Page 70 of Redemption
Chapter Thirty-Six
Lachlan
As we’re rising from breakfast, Marco catches my attention. “Can I speak with you for a moment, brother?”
I glance at Keira and Aurora.
“I need to clean up Miss Sticky Face and Fingers. Go right ahead.”
I lean down to press a kiss to my wife’s rosy lips. “Thank you.”
“Take your time. There’s no hurry,” she says to both of us as she lifts Aurora from her antique-looking high chair.
“Come. We can speak in the library,” Marco says before nodding to our parents. “We shall return shortly.”
“Do not worry about us. We have much to speak about ourselves,” our father replies with a lift of his espresso-filled demitasse cup.
I follow Marco out of the dining room and down a hallway to the end. A large arched doorway leads into a stunning library that rises two stories tall. It puts mine in New Orleans to shame.
I take a deep breath, inhaling the scent of old books. “Incredible.”
“My favorite room in the house,” Marco replies with a grin.
“Another thing we have in common. I’ve always loved a good library.”
He smiles for a beat before drawing his phone from his pocket. “I have something I must show you. It is not ideal news.”
“How not ideal?” I ask, keeping my tone conversational.
Marco releases a long breath as he brings up something on the screen. “For others, probably devastating. For you, perhaps more mundane.”
After years of receiving bad news, this doesn’t draw any reaction from my body. “Go ahead. I’m ready.”
“I will let you read it for yourself.”
He hands his phone to me, and I read the headline of the article.
Lachlan Mount Wanted for Execution-Style Murder
I scan the article, including the part about the Feds being called in as part of an organized crime crackdown, and read the quote from DuFort.
“New Orleans will not be safe until this man is brought to justice. In cooperation with the New Orleans Police Department, the Federal Bureau of Investigation will not stop until he and his entire criminal empire have been smashed to a million pieces and everyone connected has been put behind bars. For too many years, he has gotten away with literal murder in this city, and his days of freedom are numbered.”
The irony is not lost on me. DuFort and his entire family regularly torture and murder children in ritual sacrifices to gain power from satanic gods, but I’m the one who makes the city unsafe.
Still, I can’t argue. I pulled that trigger. I killed that man in broad daylight, in the middle of the street, with a bullet to the brain, and I don’t regret it. Any normal person would agree that I should be locked up and the key thrown away. However, I’m not about to let DuFort bring me down without taking him and his entire family out in the process. Not a chance. Justice will be served, but not in the way he thinks.
I look up to meet my brother’s concerned gaze. “Thank you for sharing that. Has it made national news? Or is it simply in the local papers?”
From the rising eyebrows on Marco’s face, my question is not the response he expected.
“I’ve only seen it on the local New Orleans papers’ websites and the local news channels. Nothing national yet.”
“Excellent. At least that’s one upside to being from a city and country where murder is still so common that it barely raises an eyebrow. People like to think America is so civilized these days, but that’s just as much of a fantasy as the stories Keira reads to Rory.”
“This doesn’t worry you?” Marco asks as I hand him back the phone.
“Worry doesn’t do me any good. That’s something I learned long ago. It is what it is. I can like it or not, but it won’t change the reality of the situation. It’s something I did, and therefore, the consequences are also mine. I’ll take care of it. I just don’t want it to spill over to the national news, as that could potentially reach the international stage, and the last thing I want is for Lachlan Mount’s picture to be broadcast worldwide and affect the Giordano family.”
