of the trial records, the portions unheard by the defendants at the time, must have uncovered that. Who knew who this Mlle. Tellier was—if we survived this night, we could find out. “You learned from your German friends that they already had what they needed for a conviction against Louise de Bettignies, so you knew there was no point in torturing Eve further. But before you turned her in, you made sure she thought she was the informer.” I took a deep breath. “Admit it, René. Eve beat you. She won. You lied to make her think she’d lost.”
His drilling gaze flickered. Under my shrieking fear, I was pierced by a flash of silver-bright triumph. Eve was struggling to sit up straighter against the wall. I couldn’t tell how much my words had sunk in. René’s Luger moved back in her direction. No, no. Me, you look at me.
“How does it feel?” I taunted. “You tried to break her, and it didn’t work. Nothing has worked for you since the day she outsmarted you. She ended up a decorated war heroine, and you ended up restarting your life twice because you were too goddamn dumb to pick the right side in two successive wars—”
He broke. Too angry to shoot me from a safe distance, he came at me: the man who killed Rose, raising the Luger as he advanced. But I was lunging up from the floor, my hand sweeping the shelf above me, and the seconds stretched agonizingly as I fumbled—fumbled—and finally seized hold of the bust of Baudelaire. I brought it around in a wild swing, knocking René’s arm away before he could fire. He stumbled back, off balance, toward the desk, and my heart lodged in my throat. Drop the pistol, drop it—but though he fell back on one elbow beside the lamp, that aged hand on the edge of the desk still stubbornly gripped the Luger.
“Charlie,” Eve said, clear and crisp. I knew what she wanted and I was already surging forward with a howl of hatred, swinging the marble bust in a brutal descending arc. He raised his other arm, protecting his head, but I wasn’t aiming for his head. The bust of Baudelaire came down with a sickening crunch on those long spider-thin fingers clenched around the Luger. I heard bones shatter under the marble, and he screamed—screamed like Eve had screamed when he crushed her knuckles one by one, screamed like Lili had screamed on a surgeon’s table in Siegburg, screamed like Rose had screamed when the first German bullets came ripping through her baby’s body into her own. I screamed too as I hammered the bust down again, hearing another crunch of bones as I flattened those long, long fingers into red ruin.
He let go of the Luger.
It fell to the floor, and I lunged for it, but René reached out with his undamaged hand and seized hold of my hair, still howling in agony, trying to wrench me back. So I kicked the pistol instead, sending it skittering across the floor to Eve.
She lifted her blood-soaked hands and raised René’s Luger from the reddened floor. Brought it level with an effort that skinned her lips back from her teeth, as I wrenched my hair away from that vengeful grip and dove to the ground—
As Eve calmly buried a shot between René Bordelon’s eyes.
His face disappeared in a red mist. The pistol cracked again as Eve spaced three more shots into his chest.
He toppled back, sliding to the floor with his ruined hand flung out in surprise. Surprised to the end that there was pain he couldn’t outrun, vengeance he couldn’t escape, consequences he couldn’t evade. Women who couldn’t be beaten.
The air stank, acrid with gunsmoke and the sharper tang of gore. The silence fell like a lead weight. I struggled up from the floor, still clutching the bust of Baudelaire. I couldn’t look away from René’s crumpled body. He should have looked small and old in death, pitiable. All I saw was an aged viper with its head cut off, venomous to the end. My stomach lurched and suddenly I wanted to vomit. I turned away, folding one arm around my belly, lurching back toward Eve who still had the Luger in her ruined hand. She looked tattered and blood splashed, splendid and terrible, and she gave a slow pitiless smile like a Valkyrie riding in howling triumph over a horde of dead enemies.