Page 80 of Beautiful Villain
“Cavalho,” Laurent purred when he came on the line.“I hear you and Popovich are still circling each other.How very… romantic.”
“I’m done circling,” I said.“I’m pulling out.”
Silence.
Then a laugh, sharp and disbelieving.“You’re joking.”
“I don’t joke about pipelines.”
“You’re walking away from Provence?”he said, like he was trying to fit the words into his mouth and couldn’t quite manage it.
“Yes.”
The line went quiet long enough for him to realize this wasn’t a stunt.
“That’s a very expensive tantrum,” Laurent tried.“We can revisit the terms?—”
“This isn’t a negotiation,” I cut in.“Sell it to Popovich.Sell it to whoever the hell you want.I don’t care.”
Across the island, Dunn’s head snapped up.He already saw it.The trap opening.The bait glittering.
“I renounce the claim,” I went on calmly.“Publicly, if that makes it easier.Put it in writing.I’m out.”
“Why?”Laurent asked, greedy now.Curious.He’d been waiting years for me to blink.“You bled for Provence.”
I glanced down at my hand, still bruised and split from the wall I’d taken apart this morning.It felt appropriate.
“Because I don’t want it.”
Another long silence.
Then he exhaled slowly, like a man just realizing the water beneath him was deeper than he thought.“You’re handing Popovich a weapons artery,” he said.“Ports.Routes.Supply.You know what that makes him.”
Provence was power.The kind of power Archie had been drooling over since he first caught its scent.And Archie, like every control addict, couldn’t resist something that made him feel bigger.He would grab it with both hands and never once look behind him.
“Untouchable,” I replied.“For about five minutes.”
I pause long enough to hear the sound of him recalculating.
“What do you want?”
I leaned forward, fingers braced on the cold stone of the island.“I want you to call Archie yourself and tell him the deal is ready to go ahead - without me.It happens today.No more delays or negotiations.”
“And in exchange?”
“In exchange,” I said softly, “you don’t become a footnote in the mess I’m about to make of Archie Popovich’s life.”
Another pause.Longer this time.
I could picture him—smiling, sweating, trying to decide if I was bluffing.
I wasn’t.
Mikayla was out there with a man who broke people for sport.Provence was hanging by a thread.And I was done playing defense.
“Choose carefully, Laurent,” I said.“Because I’m done losing.”
I ended the call before he could talk himself into feeling clever.
