“Do you think I’m an idiot? Thatheis?” Emile’s head snapped up, matching anger in his eyes, his words staccato. “He would haveknownif I’d lied.”
“So you betray us?” He didn’t mean to shout it, but the burn in his throat said he had.
“Not you—not Gus or Raoul.” Emile slashed a hand through the air. “Noteveryone. Just enough to make it believable. The people at the villa, because they already saw me going there.”
“Zelie.” Her name barely bullied its way through Marcel’s suddenly tight throat.
Emile winced. “They’d heard rumblings somehow about a woman. I had to give her name, Marcel—but I knew she wouldn’t be there, she’d be with... you.” He paused, brows knitting together. “Why aren’t you with her now? You’re usually out until ten.” But he realized the answer even as he asked it, clearly. He cursed, thrusting his fingers through his hair. “You heard me, so of course you rushed to tell her, and she’s too pigheaded toleave.”
“Her mother was there.”
Emile went still again, eyes sliding shut. “I’m sorry. I didn’t... I tried. I tried to mitigate it as much as I could, but can’t you see, Marcel? It’s over. We’ve been at it for so long and it doesn’t mean a thing—the Nazis are only getting stronger, their choke hold tighter. The more we fight, the worse it gets. There’s no point.”
He suddenly saw Emile as a boy, destroying a game rather than lose. Taking his ball and running home. Always, always cutting his losses early rather thanworkingto recover.
Marcel’s pulse sounded like timpani beats in his ears. “When you have lived for a year in one of their prison camps,thenyoucan tell me it’s not worth fighting them! We don’t give up because it’s gottenharder. Wefightharder. Smarter. Faster.”
Emile never was one to back down when it came to a physical fight. He met Marcel, toe to toe, the vein in his temple bulging as it always did when he was seconds away from throwing a punch. “And whenyouhave a woman you love, a child on the way, you can tellmewhat price is too high!”
“Ihavea woman I love—one you turned over to the Nazis!” He didn’thaveher, he knew that. But when did small details like that matter when one’s blood was boiling? It didn’t make the pain, the panic any less. Didn’t make the idea of Zelie in Nazi hands any more palatable because he’d never so much as pressed his lips to hers.
Never in his life had he been the one to start a fight. His role had always, always been to get between the three younger boys and stop them. But just now, he didn’t know if he could be the one to seek peace.
Emile, in a move utterly unlike him, took a step back. Drew in a long, shaking breath. “I’m sorry. I am. But you’ll move on. Everyone will move on. Alliance will either continue under Henri or everyone left will cut their losses.”
“How can yousaythat?” Who was this man before him?
Emile turned to the box. “I saw the writing on the wall when they executed Navarre. That’s always how it was going to end for us, Marcel.Allof us. At least this way, some can get away. Keep your head down and play your music, like you always do. You’ll adjust.”
His hand was somehow bunched in Emile’s shirt, tugging. But at least his other wasn’t connecting with his stomach or his jaw or his eye—that was something. He only yanked him away from the table, spun him toward the door.
“You will not steal from your mother two weeks before Christmas.” He shoved Emile toward the door, placed himself between his cousin and the supplies.
“I’ll leave money. And I’m the one who brought her half this stuff anyway.” Emile tried to move around him, but Marcel shifted, blocked. His cousin sighed. “Marie and I have to lie low for a while. We need supplies.”
“And themillionfrancs you stole won’t help you with that?”
Emile didn’t even wince. “England’s money. Who cares what happens to it? And I didn’tstealit—Zelie gave it to me. Said,Use this however you need to. Well, this is how I need to—but money can’t buy what isn’t there. We need a few things to get us started.”
The front door opened again, and Emile cursed, vanished into the hallway... only to back into the kitchen a minute later, hands up.
Gustave followed, his face contorted with fury. Was that what Marcel had looked like?
“It’s not...” Emile began, stumbling into Marcel and then reeling away, eyes wide. He pointed at him. “It’s Marcel. He—he’s trying to steal from Mère. And two weeks before Christmas!”
Such a small betrayal, comparatively. How did it still cut?
But Gustave snarled and lunged for his brother. He must have been at the villa. Must have heard who the traitor was. Must have come, like Marcel had, in search of explanations.
Fists flew. They’d fought so many times over the years that it was as much a dance as a tussle, but the energy was different this time. More electric. More serious.
All the more reason to step in. Protect them from each other, as he’d always done. ProtectEmile, because Gustave had always been the stronger and the less controlled.
Marcel strode out of the kitchen, down the hall, and out of the house. Emile was on his own this time.
Fourteen
12 DECEMBER 1941
