Page 163 of Where the Snakes Sleep

“Oui. My home. Our home.”

The murderous seventy-seven-year-old psycho has apparently decided we are moving in together.

“I have more than enough space,” Henri continues. “You would be very comfortable.”

Camille strains against his restraints. “Ryan, no.”

I keep my eyes on Henri. “Comfortable how?”

His expression brightens slightly at the question, a flicker of warmth that doesn’t reach his eyes. “As you should have been all along.”

“What does that mean? All along?”

“I know something of your childhood.”

Camille stops moving entirely, his breath held.

I steel myself. “How?”

“Alberte,” he answers. “We maintained a certain awareness of one another over the years.”

“That sounds like stalking.”

“Call it whatever you like.”

“I probably will.”

Henri appears entertained, a faint smile touching his lips before it fades into something softer, almost paternal. “I was sorry to learn what kind of man his son became.”

My muscles stiffen, shoulders tightening as if bracing for a blow. “What do you know about my dad?”

“Enough.”

“Which means?”

“That he struggled.” The politeness of it makes my skin crawl worse than cruelty would—the careful, measured tone of someone discussing a regrettable but distant misfortune. Henri speaks about my father as if selecting each word for a eulogy he never intended to give. “Drugs,” he continues, the word clean and clinical. “Money. Instability. A child should never have been subjected to that.”

My fingernails press into my palms, sharp little crescents of pressure against damp skin. I keep my face still, schooled into neutrality even as my throat tightens. Across the room, Camille is staring at me, his gaze fixed and unblinking, as though willing me to look back.

I’m realizing we’ve never actually discussed my family, besides Alberte.

Henri tilts his head. “I apologize.”

“For what?” I ask quietly.

“That you had to live that way.” The apology is so sincere-sounding that it nearly knocks me off balance.

Not because I believe he cares, but because he’s someone older, someone saying I deserved better.

That particular weakness in me has apparently survived everything.

I hate Henri for finding it without even trying.

“Why are you apologizing?”

“Because Alberte should have stepped in,” he says.

“You don’t know anything about that.”