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I crawled as fast as I could, my heart pounding through my chest, my breath rasping from the exertion.

I heard another shot, and Hugo’s low grunt of pain.

Twisting back, I saw a bloom of blood on his arm and, deep in the forest, I saw what looked like two flashes of red.

Red hair, narrowed eyes.

I thought I recognized those faces, the look of them, the set of their lips, but at this distance I couldn’t be sure.

Pinoteaux faces. But why the hell would my cousins be here?

Why would they want to kill me?

“Hurry,” I hissed back at Hugo.

His face looked gray, skin sagging.

Trying to get as flat as I could, I slithered backwards and draped one of his arms across my shoulder.

“Just go, Léonie!”

“And let me baby’s uncle die out here? Gods, no!”

Stumbling and sweating, we managed to reach the front steps.

Then we waited for several long moments. There wasn’t a breath of sound in the woods or fields around us. But were they still out there?

Hugo tapped my arm.

“I hear birds. Let’s go.”

Supporting each other, we made our way up the stairs and then into the house, but I didn’t let my breath out until the door was safely slammed behind us.

My feet pattered on the wood floors as I raced into the kitchen to grab a kitchen towel to press on Hugo’s wound, but to my relief his injury was not deep.

“It took a chunk out of you, but thank the ancestors it didn’t hit a vein.”

I looked down at my bloody hands. Who was I?

“What the fucking hell?” Hugo exploded. “Who wants to kill us?”

But who had been the target. Hugo? Or me? Who wanted to kill me?

I knew one person who might want to get me out of the way.

Who might want to get rid of his current wife to clear the path for a new one.

Who believed in mountain justice.

Étienne

Would the man I knew do that? But then again, how much did I really know him. . .

Now I had two choices.

I could either lay down and live in fear or stand up and fight this, and as I carefully bandaged Hugo up, I knew what my choice was going to be.

My relationship with Étienne might be dead, but no matter what he thought about me, I wasn’t going to have my baby grow up not having a daddy. Not being acknowledged by his daddy. When I knew damn well who his daddy was.