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I hesitated, then crossed my fingers over my belly. I was almost 39 weeks now. Although my doctor had said first pregnancies often were overdue, in theory I could go into labor at any time.

And I wanted to be gone by then.

“What do you mean?”

“We need to get someone to admit they set you up. Then record it. Étienne would have to admit he was lied to.”

“How are we going to make them admit it?”

“I’ll ask you again, Léonie. How far are you willing to go?”

His eyes gleamed at me, and I felt anger growing, something deep and ancestral, something pulling up from the ground of my grandmother’s people.

Something feral that was pissed that my husband had done me wrong. Something that snapped and bit at the idea of my ring on another woman’s finger.

Mountain women were supposed to be sweet. Docile.

But there had been stories about my Gran. . .the things she’d done. . .

I never knew what had happened to her. One day she simply—wasn’t there and Da told me not to ask about it. Was she in the Pinoteaux version of the Bastide prison? Or dead? What else didn’t I know about our families?

“If I get one of them into a room. . . and we didn’t let them leave. . .do you think you could get information out of them?”

“Yes,” Hugo said, smiling. “I may be a scholar at heart, but Léonie, you may be sure of that.”

I felt prepared to do anything but I didn’t know yet what I’d have to do. . .

For a few days, there was no news from the outside world. Tilly and Armand and Hugo and I cooked and ate and played mancala and read books. I let Hugo feel the baby kick, and he laughed, the sound transforming his whole face.

We didn’t talk about who had shot at us.

Because what if it had been my husband behind it?

Tilly gave me a tiny onesie she had knitted for Ciel. Because that was going to be his name. If Étienne denied he was the father, Ciel must have come from heaven. Because I was damn sure I hadn’t had any other cock but my husband’s between my legs.

Then one day, Mano pulled up, his dark truck rocking over the gravel and coming to a stop right in front of the door.

Shit. It was still early in the day. Tilly and Armand were still in the kitchen. And if we didn’t 100% trust in their loyalty, should we be doing this in the living room?

Hugo was already moving, leaning heavily on his cane.

“Can you get him in the basement?”

My heart was in my throat.

“Yes, yes. I can do that.”

Could I do that? Where was the sweet, frightened Léonie Bastide who needed her husband beside her to get through a mountain storm?

She was godsdamn dead, that’s what. Whoever had risen from the ashes wasn’t Léonie Bastide.

Hugo disappeared and I walked to the front porch to greet my other brother-in-law.

“Léonie,” he said. “You decided not to be a hellion this time?”

I felt heat rising, pulsing from him.

“Maybe,” I parried.