quit. I’m not stopping you.”
“And I need for you to get Seraphine a job at the new office in Dubai.”
Now I have his attention. His eyes widen. “What the hell are you talking about? Dubai?”
“We just opened an office there. I think it would be a great environment for her.”
He flips the cane around in his hands, still frowning. “And why are you speaking for her?”
“I think you know why,” I tell him calmly, even though I’m anything but calm inside.
“Are you saying I should reward my cousin by giving her an even better job than the one she has right now? And what would I be rewarding her for? The fact that she thinks our father is a murderer? The fact that she will do anything to prove that he is, even if it means throwing one of us under the bus?”
“She’s not throwing me under the bus,” I tell him. “And depending on what you did and your involvement, she won’t throw you either.”
“What I did?”
“Where were you last night?”
“Here,” he says.
“And let me guess: Father can back you up?”
“And the help.”
“Also under your payroll.”
He studies me for a moment, his grip tightening on the cane. “What are you getting at, Blaise? You want to try to set me up for something I had nothing to do with?”
“It’s just that you said you had been following Seraphine when I was following her. So I have reason to believe that you were following us last night when Seraphine made her payment to Jones.”
He shrugs. “I wasn’t there.”
“Do you know what I plan on doing to you if I find out you were there?”
It’s like he perks up at that threat, like a fucking dog. Seraphine was right about him being a wolf. “Do tell me what you plan to do. I would love to know.”
My gaze hardens. “Were you there or not? So help me God, tell me you didn’t witness everything that happened to us. Tell me you didn’t see what they did, that you didn’t watch it all unfold and didn’t say or do anything.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“I don’t.”
“You know what happened!” I scream at him, spit flying from my mouth. “You knew she was meeting Jones, you knew what was going to happen to her!”
He swallows, shakes his head. “You need to calm down.”
“Calm down?” I yell. “I don’t think I’ll ever fucking calm down again!”
I reach into my pocket just as he slides the sword out of the cane.
But before he can bring it around to point at me, I’ve got the gun aimed at his face.
And my hands aren’t shaking.
“What the fuck,” Pascal cries out. “What the fuck is wrong with you, a gun? Get that fucking thing out of my face.”
“Drop the sword. What the fuck do you think you are, a musketeer?”
But he doesn’t drop the sword, and even though I don’t need to cock the hammer, I do so anyway, for emphasis, my finger firm on the trigger. “I said drop it,” I repeat.
I’ve never seen him so taken aback before.
Good.
He shakes his head in disbelief and then drops the sword and cane so both clatter at his feet.
“If you try and reach for that, reach for anything, I’ll fucking shoot you. I might not blow your pretty-boy head off, but I’ll make sure it fucking hurts.”
“Blaise, you have lost your damn mind,” he says roughly.
“I haven’t. I’m thinking more clearly than ever. So I need answers. I need them now. Tell me what you knew about last night, and I’ll tell if you’re lying. You pride yourself on being such a good actor, but let’s just say this gun is like a truth seeker.”
“I was here last night.”
“But you knew Seraphine was meeting with Jones.”
“Yes,” he says hesitantly. “I knew she was going to pay him and then hopefully drop this whole thing.”
“And how did you know that?”
“How do you think? Father told me.”
I take in a deep breath, trying to put out the fire I have rising inside me, the anger that wants to lash out at the mention of my father. I have to keep a cool head, especially when I’ve got the barrel of a gun aimed at my brother’s face.
“What did he tell you, exactly?”
Pascal doesn’t say anything, his mouth pressed into a thin white line.
I aim the gun at a point just off his shoulder and pull the trigger.
The blast reverberates throughout the room, the bullet going straight into a book, hopefully a rare edition of some bullshit.
“Fuck! Blaise!” Pascal screams, and I have to delight a little in scaring him. That’s not easy to do. “Calm down, okay, just calm down.”
I cock the hammer again for show and grin at him with no love left. “My patience is being tried, brother. What did he tell you?” I grind out the words.
“Okay, okay,” he says, raising up his hands. He licks his lips. “He said that he wanted to scare her. To rough her up a little.”
My heart is beating so loud in my head it’s like I’ve got a drum inside me.
“He said what?” I eke out, my hand starting to shake just a little from the pure fiery anger. “He wanted her roughed up?”
Pascal nods slowly. “I don’t know what happened. I just assumed that meant maybe, uh . . . maybe . . . he—”
“You knew that Jones was going to fuck her up, and you were okay with that? Ignore the fact that she’s your fucking cousin, a girl you grew up with, she’s a fucking woman! What the fuck is wrong with you?”
“I don’t know!” he yells. “I didn’t think it would be bad; maybe just a slap, maybe just to scare her. He just wanted to scare her, okay? I know that much, and I was okay with that because she needed to be scared, okay? She needed to know she had to knock it off before it was too late.”
“And what the fuck is considered ‘too late’ to you? Huh? Because if I hadn’t been there to stop them, then it would have been too late. Do you understand what you’re dealing with here? Do you understand just what you let happen?”
“Whoa, hey. No,” he says, shaking his head. “I didn’t let anything happen.”
“You did. They fucking attacked her. Two other guys, trying to drag her off to a waiting car. What do you think they were going to do with her, huh? Give her a slap?”