Phantom (Tattered Curtain Series)

Sol

The coward in front of me died with pain permanently etched into his miserable face. He knew once my shadow brought him down here that there were only two ways out of my dungeon, trial by water or combat.

The first means risking the runoff channel that flows on the far side of the stone room. It’s one thousand feet to the mouth of the Mississippi River in dark, murky water that requires one to hold their breath for many feet at a time through the tunnels. It’s treacherous, especially if the water is slow that day, but I’ve done it several times in the middle of the night, just to ensure the fairness of my options.

The second is by far the more dangerous alternative: a duel with choice of weapon.

He didn’t even put up much of a fight.

Many people look at me and somehow assume I didn’t train for years in everything I’ve supplied in this room. They see the river and think I’m the safest bet, but every single victim has been sorely mistaken, and this one was no different. I even gave this sad bastard my knife once I realized how poor of a shot he was with his gun. He still didn’t stand a chance with my fists.

“Brother?” my twin’s voice echoes down into the cellar. “A word?”

I don’t answer, continuing to wipe my hands on the wet washcloth, annoyed that there’s blood still in the crevices of my ring.

“It’s always so dark down here,” he complains for the millionth time in a decade.

“It’s how I like it,” I explain again. With my poor eyesight, I’m at a better advantage in the dark.

Ben takes the last step on the staircase and enters the room. “Yeah, well now it smells like piss too. The combination is—” He rears back, turning his face into the crook of his blazer’s elbow as he sees my kill in the middle of the room. “Shit, Sol. You didn’t tell me you had another one.”

“I don’t tell you a lot of things,” I reply simply.

Us Bordeaux brothers may be identical in DNA, but what made us who we are at our core is entirely different. His soft, compassionate, thoughtful personality was molded by loving parents and the best French boarding school money can buy. That was me too, until I turned fifteen and I was stripped of everything I knew.

I saw our loving father get murdered, our saintly mother fall into a psychotic depression from which she never emerged, and I was tortured mercilessly. Only murder set me free. Just like my victims down here, if they ever beat me, that is.

So if I told my diplomatic brother all the unsavory things I have to do behind the scenes to keep our people safe and to make those who hurt us pay, Ben might not fare much better than our poor mother.

“What did this one know that saved him from the usual Phantom suicide?” he asks, trying to cover his nose.

Phantom suicide.

It’s what I am—or the Phantom of the French Quarter is—known for. Phantom suicides are reserved for the men who are so guilty that I don’t need their confession and they don’t deserve a chance to fight for their lives. The mysterious deaths are made to look like suicides so that our contacts in the police department have easy and uncomplicated reports.

“This one is a little message, to show our dear Chatelain friends their business needs to stay the fuck out of our French Quarter.”

“Is that why you left your calling card?” He points to the crude skull imprinted into the man’s forehead and I shrug.

“It suits him, don’t you think? He chose a gun and was so terrible at aiming that I gave him my knife and resorted to fists.” I scrub the fine indents of my skull ring to clean any remnants left during our fight to the death. “It’ll be good for Chatelain to realize I’m behind this one. He’s gotten too comfortable. Good Ol’ Randy Boy needs to know his place.”

“‘Randy Boy,’ huh? Never knew you were one for nicknames.”

“I don’t see how you could’ve missed that part of my personality. I have several myself, if you’ll recall.”

Ben gives a mirthless chuckle. “Someone’s got a sense of humor today. What’s got you in such a good mood?”

Not what…who.

I feel the twitch of a smile lift my lips, but I quickly school my face. It’s just my brother, but if I show him my true feelings, he’ll try to make me stop what I’ve been doing. I can’t let him stand in the way. Not of this.

“Nothing,” I finally answer. “I just enjoy administering justice. And this one…” I tap my victim’s loafer. “He had info on an unsolved case right here in New Orleans.”

“Seriously? I don’t remember a recent case in the French Quarter. Was it from Dad’s time?”

“Nope. A year ago. In the Garden District.”

Recognition flickers on Ben’s face and I know I’ve been caught. There’s a reason he runs the front of our business—he’s sharp as a tack.

“Sol, what the fuck? We can’t be in Chatelain business.”

“This isn’t Chatelain business. Gustave Day—”

“Scarlett’s dad’s murder is not Bordeaux business. It happened on the Chatelain side, ergo, it involves Rand’s police force, his people. This is Rand’s cold case to solve.”

“She’s not one of his,” I hiss. The fury that boiled up so quickly surprises me, but I don’t tamp it down.

“She’s not one of ours, either.”

“Not yet,” I promise, my nostrils flaring.

Ben simply shakes his head. “I’ll repeat it again. Gustave Day’s murder is not Bordeaux business. the truce—”

“Fuck the truce,” I spit back.

“Sol, I know you think it’s bullshit, but it’s an agreement between our families all the same. I made it with Rand’s brother, Laurent, and when you killed him, you sealed the accord. Now it extends to Rand and we should abide by the rules. We must if we’re to keep this city and our families safe.”

“You were coerced to enter that agreement by Laurent. And now… he’s gone,” I point out smugly. “There’s no need to keep this farce of a truce going.”

We had all of New Orleans at one point and the Chatelains were simply a thorn in my father’s side. Then one night when I was fifteen, during our boarding school’s equivalent of spring break, all hell broke loose.

“We can’t have a repeat of that night,” Ben pleads. “I lost my father, mother—”

“And brother,” I finish, knowing the young man I was, never came back after that night.

Ben swallows but doesn’t argue with my claim. “I know. But the truce keeps our families safe, so that something like that will never happen again. You already took out Jacques Baron—”

“He was a spy who deserved to hang for all the harm he caused our families. Not to mention the fact he was assaulting women in our home.”

“I don’t disagree. But if you rile Rand up—”

“It’s just this one case,” I argue. “Aside from the fact that it’s a cold case, something about Gus Day’s murder doesn’t make sense.”

“How so?” Ben asks.

“Well, if the Chatelains and the Days were on such good terms, why would Rand not be outraged about his death? It was on his turf.”

Ben snorts. “That’s a weak opening statement, brother. They might have had a close relationship ten years ago, but that doesn’t mean Rand would turn over heaven and earth to find a suspect in what seems to be a random mugging, even if it was for his childhood friend. Any other details, Mr. Holmes?”

I glare at him. “Someone attacked Scarlett that night. He tried to assault her.” My fingers bite into my palms at the memory. “Her father attempted to stop him, but the attacker turned on him instead. The bastard never pulled a gun on Scarlett, saving it for the confrontation with her father. Almost like he was waiting for him and Scarlett was merely a distraction.”

“And you got all this from police reports and this snitch?” I don’t elaborate and just nod. Ben frowns and rubs his eyes. “So the attacker was waiting for him because… why? It sounds far fetched, Sol. Who would murder Gus Day? He was a beloved jazz musician, for fuck’s sake. And hell, the perpetrator wouldn’t have needed a gun with Scarlett. She’s practically a waif.”

I wince at his observation, but he’s not wrong. Watching her spark dim this past year has been torture. She’s taken care of herself mentally, but everywhere else in her life she’s a shadow of the bright light I’ve seen her to be, hiding away from the world. I’m this close to intervening. Hell, I did a lot more than “intervene” last night.

Physically shaking my head to push the delicious vision away, I turn back to our conversation and point to the dead man between us. “I’m not sure who would want to murder Scarlett’s father, but this guy seemed to think Day was struggling more than he let on. He was apparently in deep debt with a Chatelain man or involved in some shady shit connected with the Chatelains somehow.”

“Did he say that? That he owed someone who worked for the Chatelains?”

My jaw tics in frustration, not wanting to show my hand yet. “No, but it’s not a far stretch.”

Ben huffs. “Not a far stretch? Sol, it’s a running leap. Rand would’ve been in charge of that hit. He and Scarlett are childhood friends. Do you really think he’d make that call? He’s not a monster.”

“All the Chatelains are monsters,” I growl.

Ben’s nostrils flare and I suddenly realize I’m inches away from his face. I don’t wear my mask down here, so he’s seeing the ugliest side of me. The side of him that could’ve existed if he’d been the one to sneak out that night and get kidnapped nearly a decade ago.

“I’m not your enemy,” Ben says, his voice calm and admonishing at the same time.

I jolt back and almost run my hand through my hair until I realize it’s still not perfectly clean. I go to wash my hands, leaving them under the rushing water even as it becomes scalding.

“You’re not my enemy,” I finally agree on an exhale. “I wish I could apologize, but I won’t stop until I get answers.”

“Why? What does this have to do with us? If Day was connected to the Chatelains and he died in the Garden District then he’s not our problem. What’s your end goal here? Find the murderer?”

My hands clench around the bar of soap underneath the spigot as I consider my answer. “Something like that.”

“Seriously, Sol. You have to give me a reason—”

“I can’t see Scarlett suffer anymore, okay?” I give him the partial truth. “Maybe if she knows the circumstances around her father’s death, then she can live again.”

Numbness has crept into my hands and I dry them off on another washcloth. The old spigot squeaks its protest as I shut off the water with the towel. When I turn around, Ben is staring at me with a thoughtful look.

“What?” My voice is stern and unforgiving. I don’t like to be examined, and Ben’s studious nature never ended after law school.

He shakes his head. “You like her. Really like her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

I turn away to avoid his inspection and awkwardly look for something to do with my hands. But there’s nothing. I already cleaned myself up and I can’t move the body yet. It’s got to drain so it’ll be easier to cut him up and dissolve identifiable pieces before dumping the rest in Chatelain’s precious garden.

“Scarlett Day,” Ben insists. “I’ve seen you get obsessed, fixated, stalk your prey, but I’ve never seen you like this over a woman. You’ve got to let her go, Sol.”

“Why?” I ask, wheeling around on him and giving myself away in the process. “You have Maggie and Marie. Why can’t I have Scarlett?”

“Aside from the fact that Chatelain has made a claim to her? Because I dated Maggie.” He enunciates each word like I’m an idiot and all I want to do is break his flawless nose. “We fell in love. Got married. Then we had our daughter. And we did all that in the daylight, which you avoid like the plague. That’s the way things work. You don’t go outside, brother, and you use informants along with whatever Madam G hears from Masque to build this Phantom of the French Quarter facade. But when was the last time you even saw Bourbon Street?” I open my mouth to argue but he tsks. “Not through a security camera. Real life.”

That caveat clamps my mouth shut, and I’m too stubborn in my own fears and shame to prove him wrong. I do what is necessary to run the security side of our operation, but I don’t venture outside the comfort of the House often if I can help it.

What happened to me is one of those French Quarter tall tales, like the legends behind the Sultan’s Palace and Romeo spikes on balconies. The kidnapping and torture of Sol Bordeaux is a ghost story. A cautionary tale to New Orleans boys not to go out in the middle of the night. But no one knows the whole story, and I never go out without my mask on to confirm theirs.

I don’t give a fuck what I look like, though. That’s not why I stick to the shadows. Half of my face is a grotesque ruin and my eye was stolen from me, but I cover the right side of my face because I’m ashamed the Chatelains got the best of me. And I’m horrified over the collapse of my family in the process. If I hadn’t been a stupid, impetuous child, my family would still be intact. We’d still rule New Orleans, and maybe even all of Louisiana. We wouldn’t be desperately holding on to the NOLA Port to keep it away from the sick Chatelain bastards.

“Listen,” Ben continues, more gently. “If I knew you’d step in the daylight for her, I’d fucking encourage this fantasy. Hell, I’d set up the reservation at Arnaud’s myself. But it’s just that, Sol. A fantasy. And your obsession is going to get one of you killed.”

That has my attention.

“How so?”

“You’ll break the truce and Rand will retaliate. You’ve already toyed with the clauses. There’s to be no harm in the opera house, and yet Jacques—”

“Unless provoked. The clause is ‘No harm in the opera house unless provoked.’ As Rand’s former proxy, Jacques Baron’s very existence here was a provocation.” The words growl out of me, emerging from somewhere deep in my chest.

“Okay, what about your latest victim? He’s a Chatelain man but you and I can’t breach sides except by invitation.”

“I haven’t done that, either. I’ve been waiting for this one to make the wrong move.” I nod at the corpse.

One of my shadows found him selling drugs to one of the drumming kids on Bourbon Street last night. The bastard was peddling the same poison that caused a child’s overdose death just last week. I’d been watching over my angel and I’d hated to leave her, but it’s my job to protect my people. It’s a good thing I left, because according to my security feed, this was the exact man we were looking for.

“He was already on my radar as a Chatelain man,” I explain to my brother. “He had information that I needed about the night of Gus Day’s murder. But then he came to the Quarter and committed a crime that resulted in death. See? No breach.”

“Seems almost convenient, don’t you think?” Ben’s eyes narrow at me.

His words make me pause. “What does?”

“That you’d so obviously reveal your obsession with Miss Day in front of Rand, and then the perfect snitch appears at the right time and right place. Do you not think Rand is tempting you to make one wrong move yourself?”

His points make me hesitate, but I shake my head. “No fucking way. That posh idiot couldn’t figure out how to tie Velcro shoes.”

Ben shrugs. “But what if he is smart enough? He hasn’t been in town since he buried his brother in Lafayette Cemetery No.1. Now he’s back from New York requesting to build a hotel in the Quarter and access to New Orleans’s port? You know Laurent was trying to reintroduce human trafficking after our father eradicated it here. Who’s to say Rand isn’t trying to fill big brother’s shoes?”

All the math is adding up except that it’s Rand, not Laurent, who would have to be the mastermind.

“Not possible.”

“You still see Rand as the goofy blond kid from school. The annoying suck-up we loved to hate. You were trapped by Laurent, but I was on the outside, witnessing Rand watch his older brother’s every brutal, calculating move. He had to have learned something before he ran away to New York. He left his side of New Orleans in the hands of his proxy for too long, but he’s back with a plan and I think your obsession with Scarlett Day has given him an opening. Think about it. We lost half of this fucking city to them over one calculated incident. Either you and I can’t live up to our father’s name, or the Chatelains are actually dangerous.”

I shake my head and point at my brother as I try to get him to see reason. “You were a child when you were forced to sign that bullshit truce. You only went along with it because you thought Laurent would return me if you did. Our father had been murdered days before and I was held as ransom at the time. No one expected you to live up to our father’s legacy at fifteen.”

“While that may be true, I, for one, choose to err on the side of caution. Rand is formidable, Sol, and he has an interest in Miss Day. What if he’s using her to get to you? That makes her a threat to our family and all the loyal people backing us. You need to accept that. Leave her—and all this—alone. ”

My hands squeeze into tight fists that make my knuckles ache more than the fight I just won. Ben has always been the twin with the logical brain and I’ve always been the one with the emotional brawn. I trust him with my life, but even as he states his case against getting involved with Scarlett, I can’t shake the compulsion to check my many security cameras set up all throughout the House to see what my obsession is up to.

I had my trusted shadows install, or rewire, every camera on the Bordeaux side of New Orleans. Ben may be the legal protection for our people, but I’m responsible for the physical and that includes knowing every meticulous detail about my city.

Fuck, maybe Ben’s right. What if she is a distraction?

A chime dings from the security room down the cellar hallway and I spin on my heel to go check it.

“Sol, have you been listening—”

“I’ve heard you,” I snap right before I enter the darker room. A message blinks on a far computer and I pull it up on the screen.

She left. I couldn’t follow.

Alarm pounds in my chest, but I try to calm down as I search the security footage spanning the French Quarter, hoping she’s still on our side of the city.

The shadow would’ve told me where she’d gone if he knew, but I have a suspicion. My little muse has a sweet tooth like me and she’s also a beautiful creature of habit, which I’ve come to be thankful for.

Ben is wrong. Rand isn’t using her against us. I know everything about Scarlett Day, so I would know whether she was one of his pawns.

Wouldn’t I?

Refusing to dwell on questions I can’t answer, I switch the screens to my first guess and nearly smile when I see her wild, gorgeous black curls haphazardly piled on her head. A powdered sugar grin curves her pink lips. Someone is blocking the camera, but it looks like she’s just sat down with her white paper Café du Monde bag and hasn’t yet poured the remaining sugar into her chicory coffee. I tried the concoction last Halloween. It’s cloyingly sweet, just like her.

Except I’ve witnessed the dark side she possesses. It was only once, but that night changed everything, sparking my obsession. Ever since, I’ve craved to learn everything about my angel of music. I desperately need to know if her darkness matches mine.

Just when I’m about to sit down and appreciate watching Scarlett as she enjoys one of her favorite things, the person who’d been blocking the camera finally moves.

The warmth I’d been feeling turns to ice in my veins.

“What the fuck is she doing,” I grumble.

“Fuck, I knew it.” Ben appears in the room beside me. His muttered curse embodies everything I feel. “Do you still think he’s incapable of manipulating you, Sol?”

I don’t answer as my brain tries to drum up a plan to follow her. To hear what she’s saying to him. Is her smile for him, or the pillowy powdered donut that Rand Chatelain is currently wiping from her lips with his fucking thumb?

“Quit growling, you beast. Living underground has made you a goddamn animal,” Ben mumbles. I hadn’t even realized the rumble was coming from me. “She’s not yours, Sol. She’s not even one of ours, loyal to our family. We can’t afford her the same protections. You know the parameters of the truce. Only those loyal to our families are protected. Whether she knows it or not, her loyalties lie with Rand.”

I pull my fists into my lap to keep them from sending my keyboard flying. I want to get up, run to Café du Monde, and demand Rand’s seat. My face and shame burn in protest.

“What’re you going to do about it, Sol? Go get her?” He’s reading my mind again, mocking me.

But he’s also making a point. It’s broad daylight and not Halloween, Mardi Gras, or any other celebration that would warrant a mask. Going out and about in public—even with one of my more realistic prosthetics on—would be admitting defeat to the Chatelains in the eyes of those who believe the rumors. That Laurent did, in fact, scar me for life. That I made the Bordeauxs weak with one impulsive decision and that we can be taken down in one swift move.

“I can’t.” The whispered admission crawls out of me. I wonder if my defeat sounds as pathetic to Ben’s ears as it does mine.

“Then you have to let her go, Sol,” Ben answers back, his voice both soft and firm at the same time. “She could ruin us. And Rand knows it.”