Page 28 of From the Shadows

As time drags on, Hibou shifts uncomfortably. First his gaze, then his limbs, and finally, his weight. When he puts it all together, he looks almost paranoid.

“I guess I’ll, uh… you know, go back to the clinic.” His gaze dances around one more time before he scuttles out into the entry hall. He glances down each of the hallways leading to the various wings of the house, peering into each room he passes, lingering at the base of the stairs before finally leaving.

“Eddie.”

I startle, not so much at the sound of Christophe calling my name, but that I never heard the door open behind me. I don’t like the fact that I missed it.

Outside, door shut and a good distance from the house, Christophe pushes out a strained breath.

“You were hiding.” I state the obvious.

“I was staying out of sight,” he counters.

It’s a game I know well, one I play often and generally win. But I’m not in the mood. “Semantics. Tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“The number of times you sit in my office and tell us loudly and with your whole ass that you don’t want to know…” He leaves the statement unfinished because we’re both very aware that whatever is going on is too big, too important, too dire to ignore.

“Humor me. What’s the deal with Doc? Is everything good with Winn?” It’s early days in her pregnancy and really, anything could happen. With anyone else, it would surprise me that they’d share their news so soon. But Christophe? No way he’d sit on that kind of thing.

“I’m watching him.”

My brows pop. “So Garrick is off the hook? Or are we just adding everyone to the shit list?” The glare I get for my snark would make a lesser man wither where he stands. “You planning on adding my name to that list? Teague’s? Maybe it’s the paranoia digging its talons into you. Maybe no one is actually out of line.” At least no more than usual.

Don’t get me wrong, I can’t stand Hibou. The guy screams creep and is slimy as the day is long, but I don’t think he’s got big enough balls to fuck with the head of le Milieu.

Christophe simmers, turning over what he wants to say to me versus what he knows he needs to censor. There’s good reason that I request they keep the details to what’s strictly necessary. Yes, I can claim plausible deniability, but it’s also the small voice of hope reminding me that the less I know, the better chance I have of cutting ties.

“Out of everyone in this family, I’d expect you to understand.”

That takes me aback. “Why is that?”

“You have a child. You know what it is to have something so precious that the loss of it would destroy you. Change you irreparably from the loving, doting father to a vengeful beast.” His hands hang at his hips, not relaxed, but barely holding his shit together.

“That’s…” I don’t know what to say. I glance up in the general direction of the nursery window fighting every instinct to just grab Evie and run but I need more from Christophe. More than the fucking Scooby-Doo clues he’s sprinkling around.

Fuck, this goes against everything.

“I don’t think it’s coincidence that you’re suddenly scrambling for daycare, and my heir is⁠—”

“No.”

Christophe tilts his head and stops just shy of executing the perfectly unaffected shrug that his late uncle was known for.

I inhale sharply through my nose and pause, ready to burst, to explode from all the things I keep shoved deep inside. “Respectfully, you’re wrong.” I don’t miss the tic in his jaw or the tight shift in his bearing, but ready or not, I need to make it clear where I fall within his circle. “Christophe, I’m not part of your family. I’m here because of mine. If I walk, that puts Evie in the crosshairs of people who have done very questionable things. But the fact is, because I’m here, she’s just as much a target. You mistake my presence for continued support when I don’t have the choices you do.”

At first, I think I may have broken him, but slowly, deliberately, Christophe settles and almost relaxes. It makes no sense, when my declaration should have sent him over the edge.

He closes the space between us. “We may have cut the head off the snake, but we have the full listing of every twisted, fucked-up thing he and his people have done in this town. Every outsider, every person brought in less than a generation ago is a potential rat just lying in wait, poised to take us out from the inside.” His voice is low, not threatening, but deadly serious. “I can admit when I’m wrong, I’m not my uncle, but here—now, with this?—I assure you, I am not. Someone is after our children, and that is not fucking okay with me. Oui?”

I shove both hands into my hair, scraping it back from my face. This is a clusterfuck. I want one day. Just a single day that doesn’t have me ripping the hair from my head.

“You think this has something to do with my nanny?”

He simply stares at me. “Your wife.”

For the love of fucks. “We were never married. Never even serious, and you know that.” My thoughts go to the one person I can’t seem to get out of my mind, the one I can actually see myself getting serious and spending my life with. But shit has gone so far sideways from my life plan, I don’t know which end is up.

“You need a drink,” Christophe says.