Knight walked the long empty corridors for hours, but with the snow falling for days on end, the parts of the building that weren’t heated were uninhabitable. Unless he was to find Elliot’s ice-blue corpse—
He didn’t want to think that way. Elliot was surely hiding out somewhere obvious and Knight was missing what was right under his nose. He’d even gone to Fane’s torture rooms to make sure Elliot wasn’t there, but the lock to Fane’s basement wasn’t broken, and Knight asked the fucking ghost through the door if Elliot had visited. He hadn’t.
It’d been almost four days, so Knight assumed more than enough time had passed for Elliot to get over the bullshit argument, but no. He wasn’t answering his phone, he hadn’t posted any new videos, and Knight even went as far as creating a fake account on Youtube to see if Elliot would answer a private message, but he hadn’t.
With the holiday season in full swing there were no deals to be busy with, and he ended up spending most of his time doing research based on the findings Elliot gave him for Christmas. The truth about Raphael Mercier’s origin opened a whole new set of possibilities in Knight’s ancestral history, but he knew no one who would be equally excited as he was. Except, perhaps, Laurent.
“We’re actually from Italy,” he said out loud.
Laurent looked up from some catalog he was flipping through next to Beast. “As in…?” He cuddled up under Beast’s massive arm and the way he fit in there only reminded Knight of the way Elliot had a way of curling into his embrace at night. Well, not anymore.
He cleared his throat. “Well, Raphael Mercier. This guy,” he said and pulled up his sleeve to indicate the name on the long list of his ancestors, “emigrated from Italy in sometime in the late seventeenth century. His real name was Massimino, and he changed it. Well, not legally. He just lied.”
Beast smirked and picked up a catalog with a bride and groom on the cover. Already? They were planning the wedding? In Knight’s experience, things didn’t roll as fast unless there was a baby on the way. Then again, Laurent said himself that Beast wasn’t getting any younger.
Unconcerned by it all, Hound peeked at Knight when Laurent slowly massaged the giant dog’s ribs with his foot, only to huff and go back into blissful sleep.
“Do you like that, Beast? Me being of French and Italian origin?” Laurent leaned in to give Beast a quick kiss, and Knight sighed in exasperation. That wasn’t the reaction he was going for.
Elliot would have been into this shit. He would have come up with some interesting—if crazy—theory that would not only amuse Knight but might have ultimately pushed them on the right track. But Elliot was gone.
A loud voice cut through the pleasant silence as Knight noticed a bulky form barge into the common room. “Jesus fucking Christ. I’m done with this shit!”
Laurent looked up with those big-ass innocent eyes that looked so much like Elliot’s. “Excuse me? There is no need for such language. What’s wrong?”
Fox emerged from the office and tossed two folders of documents to the floor. His face burned as if he’d just ran a marathon, and Laurent’s comment was reason enough to drive Fox’s spiral of anger further.
“I’m almost twice your age. You don’t get to chastise me!”
Laurent clearly wanted to continue with his crusade but Beast silenced him with a squeeze on the thigh. “Something wrong, brother?”
“I thought I could take on all this accountancy bullshit, but we need a professional. Laurent’s at least sorting out the bills into folders as they come, but King left it all in a mess. And just today I found out my son’s dropped out of high school. So fuck. There’s that.”
Beast whistled, and his face turned into a scowl. The last thing they all needed was to bring an outsider to deal with accounts that involved fraud and money laundering. “Well shit. Sorry to hear about your boy.”
Fox spread his arms with a hiss. “Worst thing is, he’s not even dumb, he’s just a lazy asshole who doesn’t want to pick up his goddamn books. We need to get professional help with this shit. Any chance Magpie knows someone? He hangs out with all those big fish bankers in Manhattan or whatever. I bet he could recommend a creative accountant.”
Beast rubbed the soft hair on top of Laurent’s head, wordlessly soothing the burn of being put in his place. “Fine. I’ll see what I can do.”
Knight put Elliot’s gift into the inner pocket of his jacket. He felt for Beast. Magpie was an ally, a partner in business, but whether he could be trusted with the inner workings of the club or not—Knight wasn’t sure. The man could talk. He was damn good at both intimidation and making people comfortable when he wanted to, but getting more entangled with him could prove detrimental to the club’s independence.