Page 68

Étienne

As soon as I woke, I felt it again. Before my fuzzy brain could even put a name to the pain, I felt aching loss, and each moment I shook the unconsciousness away, the pain grew.

Léonie. My love. Our baby.

I waited as I blinked in and out of consciousness. Time passed, and I had no idea how many hours it had been. All I knew was each ragged breath made me more determined to win my wife back.

My mind went back through my favorite memories. The day Léonie told me she was pregnant.

The way I’d gloried in how fertile she was, how many babies I could put in her. The way I knew she was going to be an amazing mother.

But what fucking kind of father was I?

Even on days when we’d been working on the nursery together, if a work call came, someone with information on how to increase my power, my wealth, complete my revenge, I’d drop everything in the nursery and go.

Go get another shipment, pressure another supplier, hunt down a trespasser.

I had started fucking up a while ago. How could I fix it?

I’d fucked up and lost the one thing I should have taken the most care with.

I’d thought of everything except the possibility that she wouldn’t forgive me.

Had my revenge ever been necessary? Had it been my honor that drove me to destroy the Pinoteaux family? Or was it just my own selfish ambition?

Would Papé have wanted this outcome? Me lying on the forest floor with dirt in my mouth? Too stubborn to escape without my wife?

Who could be more shamed than me?

If she wouldn’t let me take off the last marks of the léger then I’d make mine bigger than ever.

I got up, my body aching, and made my way down to the road where my men were waiting.

With savage, jerky motions I pulled the knife from my pocket and carved the letter into my forehead. L é g e r

As they stared open-mouthed at me.

These words had never been on my forehead before. Because I had never lost a fight. Never showed weakness.

I should have put my family before my ambition.

Because now I had everything in the palm of my hand to destroy the Pinoteaux.

And it still wasn’t enough. Not without Léonie.

Now I had to convince her. And for the first time, I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t sure of anything anymore. I wasn’t sure what my wife was thinking. I wasn’t sure what would convince her I had repented of my bastardy. I wasn’t sure what would make things go back to the way they had been.

I went home to search for something, anything, that would convince my wife to forgive me. Or at least give me a second chance. I would have given her anything she wanted. But what did she want?

“What the hell have you done?” Mme asked in a shrill voice, the glass dropping from her nerveless fingers. Her mouth was agape and her eyes wide with horror as she saw what I’d carved on my forehead. “We are about to destroy the Pinoteaux dogs and you plan to do it with that on your face?”

“If Léonie has a mark, so will I,” I snarled. “It means nothing on her, on her the mark is an eternal shame to me.”

“My son, that léger is used for weaklings, for whores!”

“I whored myself out to power,” I said savagely, turning to the rest of the household, to make sure everyone could hear my words.

“This is my shame and my penance. And I want to make it very clear that our first priority as the Bastide family is to get my wife and child back here. Nothing else is more important than that.”