Page 12 of Xavier

“I don’t know,” Lissette said. “Whoever it is has taken things from each. I only want to return those items to the families they belong to.”

Grand-mère pressed a hand to her chest. “Dis vandal took our reliquary?”

“Yes,” Lissette said quietly. “I got the reliquary back.”

Her grandmother’s eyes widened. “Intact?”

Lissette shook her head. “Empty.”

“Show me,” the old woman demanded.

“I can’t.” She raised her hands, palms up. “It was in my bag.”

The Voodoo queen’s eyes narrowed. “Da one da attackers spirited away?”

“Yes.” Lissette’s anger and frustration spiked at the memory of the two men taking her and the bag. If not for Xavier Xander, she’d have been taken away. If they hadn’t killed her, they would most likely have made her break her geographic confinement and violate her forbidden associations list. One of the men who’d tried to take her had been Ron Cormier, a slimy bastard of a man with deep connections in the New Orleans mafia Lissette had been entangled in prior to her year in prison.

She’d begun to believe the year in prison had given her a reset. A chance to change her life, to vanquish her connections with the bad influences she’d fallen in with so easily.

Getting out of Bayou Mambaloa had given her the distance from those people.

Yet, here she was, back at her grandmother’s house, this time required by law to stay in the town where she’d lost herself.

A year ago, Lissette would have fought the tether. Now, she chafed but accepted. Better to be here than in some depressing halfway house in Baton Rouge.

Then again, she was back in the very place she’d gone so far astray. Maybe she’d have been better off going to Baton Rouge where she knew no one and could truly start over.

Though her old habits and attitudes died hard, she’d come back with the determination to give back to the people she’d taken advantage of. One of whom was her grandmother. Regret stung at the pit of her belly. The woman had done her best to help Lissette after her mother had abandoned her.

“If da reliquary was taken, how did you find it?” her grandmother asked, eyes narrowing.

Lissette swallowed hard. “I asked around.”

“Asked who?”

“People.”

“Good people or bad people?” her grandmother asked, her tone tight.

“People I knew from before,” Lissette answered softly. “Nub LeJeune. He salvages. He located the reliquary and brought it to me.”

“Lissette, Lissette, mon cher.” Grand-mère drew in a deep breath, held it, and let it out slowly. “You can no be anywhere near dose folk. Your officer of the parole told you dat if you were seen with dem, your parole could be revoked.”

“Don’t you think I know that?” Lissette flung her hands in the air and paced the room. “Without access to them, how else can I find the items and return them to their rightful owners?”

Her grandmother stepped in front of Lissette’s pacing. “You let da law handle it.”

With a defiant lift of her chin, Lissette stared down into her grandmother’s eyes. “And how is that going now?”

The mocha-skinned woman stared hard into Lissette’s eyes, her stance and aura making her appear taller and more intimidating. “It does no matter,” she said. “You go to da sheriff’s office in da morning and tell dem of da attack.”

An image of the woman Lissette had tried to kill rose in her mind. Shelby Taylor would have no use for her. She doubted her husband, Remy, would allow Lissette anywhere near his precious wife. Not that Lissette blamed him. What she’d done had been inexcusable. She knew that and wished she’d never fallen so easily for mafia propaganda and brainwashing, believing the money she could make through illegal means justified the actions. She’d needed money to get the hell out of the bayou, away from the life she’d seen only as a dead end.

Well, she’d gotten out of Bayou Mambaloa, but not in the manner she’d expected.

She’d gone in the back of a police vehicle, straight to prison. If not for the plea bargain to give information about the mafia, she would have spent more than a year there.

Go to the sheriff now? To Deputy Taylor? She’d probably spit in her eye or worse...report Lissette to her parole officer.