“By all means you did. But this upstart man thinks he can do what he wants, that he can stomp on all of Loisail.”
“You will assure me Gaetan’s support?”
“Money was made to wash away sins. He’ll give it, more than you expected.”
“I think I might kill him even if I did not stand to profit from it,” Luc said, his voice a low, harsh tone. “I might kill him so he cannot have her.”
“We understand each other, Mr. Lémy,” Valérie said. “Make sure it happens soon, and make sure to be discreet. A duel in the front page ofThe Courierwill do us no good.”
“Come morning, I’ll tell that bastard what awaits him.”
He closed the door, leaving Valérie standing in the hallway.
She took a deep breath.
There was no other way. Besides, she wanted blood. She wanted a sacrifice. She needed to witness Hector and Antonina’s destruction.
In acknowledging the depths of her hatred, Valérie was simultaneously able to, perhaps for the first time in her entire life, admit the extent of her love for him. That she had loved him like no other man. That she had been able to exist, to breathe and talk and greet people on the street, because she knew he loved her. He nourished her in that way.
It was as if she had willed a part of her soul into his body, concealed it there. The best part of her, the part that was young and happy. There it had remained, safe. But now it was gone: she had been exorcised and that part of her was lost.
He had killed her, in his own way.
Satisfaction could be found only in vengeance, in his death.
Chapter 22
IT WAS THE SINGING THATwoke him up, not the sound itself but the strangeness of hearing it. For a moment Hector wondered if he were dreaming.
But, no: singing coming from his bathroom.
He had never expected to hear such a sound, it was a domestic detail and it was misplaced, causing him to lie under the sheets with his eyebrows furrowed for several minutes.
He had shared his bed with a number of women over the years, but it had not been something so intimate and cordial that one of them would have wound up in his bathroom, singing, in the morning. Moreover, if he had ever pictured a woman he might fancy living with, that woman had inevitably been Valérie, and not once had he thought Valérie capable of indulging in song.
Hector grabbed his lounging robe and followed the singing, standing at the doorway, his hands in his pockets, his fingers nervously rubbing against one another.
One of the most important considerations when he had taken this apartment was the bathroom. Hector could do without a number of things, but he demanded a first-class bathroom. When he started out in Iblevad, he’d been forced to content himself with water that wasoften icy cold and a landlady who begrudged him every single bath he dared to take.
This bathroom was generous and had green and white tiles, with the usual brass fittings, the added luxury of a fireplace and a claw-foot tub. Nina had climbed into the tub and piled her hair upon her head, and she was humming a tune he’d once heard when he was younger, a rhyme about a sailor who’d gone off to sea.
He saw her from behind, saw the curve of her neck, and extended a hand to brush a stray lock that fell down her back.
She jumped at his touch, splashing water, and turned her head over her shoulder in surprise.
“I should have announced myself,” he said quickly, realizing this was likely an embarrassing moment for her. He did not want to seem like a lecher. “I’ll let you be.”
“It is fine,” Nina replied, and stretched out an arm toward him.
He took her hand and planted a kiss on the back of it and she smiled prettily. He scratched his head, not knowing what one should say in this situation. He’d learned etiquette from a manual, but there had been no chapter on the matter of women.
“Do you always sing when you bathe?” he asked.
“The place an intelligent person sings is in the bathroom. One sounds better. Did I wake you?”
“Yes. It does not matter. I’ll make you breakfast, come.”
Nina slid down under the water, until only her head was showing, and bit her lower lip. “Hector, do you think you might lend me a bathrobe?” she asked.
