Page 9 of Unleash Hades (Ungoverned Spaces #5)

I straightened, schooling my features as best I could. I resented competing with Bellamy. The Laurent’s might own a media business, but we had to work to retain our status. Especially with Richard doing his best to run the enterprise into the ground.

But the Bellamy’s, who inherited the Duchy of Mouron? They came from the world heraldic, generational wealth. The kind that could not be lost in this lifetime, or the next. They were a line too ancient to topple in one go, even if French monarchies had no legal standing.

“Richard and I have very different tastes,” I said, turning away and giving him my cold shoulder.

The two fighters in the ring lunged at each other. One fell down over the other and punched his opponent over and over again. Blood sprayed into the air, evaporating into pink mist, and the crowd went wild. People screamed and clamored to their feet.

Bellamy and I remained like statues in our seats, not looking at each other.

“Different tastes? I never would have guessed.” His voice continued our interrupted conversation. “You two seem so close.”

I hated that people believed that. I hated that I had to keep up that facade.

I hated that I had become such a good liar. A person I never wanted to be.

It was my dream to be a journalist, and to always tell the truth. Now…

“I don’t care for the blood sport myself,” Bellamy fingered his ascot. “But everyone always dresses to the nines in the Underground. Take a look at Jericho Vasiliev. His wife has taught him how to accessorize. That Lapis Lazuli bracelet is divine. It ties the whole outfit together.”

Of course, it was about clothes for him.

“But blood and violence… yuck!” Bellamy grimaced.

“If it wasn’t for the fashions and connections, I wouldn’t bother.

” Another smack, the sound of bone and flesh colliding, as the fighters made one last effort to win.

More blood sprayed, and bruises formed. “But there’s something about carnage that makes the chins wag, the wallets open, and the inhibitions disappear. ”

The referee put out his hands, declaring the fight over. Voices raised in screams of frustration, or victory, as betting slips were thrown, or kissed.

“Blood is the real social lubricant, I’d say.”

Bellamy was still talking. A terrible narrator for this particular spectacle.

Why couldn’t Lucien Bellamy have been a fashion “journalist”, working for one of the beauty magazines?

Why did he have to be in my sphere? Running around war zones in his expensive button-down shirts and scarves, like a pig in lipstick.

He traipsed around the world’s most impoverished areas, wearing thousand-dollar shirts and enormous watches that could probably feed an entire country.

The man’s lack of self-awareness was shocking.

“I see Richard at these fights often, but I’ve never seen you before.” His words stabbed at my gut. “I assumed you didn’t like blood sports, as a female of certain sensibilities .”

Flamboyant and sexist? Asshole.

I shrugged off his apparent misogyny, gritting my teeth to concentrate on the information that was actually important. Something that might be useful. “You’ve seen Richard at these fights?”

“Oh yes,” he said with a high-pitched laugh. “I’ve seen Richard often at these events, and also when I go to France it seems.”

Blood. Bruises. Water. Death.

Marseilles.

“Oh? I didn’t know you went to France much. I haven’t seen you assigned there.”

“Oh, no!” His fingers fluttered. “I despise Paris, and frankly despise the French… no offense.”

I wanted to kick him. I might speak like some English prick, but I was French, through and through.

“French women do have a certain something… I do love their accents, you know. There’s nothing quite like it.

” Then his voice suddenly pitched low. If I hadn’t seen his lips move from the corner of my eye, I would have thought a different person was speaking.

“Your Richard might know a thing or two about that.”

What the fuck was he trying to imply?

Richard’s revolving door of French mistresses was a poorly guarded secret, but it was generally understood that I accepted and condoned it. But no one had the balls to ever openly discuss it to my face!

Richard and I fooled the world and played the loving married couple. We were outwardly a unified front.

Like Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine.

“So, what’s the story here?” Bellamy pried, throwing his arm casually over the back of my chair and leaning towards me, as I leaned away.

Was he talking about Richard? Or the Underground Circuit at large?

I tried to keep my face neutral. I truly did. But I felt it… the curl of my lip. The edge and prickle on my skin. The goosebumps that I could not help.

“I’m not trying to steal your story, Calissandra.” His chuckle sent a shiver down my spine. Not the good kind. “Believe it or not, I’m looking out for you.”

Sometimes he sounded dreadfully like Richard. Cold, calculated. But with a hint of smarminess as if all the underhanded things he did was for one’s own benefit - like their self-interest was something in your favor.

It never was. It never would be.

“I’m merely curious, and…” he allowed the word to linger in the space between us, before concluding his dramatic delivery. “Offering to help.”

“Help?” I scoffed and dared direct eye contact. “In what universe would you ever try to help me?”

“Just because you and I compete for the Laurent Award doesn’t mean that we can’t be allies of a sort,” he said with a smile that would have disarmed a lesser person.

But I had learned in twenty-five years of marriage that the brightest smiles had the ugliest hearts. “After all, we are colleagues, no?”

He adjusted in his seat, and I turned to him and looked - really looked at him - from his perfectly styled hair, to his clean jaw, down to the ascot and suit, to the almost feminine way he crossed his legs.

But there was something else there - a thing that happened beneath the surface.

It was like he was hiding a gravitas beneath a frilly exterior.

There was something disarming about him, and even I wanted to lean in to his spell.

The way he advertised that he was no threat was a threat in itself. Like a wolf in sheep’s gilded clothing.

“Think on it, Cali, if we joined forces we’d be a shoo-in for a Pulitzer and every other title there is,” he giggled, delighted by the thought. “We’d be unstoppable.”

He leaned into me, and I felt his finger playing at the edges of my hair.

“No.” My lip curled, and my nostrils flared like a wild animal faced with a rival. Belatedly, I added, “Thank you.”

I wouldn’t fall for the flash or the charm. I would not have the wool pulled over my eyes again.

“You wound me, Cali.” I cringed at that shortening of my name. Only one person was allowed to call me that, and it certainly wasn’t Lucien Bellamy, the Duc de Mouron.

“My name is Calissandra,” I gritted out. “But only my friends call me that. You may call me Ms. Laurent-Davenport.”

I put extra emphasis on the Ms. and not Mrs.

“So formal!” He pretended to be shocked, tugging on his ascot.

I tried to concentrate on the new fight. There was a handsome Captain America-type called Harrison Guile, against a hairy-backed gorilla whose name escaped me. I secretly rooted for the gorilla, because there was something Richard-like in Guile as well.

I scanned the room again, looking for anyone who looked like they were conducting this circuit. Where was the ringleader? Who was in charge? But there was no one. Surely, they could be peppered for answers.

Someone had to be in charge. Someone had to pilot this ship. And whoever it was, they’d know a thing or two about Richard and his dealings. Hell, they were probably in on it.

“I’m just saying…” Bellamy had an irritating accent that made him sound like he was a person decades older than himself. Was he trying to sound like King Charles? If so… why? “I could be of great assistance to you. You clearly know nothing about all of… this.”

“Take the hint,” I said, bitterly. I wanted him to leave.

“I am,” he said, quietly. Gone was the flowery voice, and in its place was someone serious. His change in tone was so abrupt that it threw me off. “You don’t know what you’re stumbling into.”

The room erupted in applause as the fighters were pried apart, the loser on the floor, bleeding through a face that looked like mincemeat. The handsome Guile had won.

Pity.

The lifeless body was carried out of the octagon on a white stretcher. A marginally concerned coach followed behind, looking at his fighter with a disdain that made my heart shrivel.

There was no sympathy to be found in this lot. Just anger at a man who was pommeled for daring to get hurt.

“What would you know about it?” I asked, again, still not looking the monster directly in the eye. “You said you hated blood sports.”

“Dear, dear Cali,” he tsk ed. That flowery voice was back. Maybe I hallucinated the earlier change? “I rarely do things because I enjoy them. I do them because of the advantages.”

I rolled my eyes, annoyed at his platitudes.

“Take them, for example,” he flicked his fingers to a couple of bespoke suited people.

Kieran, Gavin’s son, and another woman. “That’s Kieran O’Malley, enforcer to the New York mob.

See the woman he’s sitting with?” I was already looking, but I knew that this was his speech pattern - flowery, and winding.

Never truly getting to the point. “That’s Yuliya Vasilieva, the presumed heir to the New York City bratva, currently in a power struggle for Boston as well. ”

Then he brought his voice down in a stage whisper, “And the man beside her?” I looked, because I really wanted to figure out where the hell he was going with all of this. “That’s a lesser Prince of Monaco. What could all three of them have in common, do you think?”

I shut my mouth, because I had no idea.

“The bratva and the mob in bed with a foreign prince?” He feigned a shocked expression, his fingers clutching non-existent pearls.

“How could it be?” He put his palm on his cheek, his mouth open in mocked aghast. “So, you see, this is where the real power brokers are, speaking candidly to each other.”

He was right. There were so many familiar faces, sitting across people who should never publicly be in a room together.

He pointed to my left, sticking his long finger right in front of my nose. I followed his digit with my eyes, and saw a face vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t figure out from where.

“That’s Aldon Mountbatten, Duke of Severn,” Then he sang a loud, “Yoohoo! Aldon!” while giving a finger wave.

Aldon Mountbatten turned his head, and looked like he was holding in a fit of laughter. Mountbatten reluctantly waved back with a shake of his head.

“He’s a dear, dear friend of mine, but we cannot socialize outside of the Underground because the Royals are such sticklers about being seen with the press.

” Bellamy pouted. “I could tell you so much about everyone in here,” he said, then brought a finger to his lips as if he was shushing himself.

“This is the most exclusive country club you’ll ever find because it operates in secret.

What happens in the Underground stays in the Underground, so the royals get to mingle with the rabble. ”

What he was saying made sense. But I just didn’t like that he was the one saying it.

If I found him slightly less reprehensible, he truly would have been a great person to join forces with. As it were… I hated the man.

“You’re saying that people come here to mingle?”

“Oh, why, yes!” His voice was so musical.

“Why don’t you and I have drinks sometime and have a chat?” The hand on the back of his chair moved, running a finger through a strand of my hair, and I jumped in my seat.

“Are you hitting on me?” I said in complete disgust. “I’m a married woman!”

Which wasn’t the real reason for my refusal. My marriage was a sham, my husband was a psychopath. But my heart… well that belonged to someone else entirely.

He let out a long, aggrieved sigh that was so dramatic and loud that it made the heads around us turn in his direction. Including mine.

His eyes were cast upwards, his mouth open. He then pinched the bridge of his prominent nose and looked forward.

Then his dark eyes turned to me, and he gave a one shoulder shrug, still not removing his arm from my backrest.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you, Cali.”