Diamonds in the Dust (Diamonds are Forever Trilogy 1)

The guards are smoking in the garden. They put out their cigarettes when we approach. The blond one hurries to get my door, but Maxime waves him away.

“I’ve got this, Gautier.”

Once inside, Maxime turns to me. “Would you like to go for a drink somewhere, maybe show me another part of your city?”

I rub my temples where a headache is building. “I’ve played your game. I’ve eaten my food. I just want to go home.”

“As you wish,” he says, “but you’re not going home.”

My body goes rigid. “Where am I going?”

He nods at Gautier, who pulls off as Maxime says, “To my hotel.”

Chapter 3

Maxime

Glass skyscrapers and modern office blocks dominate the view as we drive to my hotel in Melrose Arch. It’s nothing like the crumbling buildings and weed-infested pavements of Zoe Hart’s suburb. I’ve seen worse neighborhoods. In my line of work, there’s always worse. Yet for some reason, the empty buildings with planks crossed over their broken windows in Brixton made me tense. We’re armed with enough weapons to defend ourselves should anyone be stupid enough to attack us, but it’s not my safety I fear. The uneasiness eating at me is for the woman I just found and can’t afford to lose. Her apartment doesn’t even have an alarm, for God’s sake.

In a place like that, it’s only a matter of time before she turns into a statistic. The fact that I’ll be the one to turn her into that statistic doesn’t faze me, which says a lot about the kind of man I am.

I regard my petite charge. She’s quiet now, her worry bigger than her anger. It’s not that I don’t want to put her at ease. It’s just that I can’t tell her the truth. Her hands are clutched together in her lap. Every now and then, she untangles those long, slender fingers to rub at a temple. That should teach her for downing two glasses of the most expensive wine in the restaurant without even tasting it. Not that I blame her.

She’s right to be nervous. She should be wary of me. I’m angry with her, even if it’s not her fault. I’m angry that she put me in this position, a position that makes me give a damn. How could I not look at her as a person after going through her apartment and witnessing the dreams so obviously strewn around? She wears them like the emotions in her expressive eyes—on her sleeve. Hope shines in those wide blue irises, and hope makes a person human.

The problem is I’ve never dealt with an innocent. Everyone in my business has dirt on his hands, but Zoe is only a pawn. If I hand her over to my younger brother, as planned, she’ll be broken and nothing but a shell of herself, those beautiful dreams and naïve hope crushed and forgotten by the time we send her back to her brother. If we ever do.

I had to drive the last woman unfortunate enough to have ended up in Alexis’s bed to hospital. Her injuries weren’t pretty. Even without the payoff from my father, she wouldn’t have pressed charges. The consequences are too terrifying. Our family is feared. It’s not fair, but that’s life for you.

Zoe tenses more when we pull up at the hotel. Part of her fault is that she’s pretty and exactly Alexis’s type. He’ll like her dark hair and pale skin. He’ll want her. That makes her my problem, one I don’t need and shouldn’t want. Yet I do. Maybe that’s the real problem. I’ve wanted her since I pressed her body against mine and slammed my hand over her mouth.

I liked the head rush I got from holding her in my power. I liked how clean her apartment was amidst the filth of the buildings surrounding hers. I liked the simple wildflower and the cherished green plant on her windowsill. Just like her. She’s a pretty little daisy that pushes through a crack on a dirty pavement, resilient and beautiful, surviving against the odds.

She’s poor as fuck, but she’s proud. I like that, too. Judging by the books she reads and the clothes she fancies, she’s a romantic. That, I like the most. It fascinates me. I want to know how she can believe in something so abstract and idyllic that doesn’t exist. Even if it did, she certainly wouldn’t have found it in Brixton.

I want to know how the fuck she can still believe in something beautiful, in anything at all, when everything around her is dilapidated, rotten, and hopeless. I want to know how someone with her fragile body and meager means survives. I want to know how her soul can crack concrete and flourish with no one’s care to shine like a daisy amidst the grime. Maybe, just maybe, if I know her secret, I’ll know how to be happy. Maybe if I can catch her spirit, I can steal her dreams and make her hope mine.