The Conspiracy of Us (The Conspiracy of Us 1)

I was afraid I’d collapse if I let go of the couch, but he started toward me from the bottom of the stairs.

I ran.

The back door was a million miles away.

There was a shout, and a display a few feet from me exploded, shards of glass slicing my skin. I screamed and dropped to the ground, scrambling under a table piled with scarves and out the other side. I hadn’t even realized he had a gun. Another kick of adrenaline pumped through my aching body, and I pushed my legs faster.

I couldn’t tell how close he was now. The only sound I could hear was my own desperate breath.

Then there were footsteps all around, right behind me, almost to me. More yelling.

He’d caught up. He had me.

I braced myself for one last frantic, futile dash, but strong arms grabbed me from behind.

“Let go!” I screamed. “Let go of me!” I lashed out against him, dug my nails into his skin, tried to rip his hands off me, but we were falling, on the ground, struggling. If I could grab the gun and point it away from us—but he wouldn’t let go.

I was about to die.

No sense of calm came over me, no rush of memories flew through my head. Strangely, the only face that swam in front of my eyes, the voice I heard yelling my name, was Jack’s.

I heard a grunt and drew one last breath, squeezing my eyes shut.

Nothing happened.

I was still alive.

“Avery!” My eyes flew open. I had heard my name. “Avery! Stop! You’re safe!”

I quit struggling. The arms encircling me loosened enough for me to focus on his face.

It was Jack.

I hadn’t been imagining it. How he’d gotten here I didn’t know, but Jack was here, and I was alive.

My face was pressed into his chest. He cradled my head above the floor and held both my wrists in his other hand, trying to keep me from scratching his eyes out. I stared up into his face—flashing silver eyes, mussed dark hair—and for a second, I was back in my calculus class last Monday morning, pretending not to stare when he walked in the room.

“Jack—what?” I choked out. If Jack was holding me, where was the killer? Then I saw the gun in Jack’s hand, and, even though I didn’t think I’d heard another gunshot, I put together what had probably happened.

He pulled me to sitting and looked me over, taking in the cut on my shoulder.

“Stay here.” He let go of me and hurried away, his gun drawn.

He’d saved my life. A dizzying rush of relief washed over me and tears were running down my cheeks and I was gasping. I was alive.

I pushed up onto my knees to see where Jack was going, to get him to come back. I didn’t want to be alone.

I froze when I saw the head.

The head of the man who had tried to kill me, no longer attached to his body. His head was at my eye level, wire-rimmed glasses still perched on his nose, blood dripping from his severed neck.

I scrambled backward, but slipped and fell in a pool of dark blood, the killer’s and my own.

I followed the arm holding the head up to the thin, angular face and shock of light brown hair of a boy about my age, who peered at it with a bland curiosity. He tossed the severed head across the floor like a bowling ball and grimaced at a bloodstain across his chest. “Merde,” he said. “This was my favorite shirt.”

I got slowly to my knees again, my gold dress soaked through with crimson. The boy stood above me, polishing blood off a huge knife.

He grinned at me, and I stared into his eyes. Purple eyes, just like mine. Then I vomited onto his boots.

CHAPTER 13

Don’t do well with blood, I see.” The boy helped me limp to the white couch in the foyer.

My knee hurt so badly from the fall down the stairs that I wanted to curl into a ball and cry. But then the throbbing in my head overpowered it. Then the blood still oozing out of my shoulder. Then the body. The headless body on the floor, and the sick coppery smell and the music: the ridiculous chime of the Bach playing over the bloodbath like some kind of twisted parody.

I leaned on the armrest but winced away from a small, bloody handprint—my own handprint—which contrasted gruesomely with the white upholstery.

“Why would he try to kill me?” I whispered.

“A mistake, cherie. He was Order. Must have thought you were someone else.”

Order. Like Madame Dauphin and those men had been talking about. I knew it hadn’t felt like just a robbery. But it also hadn’t felt like a mistake.

The boy lit a cigarette, then offered me the pack. I shook my head. “You are Avery, I presume. I am Luc.”

Madame Dauphin’s son. I’d overheard someone asking about him earlier at the Louvre. His cologne was almost strong enough to overpower the scent of blood. How was it possible he was so nonchalant? Celebrities and politicians and ball gowns—fine. That was everyday life for some people. But politicians and Prada and murder?

Luc blew a stream of smoke out of the corner of his mouth. “I was looking for Stellan. Where is he, by the way? Luckily, I heard you scream from down the block. Nice lungs.”

A commotion sounded from the back of the store, and Jack came out of the other room. He had the other man who worked here, Frederic, in a choke hold, pressing the gun to his side when he struggled, all while nudging Aimee and Elisa along in front of him. I perched on the edge of the couch, but just then the door opened, letting in street noise.

Everyone turned as heavy footsteps came into the foyer, then stopped dead. Stellan’s eyes widened as they flicked to the body, to the blood, to me, and finally to Jack, hovering over Frederic and the girls.

He met my eyes. I blinked once, twice, and he came savagely alive. He was across the floor in three long strides, glaring first at Jack, then down at Frederic.

“What’s going on?” he asked, and yelled again, in French. “Ce qui s’est passe? What the—” He broke off into another language, which sounded like Russian.

“The Order tried to kill Avery.” Jack’s quiet anger was almost more frightening than Stellan’s rage.

“Tried to kill—” Stellan’s gaze shot to me. He reached down to Frederic and yanked at his collar, exposing a tattoo on his chest, of a circle split by two lines. Then he pulled out his dagger and drove it into Frederic’s chest.

Frederic coughed once, and then his body slackened and fell to the ground, his blood mixing with the stain already spread across the floor.