the bane of my life for the next couple of minutes.
“I have a meeting with Mr. Bergeron.”
“Had,” he corrects. “He waited a good fifteen minutes, an’ you never showed.”
“I got tied up.”
“Well, while you were untying yourself, he decided to cancel the meeting. Sorry.”
“Dude, I’ve had a really weird night. I’m just trying to get my knife back so I can go on with my life.”
“I can’t help you.”
“Just let me in to see him, and I’m sure everything will be settled.”
“Can’t do that, either. No ID, no entry.”
Keeping my murderous stare on the bouncer, I step aside for a figure walking toward me, trying to exit.
“Carly?” At the sound of my fake name, I turn to see Luc standing just outside the door, shoving a cigarette behind his ear. “You dance here?”
“No. I’m just trying to get inside for a meeting I had with Mr. Bergeron.” I narrow my eyes back on the Troll. “But he won’t let me in.”
“Ah, c’mon, Levi. I know dis one. I’ll take her to Thierry.”
Thierry. I wonder if that’s his first name, and if we’re talking about the same guy. Thierry just seems so normal for a man like him. Something more diabolical, like Lucifer, would be far more fitting.
“He gets pissed? It’s on you. Not me.” Troll Boy points a finger at Luc, and even if they’re both roughly the same size, Luc is definitely the more intimidating one of the two. Could be the muscle shirt he’s wearing that actually shows off his guns.
“I’ll take da blow. And if he’s mad about dat? C’est la vie.” He pats the bouncer, who steps aside for us, and when he jerks his head at me and says, “Allons,” I follow behind Luc down the dark hallway. “You an’ Thierry … you a t’ing, chère?”
“A thing? No. Not even close. He stole something of mine, and I want it back.”
Snorting a laugh, Luc shakes his head. “My cousin’s always been canaille like dat.”
“Canaille?”
“Mischievous, you’d say. Always Rougarouin’. ‘S’how he got dat nickname, Rougarou.” Instead of heading toward the crowd, Luc hangs a left, through a door I didn’t notice the last time I was here, which opens to a stairwell.
“Rougarou. That’s a werewolf, right?”
“A wolf, like a werewolf, oui.”
It isn’t that much of a stretch with that wolfish grin and those eat you for breakfast eyes of his. “He was bitten by a wolf, right?”
“Das the story he told. Not too many wolves here, though. We got woods, but nothin’ like da north. Lotta swampland ‘round here.”
“So, you don’t believe him, then?”
“I didn’ say dat. I just haven’ personally seen any black wolves myself.”
“It was a black wolf that bit him?”
“’S’what he claimed. ‘Course, nobody believed it. Folks on dis island think he’s cursed by a voodoo queen.”
I snort a laugh. “Voodoo queen, huh?”
“Yeah, momma of some fille he dated a long time ago. Broke up wit’ her for another. She didn’ like dat too much, her. Put some kind of gris-gris on him.”
We descend two levels, and when we round a landing, he gives me a onceover, shaking his head. “Bon Dieu, you’re a pretty sight, you.” He holds another door open for me, gesturing me inside. “My cousin gives you a hard time? Come see me, yeah?”
Cousin? I wonder why he doesn’t speak with as strong a Valir accent as Luc, unless he grew up somewhere else.
Like me.
I step inside a cramped smoky room, where seven men sit around a large, circular table, playing cards. It reminds me of another era, back during Prohibition, as every man looks like a criminal with tattoos peeking out from their fancy-looking shirt and ties.
And directly across from me sits Mr. Bedroom Eyes himself, examining his hand with the intensity of a man who won’t be distracted by a woman looking for her knife.
I lean toward Luc beside me. “What are they playing?”
“Bourré.”
The man closest to us twists around, his bright blue eyes checking me out, before they flit to Luc. “You come back to lose your ass, Luc?”
“Came back to kick yours, if you don’ keep dem flappin’ lips shut.”
It’s then that chestnut gaze lifts to mine, and something seems to flicker in them, a hint of dark amusement, even though his lips aren’t smiling.
Probably rightly so, given his stack of chips is the smallest around the table.
“Luc decided to up the ante by adding some chatte to the pot,” one of the other men says, inviting a round of laughter. At my expense, I’m