He’s bent over, holding his arm to stop the bleeding, the corkscrew on the floor. “She stabbed me!”
My mother gasps and looks at me. “Gabrielle.”
“He’s a fucking monster!” I scream at her, my face going hot, my heart wanting to explode out of my chest and run away. “He’s hurt me.” I pause, trying to breathe, because the next words are so hard for me to say, even to myself. “He . . . he raped me, Mama.”
Her eyes widen, and she peers at me closer, as if she has a hard time believing me, as if I didn’t just open myself bare, raw and vulnerable, showing her my deepest wounds, the kinds that dig into your soul and never heal.
“She’s full of lies,” he says, practically snarling as he grabs a dishcloth and holds it against his arm. “She’s done nothing but try to seduce me since the day you brought her here.”
“No,” I tell her, grabbing her arm so that she’ll look at me, really see me, listen to me. We went through this with my father—can’t she see that it’s happening again? “Please, Mama, please listen to me. Believe me. Can’t you see what he’s doing to us? He’s trying to turn you against me. He’s brainwashed you into thinking he’s your savior, but he’s not. He’s going to be the ruin of you. He’s already ruined me.”
“And if you keep telling your mother these lies, I’m going to have you both fired, and I’ll make sure none of you works again,” he says. “Is that what you want, Gabrielle? Is that what you want for your mother?”
“You son of a bitch!” I scream at him.
“Contrary to popular belief, my mother was actually nice. At least she was to my brother, Ludovic,” he says. “If you’re trying to insult me, you better try again.” He starts walking toward us, and now from the motion lights in the backyard, I can see his face fully.
How horribly smug he is. Like he knows he’s won.
Because he has.
Because no matter what my mother chooses to believe, no matter how she chooses him over me and betrays me, I won’t betray her. I won’t cost her her job, even if it’s a job that may kill her one day.
I know I have no choice but to leave.
I can’t stay.
I won’t survive it.
“Now, what will it be, Gabrielle?” he asks. “Are you going to continue to treat your poor mother like an idiot and keep lying to her face, or are you going to apologize to me for stabbing me with a fucking corkscrew?”
I stare at him with all I have, and it’s like looking right into the abyss. And this time, when the abyss looks back, it gives me purpose.
It gives me conviction and a backbone.
“I’m sorry for stabbing you with a corkscrew,” I say, and the words come out so clean and polished, I have to wonder if I’ve already stepped into another role of pretending.
“Oh, why on earth did you do that, Gabby?” my mother cries out, short of stamping her foot like in a temper tantrum. She always seems to revert back a few years in intellect when she’s around him. “Why would you do that to Mr. Dumont when he’s been nothing but good to us?”
I try to swallow the brick in my throat but can’t. “I guess I’m not myself lately,” I tell her.
I look at him one more time, knowing that freedom is around the corner and that I’m no longer afraid to leave.
And I’m never coming back.
CHAPTER ONE
PASCAL
Eight years later
Everything about the letter screamed blackmail. From the envelope with no return address to the cryptic words typed out on paper inside.
The world will know what you’ve done.
I have to chuckle at it, even though there’s a glimmer of fear in my heart. Whoever sent this watches too many movies. Whoever sent this just wants to scare me and doesn’t know how. There isn’t even a threat attached to it. It’s just supposed knowledge.
What I’ve done? I’ve done a lot of things. None of them good in the true sense of the word—at least none of them good for anyone but me.
But despite the theatrics of the letter, I know I should take it seriously.
Because I know, deep inside, exactly what they’re talking about.
What they suspect.
Nearly one year ago, my uncle Ludovic Dumont collapsed at our annual masquerade ball. The doctors ruled it a heart attack, despite the fact that he’d gotten a