Page 94

I shiver in the onslaught of a sudden, inexplicable chill.

Lukas sets his glass down. The clink of crystal on wood is very, very loud. “Elena believed she knew me,” he says in a dangerous rasp. “She was wrong.”

I wait for more. An explanation. A denial. For God’s sake,something.

Nothing comes.

He stands. The movement is abrupt, almost violent in its economy. “Excuse me.”

He doesn’t wait for my response. He just walks toward the front of the plane, past the bar area, and disappears into the bedroom. The door slams closed.

I sit there, stunned by how fast that just happened.Eighteen years in the ground,Kir told me.And my father’s the one who put her there.

I stare at the door he vanished through. Part of me wants to follow. The rest of me knows better.

31

RAE

MAIRIE DE SAINT-ÉMILE-SUR-VIGNE

Avis aux Habitants — 29 novembre 2025

Il a été observé:

- Un homme que nous connaissons trop bien

- Une femme qui ressemble à celle d'avant

- La même robe blanche à fleurs bleues

- Les mêmes yeux tristes

[L'histoire se répète. Nous prions pour qu'elle se termine différemment.]

The plane touches down just as the first pale light of dawn arrows across the horizon. I haven’t slept. Haven’t even tried. I’ve sort of been… buffering, kind of. Like, mentally and emotionally. Practically speaking, that means I’ve spent the last seven hours alternating between staring out the window at endless black ocean and replaying Lukas’s words on loop.

Elena believed she knew me.

She was wrong.

Lukas emerges from the bedroom looking exactly as put-together as when he went in. Not a hair out of place nor a single wrinkle in his suit. If our conversation about his dead wife rattled him, there’s no evidence of it now.

“We’ve arrived,” he says. As if I couldn’t tell.

I unbuckle my seatbelt and stand on legs that have gone stiff from sitting too long. The heels don’t help. Neither does the exhaustion dragging at every muscle.

A sleek black car waits on the tarmac. The driver is different from the one in New York—I mean, yeah, obviously—but the look in his eyes is exactly the same. Like his NYC compatriot, he doesn’t acknowledge me at all as he opens the door and waits.

I get into the backseat. Lukas follows. We drive.

The French countryside unfolds around us in the soft gray light of early morning. Rolling hills covered in neat rows of grapevines hide dilapidated stone walls draped in ivy. Everything looks ancient and untouched, like we’ve driven backward through time.

“It’s beautiful,” I murmur before I can stop myself.

Lukas glances out the window and nods. “I bought this land thirty years ago. Before anyone knew my name.”

“Why here?”