Her Name Is Knight(Nena Knight #1)(54)

When she refused to answer, he nodded, taking his leave.

Only she knew how dangerous Paul was. Only she knew the gravity of his presence. To drive home his implicit threat, he went to Elin, bending to kiss her cheek. He moved to Delphine, taking her hand and feathering it with a light peck. Delphine smiled, warming up to him. He clapped Noble on his shoulder as he grabbed his outstretched hand to pull him upright and grasp him in a warm embrace. They shook hands again and snapped their intertwined fingers. Then, while holding her father, he turned to her, still alone on the balcony. He smiled at her, a smile as treacherous as she remembered.

Beside Paul, her dad turned, spotting Nena on the balcony and breaking into his familiar, dashing smile. Noble gave her a boisterous wave, beckoning for her to join them. She shook her head, begging off. He waved at her in a joking forget you then gesture, mistaking her actions as one of her usual solitary moods.

She tore her gaze from her dad, hating how close he was standing next to the man who’d killed her papa. Paul, alive and more well than he ever deserved to be, was watching her with a calculating smirk playing on his lips. Paul’s message was plain and simple, a reminder of how easily he could touch the most important people in her life again.

But now Paul also had something important to him. Didn’t he? Her eyes shifted to the young man with his arms wrapped around her sister.

He had his son.





40


BEFORE


The woman in the fur coat is the first to break our three-way stare down. Maybe she reads the determination on my face, a look that says I will not give these items up without a fight. I know I can do it, fight . . . until the death. Once you have killed your first, another may not be as difficult.

“Monsieur, it’s fine. She’s picking up items I asked for.”

“Madame? How so? You two did not come in together.”

She turns to me with a hint of a smile. “But darling, you need to get the new ones. Not the testers.” She steps to the shelf, picking up a box of Hugo, and holds it out to me.

“Madame, no. She is nothing but a misérable, a vagabonde. The police can handle her accordingly.”

Wretch and vagrant. Two more names to add to my growing list.

The regal queen rears on the clerk. I would never want to be the recipient of the look she gives him. “You will take my payment.” She pauses while the weight of her words settles on him. “Wait for us at the counter. Elle est à ma charge et nous achèterons tout ce que nous prendrons. C’est compris?” She is with me, and we will buy everything we collect. Understand?

Shrinking beneath Madame’s glower, the clerk opens and closes his mouth several times before stumbling back to the front of the store and waiting as told. Through the mirror, he glares at me. At her. She holds the box out to me again. She gives me an encouraging nod. Hesitantly, I take it.

“Don’t put it in your bag yet. We need to pay first, and I don’t want to give him any reason to call the authorities.” She waits for a response. When none comes, she says, “Tell you what, put the test lotion back, too, and pick up a sealed box.” She points to little baskets stacked at the end of each aisle. “Get whatever you want, but do not steal anything. I will pay for all of it. Deal?”

Her kindness does not make any sense to me. She doesn’t know me. I am a nobody to her, a vagrant, as the clerk said. Why give me a second thought? And what will she want in return? Because one thing I have learned is there is always a price. My eyes shift to the shelf, to the mirror, then back to her.

Finally, I nod quickly. She rewards me with a smile that surprisingly makes me shy. She leaves me, heading toward the counter. While she gives the clerk commands, ignoring his protests and insisting that he take her money for anything I want, I pull the tester bottle from my sack and put it back in its rightful place.

“Madame, vous m’avez donné trop d’argent.”

“Then give the child the change.”

She moves away from the counter, about to leave with whatever item she came in to purchase. As the clerk scurries to unlock the trap he set for me, she looks at me one last time. It’s as if she wants to say more, then thinks better of it. She pushes open the door, the bell chiming her departure.

My rucksack is laden with my bounty. I have Olay, Hugo Boss, plenty of tightly wrapped packages of food, hot chocolate, and €284 in change. The door does not fully close behind me before I tear into the sack, grabbing a package of Oreo cookies. The onslaught of cookies and hot chocolate sends a jolt of sugary energy coursing through my veins.

I catch a whiff of my father’s scent, feeling gutted when for the briefest of moments, I believe he is behind me and only empty air greets me instead. But now, anytime I want, I have Papa’s protection and Mama’s love. Anytime I want, I can spray a cloud or squeeze a drop, and they will be right there with me.

Thoughts of my parents consume me to the point I take little notice of my surroundings. I pass the dark and narrow breezeway next to the market. There is scuffling coming from within, which I figure is rats. They can be big, nearly the size of kittens. But when I hear a sound that sounds more human than rat, like a woman’s voice, it gives me pause.

“Don’t,” the woman says.

“Keep ahold of her. Ne la laisse pas s’échapper.” Don’t let her get away. The second voice is male, menacing.