Sunrise Malice

2. Julien

Chapter 2

Julien

F all wind blows across the private tarmac of the O’Hare Airport. The small twin-engine jet taxis toward my position near a large hangar and comes to a stop not far away. Several of my men stand at attention further back, all of them impeccably dressed in expensive black suits and wearing dark sunglasses.

Jean, my second-in-command, stands by my side. We’ve known each other for a long time, ever since we were young boys picking pockets on the streets of Marseille. If I’m the face of the Moreau Family in America, then he’s the shadowy brains behind the scenes.

Together, we run this organization with ruthless efficiency.

“When was the last time you saw him?” Jean asks. He doesn’t look at me, only stares at the plane. Airport staff push a set of stairs over to the main door.

“Years,” I say, acting as though I can’t recall, but I remember the exact moment. It was six years ago, two days before I came to America for good. That was a very bad afternoon.

“I can’t recall the old man ever leaving France,” Jean notes.

“He pretends like he’s some great French patriot, but really he’s lazy and a prick.” I take a deep breath but my bravado hasn’t helped my nerves.

Six long years. I remember being a child and standing in his study, looking at him looming behind his big desk.

I’d never seen something so resplendent or powerful in my entire life, and at the time I thought he must’ve been the most impressive man in the world. I was nothing more than a street urchin back then, barely literate, more feral rat than human, but he took me in anyway, bought me tutors, and molded me into the man I am today.

Without him, I don’t know where I would be.

Dead in a gutter, most likely.

The plane door opens and he steps out. Pascal Moreau looks exactly the same as the last time I saw him. White hair pushed back and meticulously styled. Bushy brows, still slightly dark. A well-trimmed beard. Sagging skin around his piercing blue eyes. In decent shape for a man in his early eighties, trim and somewhat muscular. I note he’s walking with a slight limp. His suit is unassuming and simple, even though he’s one of the wealthiest men in France, and perhaps the whole world.

He approaches with a tight frown. That’s his default look: Pascal Moreau doesn’t do kindness, and he sure as fuck doesn’t do smiles.

“Salut, Julien.”

“Bonjour, Grandpère.” I kiss each cheek. “Comment s’est passé votre vol?”

“My flight was fine. Don’t pretend like you still speak our language.”

His English is surprisingly good, probably because that’s what he speaks with his drug-dealing criminal friends. He pats my cheek roughly and looks at Jean. “You still work with this worthless scoundrel?”

“Good to see you again, Monsieur Moreau.”

“Ah, the dog found some manners. Did you dig them up from the yard? No matter. The pleasure is mine, young Jean.” Grandpère pats Jean’s arm before taking me by the elbow.

More men depart his plane. His soldiers and bodyguards fan out around him. I recognize his head of security, Rene Pelletier, and one of his long-time confidantes, a vicious cocksucker named Henri Deschamps. I hate those two bastards, and I hate even more that they came all the way out here with Grandpère.

“Tell me, Julien. How has America been treating you?” he asks. We make our way slowly toward where the cars are parked on the other side of the hangar. My men follow at a polite distance but don’t mingle with Grandpère’s small army. The tension is obscene.

Grandpère is older, more wrinkled, walks with a very slight limp, but remains the impressive bull of a man he’s always been.

“Very well, as you know.”

“Ah, yes, I do see the income statements from time to time. You have been earning at least, despite being stuck out here, in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by these garish Americans.”

I grind my jaw and glance at Jean. My friend has a totally stoic look on his face, but he glances at me and I know what that look means. Don’t take the bait .

“That’s what I’m here to do, Grandpère. Expand the power of the Moreau Family.”

Grandpère’s lips press together in a patronizing smirk. There’s no humor or anything resembling joy in his expression. He pats my arm as though speaking to a child. “Yes, my boy, yes, this is true, very true.”

He begins telling me about the family back home. He talks about friends and acquaintances I haven’t seen in years. Cousin Thierry had a baby with his whore English wife , as Grandpère refers to her, and Uncle Charles died of a heart attack, good riddance, the selfish little prick . Michel is fucking a Swiss pop singer while Andre is neck-deep in a cocaine addiction.

Grandpère rattles off name after name, listing all their faults and their indiscretions, and he nearly lulls me into forgetting the reason he made the long flight out to Chicago to begin with.

But he reminds me once we reach the cars. He stops walking and faces me, his expression colder than the wind biting through my suit jacket. Grandpère would never come out to America willingly, a place he believes is morally inferior and obscene compared to his homeland, a backwater to which his adopted and disgraced son exiled himself, to his great and everlasting shame.

“I keep thinking you cannot disappoint me even more than you already have, and yet you manage to dig to surprising new lows. How does it feel Julien, down there in the mud, like a filthy toad?”

I take a breath and check myself. Don’t rise to his bait . “I know you’re unhappy with my decision, Grandpère?—”

“Unhappy is not the word I would use. Repulsed, perhaps, is this a good word in English? I am repulsed by you, Julien. I am sickened. You received your orders, you understood what I wanted of you, and yet you did not obey.”

I hold his gaze and keep my back straight. “You were too late, Grandpère. I had already made arrangements. An important alliance. A new source of product.”

“Product. Yes. You are American now. That is how you think, in product. You are like a sow with a swollen belly rolling around in her own mucky filth.”

“I understand you’re unhappy?—”

“I am not unhappy. You do not have that power over me. I am merely sickened by you, Julien. Collette Fournier is a very good match for you, and now you tell me you already have a wife. As though you cannot divorce her.”

“I told you already, Grandpère. The alliance?—”

He waves me off, a dismissive flick of his wrist. I hold back my rage. I haven’t been treated like this in a very, very long time, and any other man would be dead already. His men and my own are staring, and there is nothing I can do to save face right now, except take Grandpère’s abuse with a straight spine.

“I do not care about your alliance. I do not care about your product. I am here to meet your wife and decide if she is worthy of my adopted grandson. If I find her lacking, you will divorce her, and you will marry the Collette bitch, ou je te coupe les couilles, est-ce que tu comprends?”

“Oui, Grandpère, je comprends.”

“Good.” He pats my face again and looks over at Jean. “Wonderful seeing you again, young Jean.”

“You as well, Monsieur Moreau.”

Grandpère brushes past me and climbs into the waiting car. Rene follows, talking in rapid French into his earpiece, and doesn’t glance in my direction. The guards and soldiers spread out, getting into the vehicles I provided.

Only Henri pauses, his jowls flapping as he grins at me and pats my arm. He’s a big man, heavyset and rotund.

“I believe that is your Grandpère’s way of saying how much he misses you, yes? Do not hold it against the old man. You know how these things go.” He shakes my hand and disappears into Grandpère’s car.

I watch them drive off. Jean stands at my elbow and says nothing until they’re gone. Then he looks at me.

“He thinks you’re already married?” he asks, eyebrows raised.

I grimace and shrug. “Don’t give me shit. I’m not in the mood.”

“You’ve really fucked up this time, Julien.”

“Go to hell. What use are you? Standing there like an asshole.”

“What, and interrupt fucking Pascal Moreau? I’d wake up tomorrow with my fingers chopped off. Sorry, brother, I love you, but not that much.”

“Coward.” I rub my face. It’s not lost on me that I kept my fucking mouth shut too.

He grins as we walk toward my BMW. I gesture for my men to wrap it up and they get in their vehicles. Who knows what they think about all that—the only good part of Grandpère’s visit so far is that my soldiers were too far away to really hear what he was saying. And half of them don’t even speak French.

“Seriously, Julien. What are you going to do?”

“Get married.”

I pick up my phone and scroll to Brianne’s number. There are no messages between us aside from those I sent myself.

A little thrill runs into my core when I glance over her dirty little list. Clearly, it was some kind of joke with her friend, but fucking hell.

Seeing all those sexual fantasies, and standing so close to her, it made my dick so fucking hard I could barely breathe.

The girl hates me. Not that I can blame her. I was a prick when I first met her—mostly because I’m desperate to marry a woman that will stand up to Grandpère’s scrutiny. I expected a direct blood relative of Ronan, since family shit matters to my piece of trash old man, but that’s not how things shook out.

Now it’s too late. Brianne seems halfway willing at least, and it’s not like she’s bad to look at.

No, she’s goddamn gorgeous, if I’m being honest with myself.

Her skinny Irish friend was cute, but nothing at all like Brianne, not even close.

I just have to hope the girl’s still willing, because otherwise, I’m probably not going to survive the week.

Because I’ll end up having to murder Grandpère.

As my driver pulls out, I send her a text.

Julien: Hello, mon minou. Any interest in crossing option one off your list?