Page 28 of Phantom

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 anduncomplicatedreports.

“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 thefuck? We can’t be in Chatelain business.”

“Thisisn’tChatelain business. Gustave Day—”

“Scarlett’s dad’s murder isnotBordeaux 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 isnotBordeaux business. the truce—”