Page 169 of Where the Snakes Sleep

I raise my eyes.

Henri smiles at me. His face has rearranged itself into something almost tender, the hard lines softened, the pale eyes warm. Grandfatherly. The smile of someone who has decided, after long deliberation, that you are worth keeping.

Like everything he is not.

“You won’t have to live that way again,” he promises.

I let my face do what it knows how to do. The careful softening around the eyes. The slight parting of the lips. I learned this from Paul—how to look like you are opening when you are closing.

Henri’s hand remains on my shoulder, heavy through the fabric of my shirt.

“Okay,” I whisper.

Camille goes utterly still. The blood has drained from his face. His jaw is set but his eyes have gone wide and dark. “Ryan, please.”

“Tell me what happens next.”

25

Ryan

Henri’s smile widens, and I see satisfaction settle into the fine lines around his eyes; I see the exact moment he decides whatever uncertainty that remained in me has tipped in his favor.

Behind him, Camille looks like I just shot him.

I cannot look at that for too long.

If I do, I might lose my nerve.

Henri gives my shoulder another paternal squeeze before finally taking his hand away. “What happens next is very simple. You’ll come with me. Tonight, we leave this unpleasantness behind us, and tomorrow we begin properly.”

“Properly,” I echo.

“Yes.” He says it with such absolute confidence that I almost admire the insanity.

“What about my stuff?”

“Whatever you need can be purchased.”

“My clothes?”

“Replaced.”

“My passport?”

“We’ll collect it.”

“My cottage?”

Henri glances toward the dark windows, beyond which my little half-renovated inheritance sits somewhere in the night. “That property has caused enough trouble.” The casual dismissal pisses me off more than it should.

Maybe because the cottage is the first thing I’ve had in a long time that feels entirely mine, even if the walls are cracked, and the plumbing seemingly survives through spite and French witchcraft. Maybe because Alberte’s secrets were literally built into it, and after everything, selling it suddenly feels less appealing than it did when I arrived.

Or maybe I just hate Henri deciding another thing for me.

I nod anyway. “Okay.”

Camille makes a furious sound.