“Do you know why, though?”
I shake my head.
“Because your uncle, the sacred saint of the Dumont family, slept with my wife. Your mother. They had an affair for years. Thought I didn’t know. They thought I was too stupid and vain to pick up on it, too obsessed with my own problems. They didn’t realize that it’s my job to watch everyone closely, so closely. That’s how you get ahead, you know that. Or I thought you did. It doesn’t matter, though.” He lets out a tired sigh while my mind is now trying to grapple with the fact that my mother and my uncle had an affair. “Ludovic got what was coming to him. He smiled to my face and stabbed me in the back. Took what I had even though it belonged to me. Sounds a lot like you, doesn’t it?”
And there’s the threat. Laid out for me to pick apart. To know exactly where I stand with him. He killed his own brother over the betrayal. He felt nothing. Now he thinks I’ve betrayed him.
The blood between us runs very thin.
“What about Mother?” I ask. “It takes two to have an affair.”
“You’re concerned about her? Never took you for a mama’s boy, Pascal. Don’t worry about your mother. She has to stay married to me. I think that’s enough punishment for now, don’t you think?”
He leans forward on the desk, staring right at me. “As for you, you’re my son. You’re my flesh and blood more than my brother ever was. You have my blood in your veins. You have all the potential to be a great man, but you waste it on women and fast cars and clothes and food and drugs and whatever else you do with yourself when you claim to be running the most important company in France.”
Now the blood is pounding in my head, and I know I’m turning red, that there is a vein pulsing on my forehead.
“I’m not going to kill you,” he says in a low, guttural voice. “But I know exactly how to make you suffer.”
Suddenly there’s a knock at the door, making my heart leap from my chest, but my father stays characteristically cool, slowly straightening up.
“Yes?” I call out, voice cracking.
The door opens, and my mother pokes in her head. “Sorry, boys. Gautier, honey, there’s a man to see you.”
“I’ll be right there,” he says, flashing her a cheap smile. He waits until she’s walked away to turn back to look at me. “I have to go. I have an appointment with an old friend. I hope you enjoyed those sloppy seconds of mine while they lasted. Gabrielle really did have the best pussy I’ve ever had.”
And then he leaves.
All feeling inside my body runs out of me, my blood turning from hot to cold, my stomach filling with dread, the kind of dread that stuns. The kind of dread that drowns you in disbelief, like concrete blocks around the ankles.
Sloppy seconds?
He slept with Gabrielle.
When did he sleep with her?
Oh God.
Oh God.
I’m going to be sick.
I hunch over, holding my stomach, trying to keep the bile from rising in my throat.
I know I have to move, but everything is happening slowly. Somehow I manage to make it out of the office, and from the upper windows of the hall, I see him getting in a town car and driving off.
I recognize Jones as the driver.
Jones, his number-one hit man.
Shit.
He’s not actually going to where Gabrielle’s letter says, is he?
You never know what you’re capable of in self-defense.
My father’s words ring in my ear.
He thinks Gabrielle is going to try to kill him.
He’s going to be more than ready for her with Jones.
She doesn’t stand a chance.
I run down the stairs, yelling, “Gabrielle! Gabrielle!”
I see my mother come out of the kitchen with an apron tied around her waist. “What’s wrong with you, Pascal?”
“Where’s Gabrielle?” I yell, holding her by the shoulders.
She looks absolutely bewildered. “I don’t know. Jolie went for a walk; maybe Gabrielle went with her?”
I let go of my mother and run through the kitchen. I don’t think I’ve ever run so fast, bursting through their back doors and straight to Gabrielle’s room.
“Gabrielle!” I yell, almost stumbling into her room.
There’s no one here.
I’m too late.
And then I hear someone behind me.
I whirl around to see Gabrielle standing in the doorway.
Aiming a gun at me.
This is the second time this year I’ve had a gun aimed at me by someone I love.
Shit.
There it is.
And it doesn’t change anything right now.
“Gabrielle?” I say quietly, trying to catch my breath. “What are you doing?”
Her hand is shaking slightly, and there are tears in her eyes. “I’m sorry, Pascal,” she says.
“Sorry for what?”
“Put your hands where I can see them,” she says, as if I have another gun on me that I’m going to reach for. She shakes the gun at me, fear coming across her brow. I know that fear can easily cause a gun to misfire, so I raise my hands and stay as still as I can.
“Okay,” I tell her. “It’s okay. I’m not going to move. I’m not going to hurt you. I just want you to talk to me.”
“There’s no time,” she says. “I have to go. And you’re going to let me.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
GABRIELLE
The gun is starting to feel slippery in my grip. My palms are sweaty.
But I refuse to let go.
I just wish I weren’t pointing it at Pascal.
“We can talk this through,” he says. I want to. I want to so much, but I don’t have much time. It’s seven, and I’m supposed to get to the meeting point at eight. There’s a chance that his father might not show up, but there’s also a chance he will, and I need to be ready.
“There’s not much to talk about.”
“He knows, Gabrielle,” Pascal says. “He knows about the letters.”
That’s a stunning blow. I feel winded from that admission.
“Good,” I tell him. “Because the letters were for him.”
“I mean he knows you sent them.”
I shake my head. “How?”
“He figured it out. I suppose he knew you were out for revenge, though I’m still trying to piece together why. If you just put the gun down, we can talk about it.”
For a split second, putting the gun down feels like the easiest thing in the world.
Then I realize what that would mean.
He would hold me down.
I would never, ever get my revenge.
I would get something much worse, and Gautier would walk free again.
“So he told you I sent them?” I ask, my voice warbling a little, unsure of everything.
He nods. “He told me it was you. That you wanted revenge. I figured it out earlier, though, when I saw the pages you tried to print on my printer.” Fuck. “Listen, I don’t want to judge you, I just want to listen. I can’t make heads or tails of this, please just try to explain.”
“You’re trying to buy yourself time.”
“I’m trying to save your fucking life.”
“I have to do this, Pascal. I knew you wouldn’t understand. That’s why I never told you.”
“Please, for my sake. You said you love me, Gabrielle. If you truly love me, help me understand what you’re doing and why. I want to help.”
I almost laugh. I’m beyond fucking help now, and he knows it. This is the proof.
“Why did you send the letters?” he asks.
“I wanted a scapegoat,” I admit.
“A scapegoat?” He starts to lower his hands, but I shake the gun, so he raises them again.
“Yeah, a scapegoat. I wanted suspicion to go somewhere else. Everyone would have suspected me, the maid who left suddenly and then just as suddenly came back into his life. I thought the letters w
ould make it look like someone else was after him.”
“Why were the first ones not addressed to him?”
“That was a mistake. I left it off.”
“Then why didn’t you correct it? Why did you go on making me think it was me?”
I shrug. “I guess I wanted to know how bad you were. What you’d confess to. I wanted to know if you had anything to do with Ludovic’s murder, if you were exactly like Gautier.”
Something hard comes over his eyes. “You know I’m not. You know it.”
I swallow, nodding. “I know it now. I do. I know who you are, Pascal, even if you don’t. You’re a good man. You could be a great man if you just figured out what you stood for.”
“Oh, I suppose you’re standing for something right now.”
“I’m standing up for myself!” I erupt at him, spittle flying from my mouth. “Do you have any idea what I went through with him?”
A heated look comes across his face. “My father said you slept with him. Is that true?”
I want to cry. “Of course that’s what he said. Ask yourself this, Pascal—what do you really think happened? Ask yourself why I would be counting down the years until I had all the right means and all the right moves to finally get my revenge. Do you honestly believe that I would have slept with him, if I had a choice?”
Silence falls between us, the only sound my ragged breath and the heartbeat in my ears.
I watch as the understanding slowly dawns on him, his features turning harder by the second until they’re sharp enough to cut diamonds.
“He was your monster,” he says, his words broken, his voice going so low that it nearly sounds inhuman. “He was the one who raped you.”
I can’t help the tears that are starting to spill down my cheeks.
I’ve wanted to tell him so badly.
I wanted to tell someone who would believe me.
“Do you believe me?” I sob. “Please tell me you believe me.”
“Of course I believe you,” he says. His voice is softer, but the anger hasn’t dissipated, not even a little. “I will always believe you. I just . . . I hate myself for not putting it all together. I hate that all this time . . . And yet I must have known on some level. I must have known and I didn’t want to admit it. To admit it is to face it.”
“You’re facing it now. I’ve been facing it for a long time. Every single second of every single day.”
“You don’t have to kill him,” he says. “We can do this together. We can take him down.”
“No!” I yell. “No! It won’t work! You know it won’t. You know he deserves to die.”
“I know he deserves to die!” Pascal yells back. “But not at your hand! This won’t happen the way you’re picturing, Gabrielle. He’s prepared. He doesn’t even care. He’s not sweating it, he’s reveling in it. It’s a game to him, and you walked right into it.”
“I set up the game!” My hand is shaking now, and I have to put both hands on the gun, the gun I took from Pascal’s desk drawer. “I planned to come here. I wanted you to hire me, Pascal. I pretended I didn’t, but I wanted it. I didn’t just get back from New York. I’ve been in Paris for a year, waiting for the right opportunity.”
His face pales, jaw goes slack. Stunned.
“You used me,” he manages to say.
“This isn’t about you right now,” I tell him, pleading with my voice, my eyes. “I didn’t plan to fall in love with you. That was never on the agenda. I tried my hardest to protect my heart; I thought it would be easy. You were supposed to disgust me! You were supposed to be just like him, but you weren’t. You aren’t. You’re so much better than you think you are, and I fell for you, with every inch of me.”
“If you love me,” he says, looking pained, “then you’ll put the gun down.”
“But I can’t,” I tell him. “Because what he did is still stronger than that. Once he dies, I’m free, don’t you see? Don’t you understand? Then we can be together.”
He shakes his head, his eyes wet and anguished as he breathes in deep. “No. You’re free now. We can leave now, we can go to Mallorca. We can go to California. We can go anywhere in the world, just the two of us, and I will leave all of this behind.”
“You can’t. You’re the Dumont brand.”
“It’s just a name, Gabrielle. A name I’m willing to discard, a family I’m willing to step away from. I know what I want, and it’s you. That’s it. Please.”
For a moment, I can see it. See us back on the beach, see me back in his bed. The freedom, the lightness, the joy. The safety I felt as I fell asleep in his arms, knowing he’d take care of me. I’d give anything to have that back.
But Gautier would still be out there.
“He would find me. He would find me, and you know what he’d do to me. Pascal, in the days before I left, I discovered I was pregnant.”
The words hit him like stones. He flinches. “Wh-what?”
The shame is so great, I can barely see. My arms are getting tired. My heart is getting tired. “I was pregnant. It was your father, of course. I didn’t tell anyone. Not even my mother. I went by myself to get an abortion. I couldn’t carry the seed of my rapist inside me. I knew enough that I couldn’t do that. And it ruined me, it truly did. Until I realized it was the bravest thing I’d ever done. Until I realized that by doing that, I was gaining my freedom, and I had nothing left to lose. So I planned to leave that night, and he . . . he caught me before I could leave. I was so sick, so . . . sore. Abused. In my body and in my soul. He planned something for me that I knew would have been a million times worse than normal, and I had to fight back. I stabbed him with a corkscrew. You ever wonder about that scar on his forearm? That was me. And that was my only way out.”
Pascal is speechless from anger. His face is turning dark, a shade of scarlet, his jaw so tense that I’m afraid he might lose some teeth. His eyes are the most frightening of all, just electric coils that burn and burn, seething with rage.
Now he feels it. Now he might know just what it means to get revenge.
I continue. “It was then that I told my mother, and she didn’t believe me. She accused me of lying, of attacking Gautier. She took his side. Do you know what that feels like? To have your own mother believe a monster over you? That’s when I knew she was gone. She was brainwashed by him. And my first priority when I came back was to get her out of this fucking house. That wasn’t a lie.”
“Then take her and go,” he pleads in a gruff voice. “Leave my father to me.”
“She won’t leave,” I tell him, crying. “What do you think I tried to do today? I sat her down and told her everything, and she didn’t care. She got up and walked away the moment I brought up the past. She’s too far gone. Your father has a hold on her that’s probably a lot more damaging than you think.”
“Oh, I think I know exactly how he operates.”
“Then you’ll see why I have to do this. I have to make him pay. I’m the one who deserves to pull the trigger.”
“You’re going to lose, baby, please.”
He won’t let me go, will he? I’ll have to shoot him if I want to leave.
I lower the gun. “I won’t lose. Even if it all goes wrong, I won’t lose. Because I tried. Because I’m going to put this gun in his face and I’m going to let him feel the fear that I felt.”
“You won’t get close enough,” he says. “He has someone with him, a trained hit man. You won’t even get in the door.”
But I’m not listening to him. I have the gun at my side now, my head down, staring at the floor.
Pascal starts to approach me, slowly, hands out, like I’m some scared and injured animal, and he’s right. I am. I’m harmless unless threatened.
“Gabrielle,” he whispers to me, and it sounds so pained, so sweet, so sorrowful, it makes a tear fall from my eye. What if this is the last thing I ever hear him say to me?
What if this moment is it?
“I’m sorry,” I say to him.
I wait until he’s close enough.
“For what?” he asks.
Then I quickly rise up and pistol-whip him across his face, then bring the gun down on the back of his head.
He stares at me, betrayal in his eyes, blood pouring through his nose, before he keels over to the side, crumbling to the floor.
“For that,” I tell him, wishing I didn’t have to do that but knowing it was my only choice. If I hadn’t, he would have followed me, would have hurt himself or gotten himself killed. He’ll be out for a while.
By the time he wakes up, I’ll have done what I need to do.
I stick the gun in my purse and then quickly walk out of the house.
My mother’s on a walk, but Camille is still inside.
I walk through the kitchen where she’s making piss-poor sandwiches, keeping my head high.
“Gabrielle,” she says to me as I walk past her. “Pascal was looking for you. He seemed rather upset.”
“He’s in my room taking a nap,” I tell her. “I’m going to go find my mom on her walk.” I can hear her muttering something behind me as I grab his car keys from the bowl in the foyer and then leave via the front door.
In seconds, I’m in his car, the engine revving and driving down the driveway toward my freedom. Toward Gautier’s judgment day.
I honestly never thought this day would come. For a while there, it felt like a far-off goal, a dream—or a nightmare—I once had. When I was in Mallorca those weeks ago, I wanted to call the whole thing off. I wanted to give up my quest for revenge, all because of Pascal. Because I didn’t want any secrets between us, because I didn’t want to have to kill his father and potentially kill what we had.
Kill our potential.
Very real feelings were getting in the way of a very real goal.
But then this morning, everything changed.
I had tried for a while to talk to my mother. She’d become more elusive to me the longer I’d been here, and sometimes it feels like I’m farther away from her now, living in the same small house, than when I was overseas. If I tried to bring anything up in any way, anything real and raw, she would shut down in front of my eyes. That zombified version of her would come out, the one with the fake smile and the blank eyes and the incessant nodding. I could never get through to her.
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