I’ll get up there and wait in the closet. There are wooden slats for me to see through.
I’ll stick the gun between the slats, and then I’ll wait for Gautier to walk by.
I’ll fire the gun.
He’s the first target, he’s the first shot. As long as he’s dead, I don’t care what happens next. With any luck, his friend will come running, and I’ll shoot him too.
Then I’ll leave.
I’ll get in Pascal’s car and drive back to the house and then try to figure out what’s next for me.
I’ve never really thought about what happens after that last step, after I do it.
Then again, I never anticipated falling in love with anyone, let alone Pascal. I didn’t think it was possible to have something, someone, other than revenge to live for.
I take in a deep breath, trying to calm my heart.
I’ll worry about it later.
But before I take the first step, I notice the air changing in the tunnel. It happens so fast, I can barely register it. It’s like it went from being vast and empty to being . . . not.
There’s someone behind me.
I move to turn around and see, but it’s too late.
A hand goes over my mouth.
“Gotcha,” Gautier says in my ear.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
PASCAL
I wake up on the floor with my face on fire.
It takes me a moment to recall where I am. My cheek is pressed against a rough, unfamiliar rug, and when I open my eyes, I’m looking along a hardwood floor, straight to a chair in the corner, where a flannel shirt has fallen off the stack of clothing on it and crumpled to the ground, just like me.
Gabrielle.
The realization comes at me quickly, and when I move, everything in my head screams in pain.
She had the gun.
I thought I was getting through to her and I approached her, but I should have remembered what she said all those times before. Harmless until threatened.
I was threatening in that moment. I was trying to stop her from doing everything she had waited and planned these last eight years to do.
I got a pistol-whip in the face and a bonk on the head in response.
Jesus.
But I’m not upset with her. There’s no time to be upset with her. There’s no time to think about the lies she told in order to do what she thought she had to do.
How can I be upset when I now know what happened?
That the monster who abused and raped her was my father.
I should have seen it coming. I know I should have. I should have let myself entertain the thought. Instead, I was lulled by my own delusions, those same delusions that never let me dwell on the fact that I knew he’d murdered Ludovic or that he wanted Seraphine killed or that if I ever stood up to him, if I ever traded in my malice for something good, he would blackmail me. I never let myself think about it because it was safer to operate that way. To think it, to believe it, would mean I would have to change. And I am too much of a lazy, selfish, scared son of a bitch to do that.
Or I was.
Now the change is happening.
I know what I must do.
I struggle to get to my feet and then stumble over to her bathroom to look at myself in the mirror. My cheekbone is bleeding from a gash, my skin a swollen riot of purple and red. I wet a washcloth, press it against my cheek, and try to think.
Gabrielle went to the address.
My father and Jones would already be there.
She has my gun.
She means to kill him.
I know she has every right to. She’s earned it. I won’t make any moral judgment here because I’m no better than she is.
But I know I have to stop her.
Even if my father and Jones are taken by surprise, I don’t want her pulling the trigger.
I don’t want that on her conscience.
I love her.
For all it’s worth, I love her, and I want to be with her, and I want us to have a chance.
If she kills him, she’ll get her revenge. But she’s not going to be able to live with herself after.
She’s grown up good. She’s got a pure soul. She’s got a big heart. She’s spent her years in pain, hurting and reeling from the turmoil and the trauma. She thinks that revenge will put a stop to her pain, but it will only make