Stepbrother Thief (30 page)

He closes his eyes tight and then opens them back up, running his tongue over his lower lip and dragging his hand down his face. I watch in horror as he shuts down completely, defenses sliding back into place as he turns away and takes a few steps towards his half-open closet doors.

“Gilleon, please,” I say, but I'm not even sure what I'm asking with that plea. “Don't close up on me. We can work things out, so you can have a relationship with Solène. And your dad, I'm sure he'd love to spend more time with you. Despite everything he said downstairs, I know he'd like that.”

“And what about you, Regi?” Gill asks, sliding his shoulder holster off and laying it down on his desk. The powerful movements of his shoulders, his biceps, the slide of black and gray tattoos over his skin, it's all mesmerizing to me. “What would you like to happen?” He turns around to look at me, his stoic facial expression chilling me to the bone.

“I …” I reach up and touch the pendant hanging around my neck.

A knock at the door gives us both pause.

“Can you please open up?”

It's Solène.

Gill turns away, lifting his booted foot up onto the chair and reaching down to undo the leg holster that's wrapped around his thigh.

I take several deep breaths to gather myself and open the door a crack.

“May I come in?” Solène asks, as polite as ever, far too mature for her age. I glance over my shoulder at Gill as he lays the holster aside and crosses his arms over his muscular chest. His brows are pinched now, and he just looks sad.

I step back and open the door, allowing Solène to come in, her fingers curled together behind her as she slides across the floor like an ice-skater, skidding along in her black Docs.

“I wish you'd stop fighting,” she says, looking first at me and then at Gill. I open my mouth to apologize, hoping like hell she didn't hear any of the things we said downstairs. I don't want her to have to find out about Gill and me like that. How traumatizing would that be? But, like usual, I'm three steps behind this kid. “Um, if it's about me then I already know, okay?”

“Know what, honey?” Gill asks, his voice softening considerably.

“I found a picture once,” she says and then makes a face, lifting up the front of her shirt and sticking her hands underneath. “It was Regina with a baby inside her. I asked Papa about it, and he said it wasn't his truth to tell, so I figured it out myself.”

I feel the blood drain from my face and before I even realize what I'm doing, I'm sitting on the edge of Gill's bed with my eyes wide open and my lips parted in surprise.

“Anyway, Papa's old, way older than all my friend's parents. Plus, he's Regi's dad so there's no way they'd make a baby together.” She wrinkles her face like she has some idea of what that entails. Holy crap. Did Cliff give her the
talk
? What age is that supposed to happen at anyway? “And there are lots of pictures in Papa's closet of you two hugging and kissing and stuff.” Solène shrugs. “So I guessed I must be Regina's baby. Besides,” she looks up at Gill and points to her face, “we look alike, you and me. You'd have to be blind not to see it.”

Solène smiles at Gill and me, turns on her heel, and leaves.

“I had no idea she'd made the connection,” Cliff says as I pace back and forth in the living room, hating that Gill's still here, standing on the other side of the couch staring right at me.
Just go away and leave me in peace,
I think at him, but he doesn't move. I don't even know if he's blinking. “Yes, she found the picture, but I didn't think it was anything to be concerned about.” He chuckles, like this whole situation is hilarious. “Knowing how intelligent she is, I should've guessed.” He shakes his head and takes a sip of the white wine clutched in his right hand.

“When was this?” I ask, wanting to know how long Solène's known but too afraid to ask her myself. Can you believe that? I'm too nervous to talk to my own daughter about all of this. It's too much. The heist, the shootings, Gilleon, this. I can't take it anymore.

“A couple months before this whole thing started,” Cliff says with a grumble, glancing up and to the left, like he can see his son standing behind him. “But if she's not upset about the whole thing, why impress that sort of emotion on her? Everyone handles things in their own way.”

We all pause at the sound of Solène's door. Her footsteps move down the stairs and she pauses, hanging her head over the banister with a sad puppy dog look on her face.

“Am I in trouble?” she asks, and I can't help it. A laugh explodes from my throat before I can stop it. I clamp a hand over my lips and she smiles. “Can I call you
Maman
now?” I nod but keep my hand right where it is. I'm not sure what expression I'll have when I pull it away. Solène comes down a few more steps and then looks at Gilleon. I feel my heart stop in my chest. “I already call Papa,
Papa
so I've decided that you can be
Père.
Will that work for you?”

“It'll work for me,” Gill says softly, his voice rough and unbalanced.

“I realize that this will be a transitionary period for us all,” she continues as I drop my hand and curl over with laughter, the sound bursting from my throat, half in relief and half in shock. I can't help it. It comes and it just won't stop.

“
Tu es vraiment quelqu'un d'incroyable, mon petit chou,
” I say.
You're an amazing person, my little cabbage.
Yes, cabbage. It's a French thing. Think of it like sweetheart or something.

“
Qu'est-ce qui est si drôle, Maman?
” Solène asks, wrinkling up her forehead.
What's so funny, Mom?
I shake my head, but I can't stop the sound, dropping into the overstuffed armchair to my left. I'm sure everyone thinks I'm crazy right about now, but that's okay. I think we all feel a little crazy sometimes, and if you can't laugh yourself out of a weird, awkward situation like this, then what's left?

“I'm sorry, I just …” I trail off and lift my face up to look at Solène as she comes down to stand next to Gill. He's smiling sadly at me, but that expression shifts when Solène reaches down and takes his hand in hers. My heart catches sharply and I suck in a sudden breath. “I'm sorry, baby. I'm sorry for not telling you, for lying about it, for … just for everything.” Cliff sets his wine down on the coffee table, reaching over to put his hand on top of mine.

I appreciate the support, but I don't need it, not really. I'm actually okay with all of this, really okay. My biggest secret is out and it's no big deal. Well, I'm not naïve—I'm sure we'll have some hiccups down the road—but for today, this is good. This is great even.

“Hey,” Gill says, kneeling down and brushing some dark hair from Solène's forehead, hair that's the same shade as his own. His fingers are so gentle as he touches her, and his eyes … God, those eyes. I've always been a fan of those baby blues. “I know this is all a little weird, and that I haven't been around much, but from now, I'm going to be here, okay? I loved you as my little sister, and I'll love you as my daughter.”

Solène smiles and slides her arms around Gill's neck, hugging him tight.

This is the same man that shot and killed two people just days ago.

Maybe something's wrong with me because … I can't seem to find it in myself to hate him for it.

“Tell me everything.”

I have Aveline cornered, trapped at the edge of the deck, her arms crossed on the wet wood, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. She's wearing a pair of baggy acid wash jeans and a black tank, red hair tumbling down her back in loose, wavy curls. When she turns to look at me, her green eyes are sharp and on alert.

“About?” Aveline asks, sliding her cigarette from her mouth with two fingers. I move over to stand next to her, mimicking her position on the railing.

“Gill wants me to go to dinner with him.” I pause and my lips twitch. “Again. This time he swears that we won't be tailed. Is that because of …” I don't finish my sentence. Don't have to. Aveline knows what I'm talking about.

“Maybe,” she says, tapping her cigarette over the edge of the railing. Ashes drift in the cool air, floating like snowflakes down to the bright green grass below. “Karl didn't expect Gill to, uh, take care of things in as public a place as a hotel. Big risk. Difficult cleanup.” I shudder at the thought of what that might entail.

“So those men weren't trying to …?” I have no idea how much I should say aloud, how much is safe.

“Kill you?” Aveline supplies and I smile tightly, my diamond pendant swinging loosely in front of me. “Not at that particular moment in time, no. I think at this point, Karl's still hoping that Gill will leave the Max bandwagon and come back to him. Your brother's worth a hell of a lot more money than a bag of stupid shiny rocks will ever be. He's a fucking cash cow.”

“That good, huh?” I ask with a sigh. The sound gets caught on the wind and whips up into the trees, their evergreen branches dancing with the rhythm of autumn, the promise of winter. “Is it okay to talk about this stuff outside?” Aveline glances sidelong at me and smirks, standing up and sticking her cigarette back between her red lips. She cups her hands around her mouth and shouts loud enough to make me jump.

“Gilleon Marchal is a master thief!” she screams as I stare wide-eyed and openmouthed at her. Aveline shrugs. “This is too big, Karl's net too wide, for any of these suburban yuppies to be able to do anything about it.”

“Huh,” I glance around anyway, trying to see if Gill's nosy neighbor is looking out her window at us. Instead I find that someone's fixed the gap in the hedge trees by rearranging the branches. Thank God. “So Gill, uh, robs a lot of … jewelry stores?” I ask, knowing how stupid that question sounds, how surreal.

“He works jobs, yeah, but mostly he plans them out. And not just jewelry stores—museums, the occasional bank. Jewelry stores are the easiest though because security is usually lack as fuck. They turn off the cameras at night, leave the merch right there in the display cases, right behind easy-to-break glass. No gates on the front, no security guards, dim lighting. Shit, it usually takes about three minutes to rob one of these places blind. Gill and me, we can work a job by ourselves and come out with bank.”

Aveline takes a drag on her cigarette and shakes her head.

“Your brother though,” she says and then pauses, glancing over her shoulder at the side of the house where Gill and I screwed like horny teenagers, “sorry—stepbrother—he's good, almost too good. He can hit places that nobody would ever dream of aiming for.”

“So what was so special about this last job? That's what I'm having trouble understanding. I mean, the haul was huge, but that doesn't seem to be a motivating factor for either you or Gill. Aveline, he won't tell me, so I'm asking you, woman to woman.” I give her a look and she smiles, red lips twisting into a slight smirk.

“If I tell you his secrets, he'll skin me alive. Look, I get the whole girl power thing and honestly, I'd rather be your friend than his, but I won't piss Gilleon off.” I purse my lips and glance back at the yard. It's a good size, a perfect size really, for a family. My heart constricts a little as I imagine living here with Gill, with Solène. We really could've had a beautiful life.

We still could.

I lean over, putting my forehead on my forearms. I can't believe I'm even considering this. Considering him. Fucking Gilleon.

“All I can tell you is that this job, we couldn't have done it without you. You were the only person with the code to that safe. To get in there and out as fast as we needed to, we needed
you.
” I lift my head up, brows pinched. I think about the store manager—a guy named Bernard Rossi—and I try to think when he gave me the code to the safe. Only … he didn't. He asked me to make up my own code. I just assumed that everyone had numbers of their own, to keep track of everything.

“Why have me set the code?” I ask, completely and utterly perplexed. It doesn't make any sense, none of it does.

“Because,” Aveline says on the end of another drag, “to keep Gill in line, Karl used you. You were his safety net, his security, his ball and chain.” She gives me a sympathy grin and reaches out to pat me companionably on the back. “That's why Karl hired you, you know. He knew his shit was safe with you right there in plain sight, that Gilleon would never do anything to risk you. If Max hadn't stepped in with an offer of protection, you and your family, you'd be dead right now.”