Rosa

Chapter 3

Eight days later, Mr. Lavigne's corpse was found in a foul-smelling puddle of his own vomit and feces. More than likely, it seemed, one too many nights of heavy drinking, hard drugging, and wild partying had led to his demise. Marseille authorities ruled the poor bastard's cause of death to be drug and alcohol overdose.

He had died alone in his apartment without anyone at his side.

No one knew about his old life as the heir to the De León crime family.

No one knew about the brutal murders of his father and brothers at Vincenzo Vitale's funeral.

No one knew about his treacherous sister who had betrayed their family to side with the enemy.

No one knew about his beautiful, blue-eyed, blonde wife who had paid good money to dispatch him.

That day, Gaspare De León's real identity also died with Mr. Lavigne.

As soon as her kill was confirmed, Rosa phoned David Candia, Valentina Rizzo's middleman, to collect her payment of €30,000.

He picked up on the fourth ring. "Pronto."

Rosa murmured, "It is done."

"Ah, how good to hear from you," David exclaimed, switching to English as soon as he recognized her voice, "my dear Rosa."

Rosa and David always communicated in English because she didn't speak Italian, and he couldn't speak French or Arabic.

She then went on for a few more minutes to update him on details of interest relating to the job: The kind of poison she used. The pronounced time and date of Mr. Lavigne's death. The police report. The coroner's report.

"Ah, excellent work, Mademoiselle Lenoir," David praised her.

"Merci."

Rosa chose, however, not to mention Mr. Lavigne's tall, dark bodyguard or the bastard's suspicious attitude towards her.

There was no need.

After a hit, Rosa always made it a point to disappear from the vicinity of her latest assignment for a few weeks—to lay low, let the dust settle, and wait for the blood to dry.

Maybe, this time, she would take a holiday to Greece. Maybe even Portugal. She heard Costa da Caparica, a popular beach near Lisbon, was nice around this time of year.

Or, perhaps, she should take on another job in London?

She still had some old contacts there with plenty of enemies to kill and even more cash to spare. She could always use the money. Rosa wasn't ashamed to admit that she enjoyed the finer things in life. Good food. Designer bags and designer clothes and designer shoes. Her fancy loft in the 9th Arrondissement certainly didn't pay for itself.

She deserved nice things, Rosa reasoned, after everything they had ripped from her soul, after the purgatory they had entrapped her in when she was only a child of sixteen.

Inès Nadir was long dead and long gone.

Her innocence had been burnt to dust and ash in Julien Mesrine's hellish inferno, in his brothel of lost, missing, and stolen girls.

Her present self, Rosa Lenoir, was, in essence, a phantom living on borrowed time.

Time—that had been stolen from the real Rosa far, far, far too soon.

Rosa knew full well that she wouldn't be here for a long time. She was here for a good time. Might as well live it up before she met her maker.

At any rate, Rosa doubted that the bodyguard with the rose tattoo on his hand would be able to track her down, he only knew her as the fictitious and nonexistent Mademoiselle Adèle Moreau, and, as long as he couldn't locate Adèle, he wouldn't be able to trace the death of his employer, Mr. Lavigne, back to her or her clients.