The Paris Betrayal by James Hannibal (the dot read aloud .txt) 📗

A hand touched his shoulder. He looked up. “Giselle?”

Not Giselle. Clara. Her dog, with his ridiculous, happy-go-lucky grin turned in a circle twice and curled up in the soil between them, head on his paws.

She sat at his side. I’m here, Ben.

“Why? Why are you here?”

You know why. I’m here because you want me here. She patted his hand. Ben felt her skin—the softness of her fingers, the warmth. And I’m not leaving your side.

He nodded and closed his eyes, ready to let sleep come.

33

“Ben?” Clara jerked upright in bed. Moonlight crept in around the curtains, painting Sensen’s guest room in dim gray. No Ben. Only Otto, curled up in a nest he’d made from the bedcover. Why had she called out for Ben? The details of the dream refused to return to her. She shivered. Whatever the dream, it left her feeling cold.

Clara settled down next to her dog. “He’s okay, Otto. Ben can take care of himself.” The dachshund answered with a bleary I’m trying to sleep here frown, and she nodded. “Right. Sorry. Go back to sleep. I will too.”

Sleep didn’t come. Despite Otto’s warmth and the room’s mild temperature, Clara couldn’t shake the cold from her limbs. She peeled herself out of bed and pushed the covers up around Otto to keep him comfortable. Sensen had banned the dog from all furniture. What he didn’t know wouldn’t hurt him.

Halfway to the door, Clara paused and laughed at the absurdity of the thought. Her recent life had taught her the foolishness of that old phrase. What he doesn’t know won’t hurt him. In a world of spies and assassins, the exact opposite held true. What Ben didn’t know had killed Giselle. What Ben didn’t know would soon kill him and perhaps many others.

Clara had thrust herself into Ben’s life at the flat, and in response, he’d protected her the way her brother took the brunt of her father’s drunken rage. She repaid her brother’s sacrifice by letting him join a foreign military, a decision that killed him. Now she’d repaid Ben by letting him run off alone and without answers.

“I should have gone with him,” she said, glancing back at Otto as she placed a hand on the door lever.

Did she mean Ben or her brother? Perhaps both.

The thermostat had to be somewhere in the hall. Sensen had an oil heating system like the one that caused the secondary explosions at Giselle’s place. The thought shouldn’t worry her. It’s not like these Leviathan people wanted to blow up the sniper’s home too.

Did they?

She definitely should have gone with Ben.

Clara placed each step on the wood floor with caution, careful of creaky boards. If she woke Sensen, his awkward-host mode would kick in. He treated her with the strangest brand of honor-bound hospitality, a mix of warm food and cold stares.

An urgent errand—Sensen’s words—had taken him away for most of the afternoon, and he’d returned with clothes in her size and dog food for Otto. These are for you. He’d dropped the bundle on her bed and walked out. As a houseguest, she’d never felt so well looked after and unwelcome at the same time.

A quiet walk to the hall’s end, close to the double doors of Sensen’s bedroom, revealed no thermostat. Clara frowned. Downstairs, maybe? She reversed course, and the deep rumble of Sensen’s voice touched her ears. She backed up a step. Yellow light peeked out through the crack between the doors. Another rumble. He was talking to someone, but who? She stilled her breathing and listened.

“Yes, sir. He came to me.”

By he, Sensen had to mean Ben.

Cringing at the stupidity of her impulse, Clara pressed an eye to the crack. Through the blur of her eyelash, she saw the sniper at his desk, speaking to someone on a tablet—a sir, perhaps the fabled Director. Sensen’s body blocked the screen, and he wore a lightweight headset and microphone, preventing her from hearing the other half of the conversation.

“No, sir. I didn’t . . . I see. Yes, I let him go. I gave him Rotterdam. I thought it would keep him busy . . . A ship? No, sir, I—”

A long pause. Sensen bowed his head as if cowed by a reprimand.

“He’s too close to what, sir? Who is . . . Understood . . . Yes. Zürich . . . I’ll pass him the time and coordinates. If he survived Rotterdam, he’ll follow through with the rendezvous. Calix is convinced of his own innocence. He won’t miss a chance to declare it to a Company man . . . Yes, sir. I’ll leave at first light.”

Sensen went quiet, listening again, until finally, he let out a sigh. “What about the girl? I can’t simply—”

The person in the monitor seemed to cut him off again.

“Yes, sir. I’ll take care of it.”

Clara fought to keep the pounding of her heartbeat from giving her away.

The girl. Me.

She’d been living under the self-imposed delusion that Sensen was his own man, honor-bound to keep her safe. But she realized now that he had a master—a spymaster. Of all Clara had learned in her short time in this secret world, the most frightening lesson was that spies favored missions and causes over people. Sensen’s spymaster didn’t know her—didn’t care about her. Had she just become a liability?

Sensen set his headset down, rubbed his temples, and swiveled in his chair.

Clara lurched back from the door, praying he hadn’t seen the movement. She hurried back to her room, the thermostat long forgotten.

I’ll leave at first light.

She and Otto had a few hours, if that. Sensen might come for her in the night, for all she knew. And then, assuming she’d understood the conversation correctly, he’d go after Ben.

34

I HAVE YOUR BOY

Jupiter watched the small window at the top of his holographic screen, waiting for a response. He’d been checking morning and night for two days, waiting for a response. One would come. His old friend always answered, but always in his own time. The Director had