“We thought we’d locked it down, but when interrogating Caruso, we learned he couldn’t possibly have set up the ring and it was far bigger, more involved and better organized than we realized. It’s definitely international and our ports are still being used. We don’t know how. Someone here is betraying us. There is a hit out on Val, Dario and . . .” He hesitated.
Brielle’s head went up alertly, her heart nearly stopping. If blood could run cold—hers did. “Not you. They wouldn’t dare. If they dared to kill you, Elie, they would bring every Archambault in France down on them. No one would live through it. Don’t they know that?” Her breath caught in her throat waiting for his answer. No one would dare go after the most powerful family of shadow riders. It was sheer suicide. Her heart pounded so hard, she pressed her palm over it trying to calm herself before she had a heart attack.
“We figure the Ferraro family wasn’t included on the hit list because whoever put out the contract fears them. They don’t know they are shadow riders, of course, because no one does. They only know you don’t fuck with them. They know I associate with the Ferraros, Val and Dario, but how would they know the reputation of an Archambault?”
She was silent, studying his face, wondering how she could make the world aware of the power of the Archambaults without giving them away. Everyone feared Ferraros, why not the Archambault family? “How can you be so calm about it, Elie? We could be sitting out here and someone could use a high-powered rifle and shoot you.”
“They could try. We’re going to find them. It isn’t the first time someone wanted me dead. Or Val, or Dario. I just found out the night before the ceremony. We were already married or I would have put off the wedding until I took care of this so you would be safe.”
“I’m not worried about me.” She wasn’t. She wasn’t a threat to Elie’s enemies. At least they didn’t know she was. Not yet. “Tell me how you want me to help you. If you give me a place to start, I can track them.”
“I want to think this through very carefully before we make a move. As for you working for Val and Dario, that’s going to be only under certain circumstances. It would be extremely dangerous work.”
She ignored the warning and obvious ploy at changing the subject. “Does Stefano know?”
Elie hesitated. “Emmanuelle knows, so I presume she would tell him.”
Brielle scowled, her fingers tightening around his. “Elie, you can’t take chances with your life like this. Having someone ruthless enough to be involved in human trafficking put a hit out on you is very serious. You have to know that. Human trafficking is a billion-dollar industry now and globally one of the fastest-growing criminal enterprises. Whoever these people are, if you’re threatening that kind of income, they’ll do anything they can to remove you.”
Elie leaned close to her, his dark eyes moving over her face a little too sharply. “Just how do you know all this, Brielle? When did you get involved in human trafficking? So much so that you can rattle off statistics?”
“Don’t turn this around on me. I’m not the one with the hit out on me. You’ve already taken shadow riding away from me. Don’t even try to take away my right to be just as concerned for my husband as he is for me.” She jerked her hand away and stood up. “In fact, I’m uncomfortable sitting out here in the open. I think I’ll go in and get a fresh cup of coffee. Do you have food in the kitchen? I can make us breakfast.”
Elie stood up as well, towering over her as he followed her into the house. “You neglected to put down on that very detailed questionnaire, Brielle, that you have a bit of a temper. I noticed it when you stopped the ceremony. You might have confessed.”
She glared at him over her shoulder. “Had I put that down, would it have deterred you?”
“Absolutely not.” His voice dropped an octave, and he looked so sinful, she had to glance away. “I find your little fiery spurts of temper sexy as hell.”
Feigning annoyance, she stomped into the kitchen, dumped her cold coffee in the sink and yanked open the refrigerator to survey her choices. Everything about Elie was sexy as hell. He was a walking temptation, yet he hadn’t tried to consummate their marriage. She might have to hit him over the head with a frying pan soon if he didn’t take action, especially if he had a hit out on him. What if they killed him before she became his official wife and she never got a chance to live out her fantasy? What then? She wanted to ask him that question and make him laugh, but she was too upset with his stupid, macho, cavalier attitude.
“I’m going to tell Stefano myself,” she decided, pulling out eggs and cheese.
“We can discuss that further after we eat.” He reached around her to add several containers of presliced vegetables to the cheese and eggs she had set on the cutting board in the center island.
“Let’s talk about the possibility of you working for Val and Dario in the capacity of an investigator. They have a young man already working with them. They trust him completely and he’s really good at what he does, but he’s overworked. The problem you’re going to run into, Brielle, and I have to know you can handle it, is that most of the things Val and Dario do are illegal. You have to be okay with that. You can never repeat anything you hear or see in their meetings. It would get us both killed.”
She flicked him a quick glance while she looked through the drawers and cabinets to familiarize herself with where everything was kept. “The rules don’t sound any different than those in the rider world.”
“They aren’t actually,” he assured. “But as a rule, most of the time, our women are sheltered from seeing the brutal reality of our world.”
Brielle paused as she placed a bowl on the center island and met his gaze. “I took quite a few rotations as a rider, Elie. I’m an assassin. I think that’s considered brutal by most standards.”
He shrugged his shoulders. “Sometimes prisoners have to be taken in order to find out necessary information. Each family has had to interrogate those prisoners. Were you made aware of that?”
Brielle cracked open eggs into the bowl, keeping her head down in order to prevent him from reading her expression. Her hair was drying rapidly in the warm air, curling every which way in a chaotic riot of waves and spirals to fall around her face, helping to hide from him.
“Mmm.” She whipped the eggs and then turned away from him to the stove, where she’d been readying the omelet pan.
“That doesn’t really tell me anything.” There was amusement in Elie’s voice.
She wasn’t exactly sure why that little masculine note of his made her want to smile. “Did those training me reveal that sometimes prisoners were taken under extraordinary circumstances? Yes. That was actually said. No one said what those circumstances were or what was done with the prisoner.”
“But you had an idea,” he prompted, handing her the vegetables.
“Yes. I’m pretty certain anyone with a brain could have figured it out, Elie, especially when the prisoner never resurfaced.”
“When Val and Dario are hunting for a traitor, or they call a formal meeting, they are looking for something specific. The investigators will be listening and jamming cell phones, sometimes hacking into them. Whatever is seen or heard stays there. If a traitor is discovered, Brielle, it can go bad right there. You might witness the matter being taken care of. There can be no question of your loyalty. You can’t agree to work for them and not be one hundred percent certain you can be loyal.”