Chapter 10: Étienne - Crushing His Mountain Flower

“What happened? God damn you, tell me what happened!”

“You—I think you better come see for yourself. It’s—Léonie.”

Tires squealed as I spun my SUV around and took off down the mountain in the opposite direction.

“Étienne, what—” my mother protested from the back seat.

“Shut up,” I snarled as I jammed my foot on the accelerator, spinning around the tight corners in a plume of dirt and gravel.

“You’re scaring us,” Faustine whimpered as my right tire tipped over the edge.

But my eyes were glued on the road below me, irises burning in their sockets.

What had happened?

Those bastard Pinoteaux had made it very clear that they were willing to kill Léonie rather than lose face.

Cold sweat was breaking out on my neck, pouring down my back.

The gate had locked behind me. There was no way anyone could have gotten in.

Léonie was safe.

I would never have left her anywhere unsafe.

But panic crawled all over my skin, nightmarish fears I had to ruthlessly force out of my brain. I was pushing the SUV to the limits of its engine to make it down the switchbacks and across the pitted, uneven ground.

Blood was still dripping down my arm, pooling on my thighs as I jerked the car around the last curve.

And something was burning.

Smoke was billowing from somewhere on the lodge grounds.

Fucking hell.

“You’re bleeding—” Faustine tried again, her dry claws pawing at my shoulder.

“I don’t give a fuck,” I bit out.

Had there been an accident? The lodge caught on fire?

Then I saw the front gates were open, and my stomach dropped.

That shouldn’t have happened. That should never happen.

With the gate opened like that. . .anything could go wrong. . .down here in the valley where the heavy forest dampened the sound of screams.

The lodge was still standing. So Léonie must be in there. Sitting down at the table, those bright blue eyes behind the pale lashes blinking in confusion at me, just waiting for me to tell her everything was all right now, she could come home. . .

But in front of the lodge⁠—

Tilly and Armand were holding each other and right in front of them were two bodies lying crumpled on the ground.

One was covered in a blanket, but there was—hair—spilling out over the grass, bright red hair streaked with blood. . .

No. No.

I was never sure how I drove down that driveway, how I got out of the car, how I made my way over to her.

The earth seemed to be rushing toward me, but how could that have happened, was I upside-down?

I didn’t even feel myself hit the ground.

Their bodies were burned—terribly. But my wife’s long auburn hair was unmistakable—the sun catching the gold in it, my rough fingers reaching out to touch, because I couldn’t—couldn’t believe this was real.

Somehow I was crawling forward, dirt and blood between my numb fingers.

I wanted to ask what had happened. What happened. That was the main question, because this was impossible.

I had left her here just a few hours ago. And she had been safe. But someone was making too much noise for me to speak over.

And I realized that noise was me, roaring so loudly, my ears ringing so hard that I couldn’t hear myself.

My mother’s mouth was moving, Tilly and Armand were replying.

I heard the words attack and caught them unaware.

“There must be some mistake,” I croaked out, my fingers clutching at my wife’s hands, eyes scanning the burns on her face. “Send for a doctor⁠—”

“Monsieur, I’m sorry, she is gone.”

“Léonie! Léonie, listen to me. You have to come back!”

Her eyes were closed so tightly, the pale lashes splayed over her cheeks. If only I could make her open them. Then she’d come back.

She’d always come when I called before. . .

I knew for goddamn sure that gate had locked behind me.

So who else knew the code?

Léonie’s skin was cold, and my fingers shook as I placed them over the pulse in her throat.

Nothing. Not a beat. Not a sound.

Tilly was sobbing, burying her face in a handkerchief as Armand patted her awkwardly on the shoulder.

“We-we put a blanket over her. It didn’t seem right to just leave her like that. Poor little thing. Least she has a little peace this way. Lord knows she didn’t in life.”

My elbows gave way and I landed on my chin so hard on the ground my lip split open and blood was running down my face.

“I was always going to bring her back,” I croaked through bloody lips.

Mano? Had it been Mano? Where was his car now?

Had he been hiding somewhere and then killed them? Had he been angry at her rejection?

Hugo had been even more severely burned, as I watched Tilly carefully covered his body with a blanket.

“I was always going to bring you back,” I said again, but my wife’s eyes were closed, her injured face frozen, indifferent.

“Étienne, we need to go back home—” Mme began. “In case the Pinoteaux⁠—”

“I don’t care,” I snarled, pulling Léonie into my arms. “I’m not leaving her. She’ll come back. She couldn’t leave me on this earth. She’d never leave me. She’d never leave me.”

“Monsieur, you must stop,” Tilly pled as I put Léonie’s cold hand to my cheek.

And the older servant pushed in between us, and there were more hands, pulling at me, prying my fingers off Léonie.

“Monsieur, no good can come of this!” Tilly said firmly. “You have to accept the truth. She is gone.”

No no no

“They must be taken to the funeral parlor,” Armand said. “Best to move them as soon as possible.”

The words meant nothing. My howls of rage that shook the hills meant nothing.

My hands could snap a neck, climb a cliff, lift a boulder. But they couldn’t bring my wife back. They couldn’t fix what I had done.

I refused to leave Léonie. I stayed beside her. In the back of the hearse, down the road, and to the viewing area in the funeral home.

“You may stay with her until tomorrow morning,” someone in a suit said.

Mme spoke, Faustine spoke, my security chief spoke, but I heard none of their words.

Only a piercing, shattering ringing in my ears. My throat was hoarse, so hoarse.

I must have been roaring in rage and terror, only I wasn’t even conscious I was doing it, or what words I was saying.

And then at last I was left alone in the dark viewing area, my wife’s body resting on a table in front of me.

Until tomorrow morning.

Was that really how long I had left on this earth with my wife?

With Léonie, who the ancestors had given to me.

Léonie, who I had watched for years without her knowing it, because I couldn’t believe someone like her could be real.

Surely she was a tool of the Pinoteaux dogs, to seduce and weaken me. . .

And by the time I realized she truly was that sweet and pure, I had fallen for her.

I couldn’t stop myself from stroking her beautiful lock of hair.

“I meant to bring you back,” I pled. “I didn’t mean it. I didn’t mean what I said.”

Pain and anguish wracked my body. I should never have left Léonie alone after I’d learned they’d been shot at. I should never have assumed Hugo was the target.

I should never have taken her out of our home in the first place.

But all I’d been able to see was my revenge. The culmination of the grudge I had held tight against my heart for years.

And she’d be safer, I told myself. Much safer down in the valley.

Because of course I couldn’t have told her what was going on.

I knew my Léonie, she was as sheltered and innocent as could be, the truth would have been read all over her face.

And it had to look real.

In one fell swoop I could accomplish two things.

Eliminate the Pinoteaux threat and get revenge for my Papé death.

Léonie should have been safe. A few weeks away in the lodge. Just until my revenge was complete.

And now she had died thinking I scorned her. That I wanted another woman. That she was a whore.

My stomach heaved and I drove my head into the hard wood of the table. Over and over, until the room swam around me and blood ran into my eyes.

Then I opened my mouth and roared. Cursed, raged, begged the ancestors to bring my wife back to me.

“Do not take her! You can’t have her yet! I need her too badly!”

But there was no answer.

Desperately, I opened the wound on my arm, let it run over the table where she lay.

“Ancestors, hear my blood, bring her and our baby back. Take me instead."

I gripped the vial of Papé’s blood, but for once it did not sing to me, beg me for justice.

Had more bloodshed been what he wanted or was that my own desire for domination and arrogance?

How much of her pregnancy had I spent unseeing, unappreciative, waiting for my revenge to be complete?

With a ragged breath, I took her hand in mine, turning it over so we were palm to palm.

The last time I would ever hold her hand in mine.

Painful, bloody tears blurred my vision.

They felt strange coursing down my cheeks, carving bitter trails along my skin.

Fuck me for a fool.

Had she suffered for long? Did she call out for me? Was her last thought wondering where I was?

Did she despair as she died, that I who had promised to always protect her, had abandoned her?

The sun peeked over the horizon, sending weak light through the window to illuminate her body until it was a blaze of flame.

My phone buzzed in my pocket and I ignored it. I didn’t give a fuck what was happening out there. The rest of the world could be on fire for all I cared.

I wasn’t going to miss these last moments with my wife.

My mistakes had cost her life. Cost our baby’s life.

My stomach heaved, burning with bile, and I laid my bloody head against the wood.

How was I supposed to go on without her?

Léonie always thought I hadn’t noticed her.

And I had never bothered to tell her the truth.

That I noticed her long before she noticed me. I had just been too suspicious of a trick. A plot. To let it show until that damned boar had forced my hand.

In fact, it could never have touched her because she didn’t know it, but my eyes had been on her the whole time.

That it had always been her.

And now—I could never tell her.

My long fingers wrapped around hers and I lifted her palm up into the sunlight. I knew every inch of her delicate hand better than my own. Every freckle. Every scar.

But as the summer light streamed in the window, I frowned.

Wait a minute. . . something was missing. . .