What I found instead made me come to a complete halt, as Syeira and Jordan sat casually around the dining table, Charani in between to them. With them were three men I didn't know, but who looked Romani to me. “What is this?”
“Come, have a seat my son,” Charani said, indicating the empty chair across from her. “We have visitors.”
“I can see that,” I said, trying to regain my calm. “I’m surprised, though, I would have thought that I'd be informed.”
“Unfortunately, this was very short notice meeting,” one of the men said in heavily accented English that smacked of his Spanish roots. “Forgive me. I am Francisco Cordoba de la Rosa.”
I repressed my inner shiver, knowing the name. The De la Rosas were the heads of the largest tribe of Romani in the entire Iberian and Italian peninsulas, and in fact laid claim to most of southern France, with the defined borderlands being the small area that surrounded my family's property on the Rhone and in Paris. That had belonged to Guillaume Hardy before he married my mother, and as such was considered neutral territory. When grandfather died, the De la Rosa chief visited with Felix, to confirm the arrangement. They'd integrated themselves more into Spanish culture than a lot of the Romani, having even given up their Romani names and many not even speaking Rom. “Of course, Señor De la Rosa. It’s a pleasure to have you in my home. What brings you to Paris?”
“Well, it seems that a business associate of yours has recently been acting quite peculiar,” De la Rosa said, taking out a smartphone. “When some of my family's men questioned him, he had quite a bit to say. Would you like to take a look?”
De la Rosa set the phone on the table, turning it toward me. “Don’t worry, your mother and these ladies have already seen it,” he said with a grim smile. “There is nothing to hide here amongst us Romani.”
With trembling hands, I tapped the screen, starting the video. I saw our Spanish agent, the man I had sold out Felix to on the screen, his arms bound behind his back and his face beaten and swollen. In blubbering, sobbing tones, he described how he'd betrayed Felix, and how he'd transferred him to the Russian mobsters after the fake handoff in Calais. “Now, one last question, and the answer is of vital importance,” the cameraman said, waving a knife in front of the Spaniard. “Did Francois know about or participate in the betrayal of his brother?”
“Of course he knew, you stupid Gypsy!” the Spaniard spat back, his eyes wide and frightened. “Who the hell do you think contacted me about it? Hell, he talked with my men in Mexico about setting the whole thing up!”
“Thank you,” the cameraman said. “You have earned some mercy.”
The Spaniard's mouth widened in a grateful smile, only to be replaced by a shocked gape as the cameraman reached forward, and grabbed him by his hair.
“It was a hands-free setup,” De la Rosa explained as on the video, the cameraman shoved the knife into the Spaniard's mouth and jerked sideways savagely, slicing open his cheek before repeating it on the other side, giving the screaming man a Glasgow smile. “Mercy, no? We should have killed him.”
“You can’t believe what this man says,” I stammered, looking up from the video. “He was slime, and we only used him because he had connections for offloading our loot.”
Jordan, who until then had maintained her silence, slammed her fist down on the table. “Francois . . . how could you?” she cried, her eyes streaming tears. “How could you? He is your brother!”
“He spent his whole life holding me down!” I yelled back, slamming my own fist onto the table. “I was always second best! Always! Even with you — I was the second one in your heart. Admit it Jordan, whenever you needed tenderness, or comfort, or compassion, it was Felix you turned to, not me! I was good for having fun, and for a good fuck, nothing more!”
“I turned to you too, you selfish bastard!” Jordan screamed, throwing the napkin that she'd been holding in her hand at me. “I can't even . . .”
She got up and ran from the barge, out into the Paris afternoon. I turned in my chair to go after her, when the other two men with De la Rosa, as well as Charani and Syeira, stood up. “Don't move.”
I stopped and turned back, stunned at the tone in my mother's voice. I hadn't heard that tone in her voice to me ever. In fact, I had rarely heard her use it, and only then against those who had hurt the family. “Mother?”
“A title that I regret to have at this moment,” she seethed, her gray eyes flaring with anger. “A title that means nothing, since by what you have done, you have shown yourself to be nothing!”