Total pages in book: 32
Estimated words: 32532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 163(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 32532 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 163(@200wpm)___ 130(@250wpm)___ 108(@300wpm)
Luc.
She had spoken of him like he was someone she knew intimately. Someone whose preferences and mannerisms she had memorized. Someone she compared every other man to and found them wanting.
He opened his laptop and initiated the search.
Luc Infernalis.
The name alone had him bristling. It just rubbed him off the wrong way for no reason. He was not a man who was easily annoyed, but whoever this Luc was...
That man grated on his nerves simply by existing, and thirty minutes later, the fact that his search failed to yield a single result pissed him off even more.
The database Zacharie used had backdoor connections to Interpol, FBI, MI6, and half a dozen other agencies that would deny his access if asked directly. But none of it had anything about Infernalis.
Zacharie reached out to his contacts in the legal world. Prosecutors, judges, defense attorneys who owed him favors. Did they know of a Luc Infernalis? A former prosecutor? Anyone matching that description, charcoal suits, commanding courtroom presence, the kind of man who made juries feel intelligent?
The responses trickled in over the next two hours.
Never heard of him.
No one by that name in any bar association I can access.
Are you sure about the spelling?
Zacharie’s jaw tightened with each reply.
He expanded his search. Business registries. Real estate records. Tax filings. Social media, though he despised it. Obituaries, in case the man was dead. University alumni databases, law school records, courtroom transcripts going back twenty years.
Nothing.
Not a single trace of anyone named Luc Infernalis existing anywhere in the world.
By the fourth hour, Zacharie had exhausted every resource at his disposal. His network, the same network that could locate a fugitive in forty-eight hours, that had tracked down Mira’s auction location from fragmentary intelligence, that had never once failed him in fifteen years of operation, had come up completely empty.
He sat back in his chair, staring at his laptop screen.
There was one last thing he could do, but it was also the least desirable option.
Zacharie reached for his phone, and his call was answered on the second ring.
“Twice in one week, mon ami? I’m flattered.”
“I need your help locating someone.”
When Calixte spoke again, the amusement in his voice had sharpened into curiosity. “That’s not a request you make lightly. Who is this someone?”
“Luc Infernalis.”
“Should I know this name?”
“I don’t know. But I’ve done what I can, and I haven’t found anything.”
“Context?”
A slight pause, and one Calixte immediately noticed.
“Your silence speaks volumes, mon ami. Does it have to do with your young guest?”
Zacharie gritted his teeth. This. This was why he hated having to ask for his friend’s help, with Calixte’s extraordinary ability to read a situation with just the slightest of clues.
“Anything else she said about him that I might find helpful?”
“She compared him to a prosecutor on television. In detail. His fashion preferences. His courtroom strategy. The way he moves.”
“The way he moves,” Calixte echoed. “My, my.”
“Can you locate him or not?”
“I can certainly try. Though I confess myself curious. You have resources that rival my own. If your network has already come up empty, what makes you think mine will fare differently?”
“You have contacts I don’t.”
“True. But that’s not why you called.”
Zacharie’s grip tightened on the phone. “So you know my thoughts better than I do?”
“I know when my friend is lying to himself, oui. Because what you are, mon ami, is jea—”
“Disturbed,” Zacharie said at the same time. “That’s all there is to this,” he said forcefully. “I’m disturbed.”
And that was the truth.
Calixte might be a legend in the world of secret service and espionage, but that did not mean the other man was perpetually correct, and his...his situation was proof of it. His friend had completely misread things. He was simply disturbed, and not...that. Because to feel what Calixte believed he was feeling?
Absurdly impossible.
Zacharie had known the girl for less than twenty-four hours. He had no claim on her, wanted no claim on her, and he would eventually be able to prove that, if it became clear that marrying her off to someone suitable would be the best way to keep her safe.
“If that’s how you wish to put it, then ‘disturbed’ it shall be,” Calixte drawled. “Tomato, to-mah-to, right? No matter what we call it, what it is remains the same.”
Zacharie frowned. “That’s not—”
“I’ll give you a call if I find anything. À bientôt.”
Zacharie’s lips pressed together as the line went dead. Why did he have a feeling...that his call had him playing right into his friend’s hands?
CALIXTE’S EFFORTS NOT to wake his wife when he returned to their bedroom were all for naught, with Eden already sitting up and waiting for him when he slipped in.
“I woke up,” she said sleepily, “and you were gone.”
“I’m sorry, mon ange.” He slipped back under the covers, and his chest tightened as his wife immediately snuggled up to his side. They had been married for over a year, but it still felt like it was just yesterday when he had first met her. The kindest and bravest girl he had ever known. And one who had saved his life in every way there was.