Stepbrother Thief (46 page)

“
Maman?
” she asks on the tail end of a yawn, sitting up and shaking out a headful of disheveled curls. Her pink pajamas are covered in wrinkled ruffles and splattered with bows. Pretty sure she made them herself. “
Qu'est-ce qui ne va pas
?”
What's wrong?

I shake my head and shrug my shoulders, like this whole thing is no big deal. At least it's dark enough in here that the sweat beading on my forehead won't show.
Shit.

“Everything's fine,” I say, standing up and taking a few steps back as I search the ceiling for the attic door. I can
feel
Cliff's gaze on me, as powerful and intense as his son's. “You know how they make you do fire drills in school?” I ask as I find the pull and reach up, curling my fingers around the string.

“
Oui.
” Solène yawns again. “But they're never in the middle of the night like this.” I yank hard and the catch comes loose, exposing a wooden ladder that I tug down to the floor, trying to be as quiet and gentle as possible. If there is something happening downstairs, I'd rather not alert whoever might be down there to our presence.

“Cliff, would you be so kind as to lock the door?” I stand up and move over to the French doors that lead out onto the balcony, checking to make sure they, too, are locked up tight. The windows are next.

“
Maman?
” Solène asks again, standing up and giving the ladder a wary look. Cool air drifts down from the open space, reminding me to grab a blanket and a stack of Solène's drawing books so she'll have something to do. I toss a pillow to Cliff, ignoring his pointed stare. He knows better than to push though; we both do.

“Come on, honey. Let's get upstairs and then we'll talk about it.” I keep smiling. Inside, I might be screaming. But just a little bit.

I help Solène up the rungs first and then gesture for Cliff to go next.

“Is Gilleon okay?” Cliff asks as I hand him my cell phone.
I hope so,
I think, and then my heart starts to flutter with panic.
He better be.
I still can't get the image of Aveline's bloody body and swollen face out of my head. Instead of answering Cliff's question, I swallow hard and repeat Gill's instructions—minus the Aveline part. Obviously, she's already here.

A chill trickles down my spine, cold as ice.

“Call Ewan. His number's in my contacts. And if Gill isn't up here in ten minutes or less, call the police.”

“You're not coming?” he asks, his graying brows raised in disbelief. With the moonlight streaming in through the window, his hair looks almost completely white.
This is my fault. I should never have put them through this. I should've gone with Gill and left Cliff and Solène behind.
Gill's right though, I suppose—love
is
selfish.

“Papa, I'll be right behind you; I just need to grab something,” I say, urging him up and glancing at the door for emphasis. “
Go.
Solène needs you.”

Cliff makes a noise of frustration but follows my instructions, reaching down to take the blanket and the books. All the while, he's shaking his head at me.

“Don't do anything reckless, Regina,” he adds, peering down at me with narrowed eyes. If he could, I bet Papa would wrestle me up this ladder. But he can't. We both know that.

When I bend down and grab the bottom rung of the ladder, we all hear it: the doorbell ringing.

Good sign or bad?

“Regina?” I glance at the bedroom door again. This whole situation … it could be nothing. But it could be everything. For the same reasons I told Gill not to leave tonight, not to go to Karl, I make the decision
not
to go up the ladder. I can't lose him. And I can't leave him, not when I have no idea what's going on.

I lift the ladder up, forcing Cliff to move or get hit with it.

“There should be a padlock up there. Use it. Lock the door. Don't open it for anyone but Gill.”

“
Regina,
” Cliff growls, but it's too late. I've made up my mind. I give him one last look and a small smile before I shove the ladder the rest of the way up, letting the hinges do their magic as it slides into place.

“I love you guys,” I whisper up with a small wave, pushing the hatch back up before I can see either of their faces and change my mind.

I pause there in the dark room, listening for sounds above me, but I don't hear anything. Must be well insulated.

I take a deep breath.

Good.

I can do this.
We
can do this.

You are fucking crazy, Regina Corbair.

I bend down and take off my shoes, clutching them in my left hand as I tiptoe to the door and press my ear against it. Again, nothing. Stupid solid wood craftsmanship. With yet another breath, I flick the lock and ease the door open. Voices filter up to me, too many for just Gill and Aveline. I don't know who's down there, but I'll be damned if they get the jump on me.

Leilani is going to freak when I tell her about this … and Gill is going to kill me.

I swallow past the thumping of my own pulse and wipe my sweating palms on the cheerful daisy dress. I'm not a master thief or a black belt or an expert marksman, just a woman in love, but that's enough to push me forward, through my own fear and anxiety. I doubt anyone expects anything from the chick in the Dolce & Gabbana dress, but that's why this idea of mine might,
might,
actually pay off.

For Gill, it's worth the try.

I open the door just wide enough to slip out and think about closing it behind me. But no. No. The rest of the doors on this floor are cracked open. If I close this one and lock it, it'll just make it more obvious that we've got something to hide in here.

I creep over to the stairwell and pause, listening carefully.

Voices, low and dangerous, drift up to me, but I can't make out a single word. My heart's beating too loud, and the sounds are masked by a low moaning that can only be coming from Aveline.
Mon Dieu, this shit is serious, isn't it?

Hardly taking a breath, I move into Gill's room next and fish some keys out of the top drawer on his dresser. In another drawer—a locked one this time—on his desk, there's a small arsenal: a revolver, a pair of hunting knives, and a few semiautomatics. This is only one of a dozen or more caches like this around the house, protected well enough that Solène shouldn’t accidentally stumble across them but easy enough to get to if you know where to look.

The sight of all that firepower stops me cold for a moment, makes my heart stutter a little.
What if I don't load it right? What if I forget to disengage the safety? What if I actually manage to shoot someone?

Focus, Regi. Focus.

I blink away my fears and take a deep breath, dropping my heels on the bed behind me.
Okay, revolver first. Revolvers are easy.
I dig around for ammo and set the box carefully on the desk, hefting the revolver in my palm and flicking my eyes to the bedroom door. In the back of my mind, I'm keeping an ear out for the telltale creak of the bottom stair.
Heh. Maybe I'm a little more perceptive than I thought?
I load the gun with shaking hands and lay it on the desk next to the ammo. I'm only just wrapping my fingers around one of the other guns when I hear it: the sound of someone coming up the steps. No, no, not
someone,
but
two
somebodies.

As quietly as I can, I shove the rest of the weapons back in the drawer before grabbing the revolver and a knife, closing it enough that the lock clicks back into place. I snatch the keys in my other hand and drop down to my knees at the edge of Gill's bed.

Clever, crafty Gilleon has his mattress set on a wood frame surrounded by drawers—a typical design for a platform bed. What's not typical is the false drawer on the right side, the one that's really a small door. I yank it open and shove my weapons in first, sliding on my belly after them. It's a tight fit—an
extremely
tight fit—but my slender frame definitely has some advantages over Gill's muscular build.

I just barely manage to crawl in there and yank the door closed behind me before one set of footsteps moves into Gill's room. Huddled there on my stomach, surrounded by shallow drawers and drowning in darkness, fear sparks bright and hot inside of me, but I don't make a sound. I clamp a hand over my own mouth, my elbow jutting into the back of a drawer as I force myself to take slow, shallow breaths through my nose.

I could be overreacting. Maybe the person walking around my stepbrother's room is a friend of Gill's, an associate. Or hell, maybe it's even Gilleon himself? Still, I don't make any noise, don't call out, don't even twitch a muscle.

This person, whoever they are, checks the bathroom, the closet, walks the perimeter of the bed and even pulls out one of the drawers on the end. I watch, frozen in terror, my body cramping up from the tight quarters as the wood glides out smoothly, exposing some sweatpants and old T-shirts. Light spills in behind the drawer, highlighting the wood floor next to my right elbow.
Shit.
I tuck my arm against my body as tightly as I can, avoiding the splash of color next to me. Seconds pass, long as hours, as I hold my breath and wait for the drawer to push back in.

After a while, the footsteps fade away, but the drawer stays out. At first I'm worried that I've been spotted, that the false drawer at the end is going to be wrenched open and I'll be dragged out screaming, but the steps head into the hallway and towards Solène's bedroom. Instead of feeling relieved, a new wave of adrenaline spikes through me, crashing against my anxiety and masking my fear for the time being.

I reach my left hand out, searching for the weapons I tossed in here and close my fingers around the revolver, dragging it towards me before I search for the knife.
Crap!
I slice my fingers on the sharp blade and hold back a hiss of pain, sliding the knife forward with several silent curses. Using the small splash of light from the open drawer, I check my fingertips and find a nice little slice along my middle and ring fingers. Oh well. Better to have the blade than not.

Taking my weapons with me, I scoot back and ease open the false drawer, listening as I go to the receding footsteps of one of the two people that came up the stairs. When the other follows from the direction of my room a few moments later, I climb out from under the bed, sweeping my hair over one shoulder as I pause and look around the room, trying to find something to put the knife into. I know Gill has loads of holsters and sheaths and straps and whatever-the-fucks around here somewhere.

I don't have the luxury of searching around for long, so I end up grabbing a hoodie off the end of Gill's bed and slipping it over my dress. The knife goes in the front pocket—not the safest place in the world, I know, but where else am I going to put it? It's in that moment that I start wishing I'd paid more attention to Gill's random lessons, that I'd taken more of an interest and asked important questions. Christ, I spent more time alternating between loving and hating him, mulling over our past.

I hope we're still going to have a future after this.

I take another breath and sweep my free hand over my hair, the revolver clutched in the opposite.
Double-action means I don't have to pull the hammer back, right?
Another deep breath. At least I ended up with the revolver and not the semiautomatic; there's a lot more that can go wrong with those. Revolver's about as simple as it gets, that much I do remember.

Right hand around the grip, finger on the outside of the trigger guard.
I force myself to breathe slowly as I adjust my hold on the gun, curling my left hand around my right, pressing my thumbs together. It's been a hell of a long time since Cliff took Gill and me to the shooting range, but I'll be damned if I let my lack of preparation screw this family over.
Damn it, Gill, why didn't you teach me?
But I know why. Gill doesn't want me involved in any of this and maybe, just maybe, Gilleon Marchal is capable of mistakes, capable of being
human—
just like the rest of us.

I shoulder the door to the bedroom open, unwilling to relax my grip on the gun.
If
I need to fire off a round, my only advantage is surprise. I
have
to take the first shot because it'll be all I'll get.

Breathe, breathe, breathe.

I move towards the main staircase and listen carefully. If I had to hazard a guess, the voices are coming from the direction of the kitchen, so the back stairs are out of the question. At the same time, do I take a chance at the front? What if there's someone guarding the door? God. My mind is spinning with movie references, with images of mob bosses with canes and thick glasses surrounded by goons in dark suits. For all I know, the people here are in Max's employ, just like Gill. If I run around shooting people, and I find out they were innocent—well, at least that they were on
our
side—then I'll never live it down. Hell, that might even be the thing that ultimately fucks everything up.

Shit.

I pause at the top of the steps, conflicted and confused. This isn't my thing. I like espresso and warm baguette, shopping in
Le Marais,
designer shoes. I don't do heists or guns or knives.

A small drop of blood drips down the front of my hand and falls to the floor in front of my bare feet.

My knees go weak.

My hands start to shake.

And then I hear the first shot.