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“What are you thinking, Q?” Tess asked quietly. “I know that look and it’s not good.”
Ignoring my meddling little wife, I locked gazes with my half-brother and said the words that would ultimately break him or save him. “You want to belong? You want a ready-made family that sees you and accepts you? Fine.”
Henri sucked in a harsh breath. “Really? Fuck, I can’t thank—”
“There’s a club. It’s called The Jewelry Box. It’s run by a sadist called Victor Grand. I’ve been trying to bring him down for years. I don’t know where his club is, but I do know he’s trafficked hundreds, possibly thousands, of girls and boys through his doors. No one has ever been found. All of them lost without a trace. I can’t touch him because I have no one to infiltrate his operation. His intelligence is clever and always seems to find a link between the mercenaries I send in and me. He’s ruthless, calculating, and a dangerous son of a bitch.”
“Q…don’t say what I think you’re about to say,” Tess murmured. “Please?”
“I will welcome you with open arms, brother.” I smiled coldly. “All you have to do is prove yourself.”
“Prove myself?” Henri asked, equally as coldly. “Prove myself how?”
“Go to Paris. Befriend whoever you need to befriend to get an invitation into The Jewelry Box. I’ll put a tracker on you and, if you’re welcomed into this sordid, sickening world, you will lead me right to his estate and will help me exterminate him, once and for all.”
“You want me to infiltrate a sex ring?” Henri’s face went white. “I’ve just told you why I can’t be around that sort of thing. Why I’m here instead of in a ditch somewhere. I-I wouldn’t be able to survive the temptation.”
I shrugged. “That’s your problem, not mine. You asked to be accepted. I’m saying I’ll accept you, but only if you prove that you’re like me. That you suffer the same desires, drown beneath the same darkness, yet you’re strong enough to stay in the light. It takes monumental strength to survive the curse we’ve been given. And if you’re too weak, then…I want nothing to do with you.”
Wrapping my arm around Tess, I led her toward the exit. Before heading into the foyer and the dining room beyond, I turned to look back at Henri. “You can think it over tonight. You can have dinner with us. I’ll give you a bed. I’ll tolerate your presence. But until you prove that you aren’t like our father—that you won’t give in and become him. That you’re better than all the evil swimming in our veins…you won’t be permitted to stay or belong.”
Henri raked a hand through his short hair. “And if I don’t? If I refuse to infiltrate this club? If I know in myself that I’ll fail? What then?”
“You’ve just shared your darkest secrets. You made the choice to come to a stranger’s house and divulge things that honestly makes me want to kill you. I see what you are. I see you’re telling the truth. And really…the kindest thing I can offer you is a bullet. But…you get one chance. One chance to prove you have the desire to stay good. If you do, then you’ve bought yourself some time to earn my trust. But if you don’t do what I ask…if you don’t agree to do whatever it takes to prove I shouldn’t exterminate you, just like I exterminate them—if you fail at helping me destroy Victor and his Jewelry Box, if you fail to resist the temptation of broken slaves, if you fail at keeping your dick in your pants and your hands free from blood, then…so help you, brother, I will find you, I will hurt you, and you will wish you never set foot in my house, kin or no kin.”
“You’d kill me?” Henri winced. “You’d kill me just because I’m sired by the same bastard who sired you?”
“I’d kill you because I know what you suffer. I know how close I’ve come to hurting others. Therefore, I know what you’re capable of. I’d kill you to protect those innocents, but I’d also kill you to free you from the same pain that’s driven me mad all my life.”
He watched me warily. “And if I succeed?”
“Then you are worthy of the Mercer name, and you will never be alone again.”
Henri looked at Tess snuggled against my side and a look of such visceral longing, such heart-wrenching hope, twisted his strangely familiar face.
He’d managed to survive this long but it wasn’t a life he’d been living.
It’d been a prison.
A carefully fortified jail to keep himself in check.
If he could prove he was better than our father, that he had the power to control himself, then I would teach him how to find joy even while being the worst kind of beast.
I never thought I’d have the urge to help another like me.
But…that was before.
This was now.
But so help me God, if he failed, his guts would be ribbons, his blood would be spilled, and his heart would join the other one rotting under my rose bush…
Epilogue
Q
I FOUND TESS GIVING OUR SON, LINO, a goodnight kiss.
His bedroom reminded me of summer with clouds sketched on the ceiling and the bird stencils we’d painted on the walls flying with wild abandon.
