Page 74 of The Dragon 2

"Phantom of the Opera. A special anniversary performance.” Reo adjusted his tie, and the silk slipped along his fingers. “They only stage it like this once every ten years. There will be a full orchestra.”

Hiro yawned. “Are we expected to watch it?”

“It’s the Butcher.” I gave him a sad smile. “Of course he would want us to remain for thefullperformance.”

Hiro let out an exasperated sigh.

“I am actually pretty excited to see it.” Reo glanced up at the chandelier. "This entire building inspired the novel’s author. Gaston Leroux. There’s an underground lake.”

Hiro’s head tilted slightly. “There’s a lake in the opera house?”

"Exactly. It’s real. The underground lake is located directly beneath the Palais Garnier itself, specifically under the building’s stage area.”

I raised my eyebrows. “How did that happen?”

“During construction, they couldn’t get rid of the water underground, so they built around it and later. . .that lake inspired Leroux to write about the Phantom’s lair." Reo pointed to the chandelier. “And then there’s the other stuff that inspired him.”

My gaze swept upward toward the frescoed ceilings and the massive chandelier above us.

Reo gave me a small smile. "In 1896, a counterweight on that chandelier snapped and killed a concierge. Leroux twisted that into myth. Added whispers, secrets, masked figures."

I exhaled slowly.

The building suddenly felt alive and watching.

The Phantom of the Opera.

The story played in my mind.

A man disfigured, brilliant, obsessive. Haunting beauty from beneath the stage, craving love, and punishing betrayal.

I remembered the final scene. Christine choosing between love and fear. Between the phantom and the man above ground. Between being devoured or surviving.

The opera wasn’t just about music or masks. It was about obsession. Power. What humans became when we were denied light and learned to rule in the shadows instead.

I thought of Nyomi and suddenly understood the Phantom’s hunger even more. I was tasting it now. That need to possess something so enchanting and beautiful.

Reo’s voice brought me back to the moment. “They say the Butcher once played violin here, before he ever killed a man.”

Hiro smirked. “Knowing Jean-Pierre, I’m sure he had already killed many men before performing here under the guise of an aristocrat violinist.”

Reo considered that and nodded. “You could be right.”

I looked around and saw the Butcher’s soldiers outlined along the space. Men in Saint Laurent jackets with hard stares and faces that had the topography of violence.

The Corsican were old blood—criminal nobility born from the granite spines of Corsica, a French island that knew how to raise warriors.

The kind of group the world forgot about until blood pooled beneath their boots.

The Corsican mafia originated in the early 1900s. No drugs or arms passed through the French border without them knowing. Even the French government had once whispered their names like they were curses.

It wasn’t one family.

It was many.

But when people spoke of power, only two factions were mentioned: the Unione Corse and the Brise de Mer gangs.

The Butcher and his people were Brise de Mer.