Leon paced behind the chair where he’d been seated. His brow furrowed as he began to talk. “Jezebel North made a name for herself because she refused to go away quietly. Society fucked her over and she made it her goal to return the favor. She worked hard to learn things. Ain’t no better way to learn secrets than from a man about to come. Hell, he’ll say anything.”
Speaking of which...
I looked down at my wristwatch. “I have a bride upstairs and this conversation will wait.” I turned to Leon. “I want you to think on this. You’ve been around these parts and have connections. There isn’t a square inch of the seventeen wards you don’t know. If Jezebel is here, where is she hiding?” I spoke to both of them. “Keep tails on Boudreau and Ingalls after they make it out of the bayou. Maybe they’ll take us to her. Check Ruth’s phone records and the house phone. Leon, I also want to hear all you have to say about Jezebel, just not now.” I thought for a moment. “Miss Guidry won’t tell me anything about her; my concern is that she’ll tell Emma. Fuck. We’ve wasted time concentrating on Kyle when who we should have been trying to find was her. We only have ourselves to blame.”
“We weren’t expecting a woman,” Noah said.
“She ain’t no ordinary woman,” Leon said wistfully.
After checking the camera in the outer room, I hit the button to open the door. The bookcase moved. I stood and began walking that way.
“Boss,” Noah said, “Henri?”
“It’s my fucking wedding night. I’m feeling generous. Besides his fuck-up gave us some needed information. Warn him. If he does it again, he’s done. And as for this house, I want the guards doubled. No one is getting in who isn’t approved. Is that clear?”
Both men nodded as they followed me from the office.
Emma
Too many emotions fought for dominance as I stared into the courtyard two stories below. The Ramses family crest changed color as bubbles floated to the top of my champagne flute. Ian had brought up the bottle only to learn Rett had left. Maybe because it was my wedding and I was the bride, or because my new husband had left to tend to fires, or perhaps it was learning that my business partner who I would begrudgingly call my friend was deceased, I couldn’t say for sure what exactly prompted my drinking spree. I just knew that I wasn’t a big drinker and the more of the champagne I consumed, the less I thought about all the reasons to drink.
Instead, I focused on what had occurred near that fountain, the vows Rett and I had spoken. Knowing that neither of us had rehearsed somehow made the vows even more special, as if there hadn’t been time to build our feelings up into something that society deemed appropriate. The words we spoke were simply honest thoughts given from one to another without the fanfare of a large church or hundreds of onlookers.
Rett and I both admitted to our shortcomings as husband and wife. Those weren’t meant as an excuse for future behavior or a negative assessment of what was to come. Our admissions were a reminder that this relationship and the deal we’d made would take time.
As I swirled the remaining golden liquid, I told myself that repeatedly: time.
It was one thing I had in abundance.
Truly, to look around at the house, I had many things. It didn’t occur to me until after Rett was gone that we didn’t sign a prenuptial agreement. It was one of the many questions I had waiting for the right time.
There it was again: time.
Another check of the computer’s corner clock told me the time was nearing midnight. If Rett didn’t return soon, our wedding day would be over.
As I sipped the champagne, I shook my head at the man I’d married. I’d already told myself he was a master at manipulation. His rule upon leaving was another example. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that his forbiddance was a seed of thought that sprouted within my mind. Yes, I’d considered defying him, not to learn the penalty but to relieve the pent-up frustration he left behind. It was as I was washing the makeup from my face and combing out my long hair that I saw his command for what it was—a diversion.
By thinking about the sexual need he’d left unattended, I wasn’t thinking about what took place following our private ceremony. I wasn’t rehashing my brother’s words about Ross or his plea for me to speak to Jezebel, the woman he called the mother of both of us.
Sadly, with time my thoughts did drift from away my physical needs to revisit what happened.
I was left wondering who I should believe and who warranted my anger: Rett or Kyle and Liam. The question boiled down to who was telling me the truth. Call me naïve but I wanted to believe the man I’d just married. I couldn’t bear to imagine that Rett was responsible for my abduction and the degrading way I’d awakened. I also knew without a doubt that he was the one who saved me, who covered me with his shirt—literally off his back—and carried me to safety.
As the last five weeks rewound through my mind, I couldn’t come up with a single time Rett had lied unless omission counted—Ross’s death.
I recalled times Rett hadn’t answered my questions and instances where I’d pushed for more, but never had I caught him in a lie. When it came to Kyle, I could go back a decade and make a long list of lies or untruths. Of course, those didn’t really count. They were fabrications spoken between siblings. The world dubbed them “white” lies as if those were better than other options.
I recalled the time Kyle had eaten the last brownie and blamed me and the instance when he purposely recorded over my favorite show and blamed it on equipment malfunction. Neither of those occurrences were earth shattering, and yet they were both untruths.
And none of them—not one—compared to the biggest lie of all, making me believe that he was deceased, letting me mourn, and presumably watching as I tried to survive without my family.
Liam wasn’t any better—my heart told me he was worse.
Had Liam’s lies began when we first confronted our feelings?
The lies he told didn’t have the innocence of sibling rivalry. No, Liam’s untruths were the most heartbreaking, the promises of forever, the one that seduced a girl into believing she was a woman and taking her most prized possession. Yes, he’d taken my virginity—or more accurately, I’d given it—but that wasn’t what I missed; the severing of a membrane wasn’t as important as the object he took.
As the doorknob to the hallway clicked, I felt the void of what I’d given Liam long ago—a hole within my chest, the place where my heart should be.