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Placidie’s reaction had been to fuck my brother and replace my husband as head of the Bastide family empire.

Faustine’s reaction was to take something she knew would shatter Étienne and I. . .

“Stop!” I cried, and I was moving fast, but it wasn’t fast enough.

She was leaving with my baby

Faustine was almost to the SUV now, the car seat swinging carelessly in her hands, barely missing the heavy, iron bars of the open gate.

But what was she going to do with Ciel?

On the other side, the big black SUV waited. Just a few feet away now. . .

“Faustine,” my husband called out, his voice steady, controlled, deep.

And where she had ignored my voice, at this Faustine turned back, her beautiful face twisted with bitterness.

“You should have chosen me,” she said, and now her hand was outstretched, the car seat swinging in a circle. “If I can’t have you, you can’t have anything.”

Blood rose in my eyes, sheer, total, panic, my hands outstretched, and I was still running, so fast my lungs were bursting but it wasn’t fast enough, I’d never be able to reach her in time. . .

“Now who says I care about them?” Étienne asked, his voice rolling out smooth and hypnotic. “Don’t you think you’re the one I really want?”

Time seemed to stop, crystallize in front of me.

And for one last fatal moment, Faustine hesitated, turning back and taking two steps toward us, her hope outrunning her sense, and he struck.

A tiny blade, fast, so fast it was only a blur, flying through the air and striking her dead and true in the throat.

“Fool!” my husband spat as he strode forward. “Fool to fall for such a thing! My heart is all for my family. No one else.”

Faustine was reaching for the blade, trying to pull it out with trembling hands, and my husband stalked forward, slashing a final blow across her throat.

But I only had eyes for the car seat, tumbling out of her hands and landing on the ground, the rest of my world narrowed down to that one point.

The SUV in the driveway tried to drive off, but Étienne Bastide had already sprung, reaching the massive vehicle with a taut, angry stride.

He tore the door off it and dragged the man inside it out, but I was already falling to my knees in front of the car seat.

Ciel’s eyes were wide and curious, blinking his dark lashes as he looked up at me.

Oh, ancestors, oh my gods. He was all right.

With trembling hands, I unsnapped my baby and drew him out. Safe and snug.

Somehow, not a hair harmed on his head, not a curl turned.

It looked like a few Bastide men had tried to turn on him, must have foolishly believed the lies Placidie had spouted—that my husband’s love for me had made him weak.

It had only made him more savage.

I turned as his loyal men began to swarm in from the forest beyond, but I couldn’t stop watching the bloody trail of my husband’s killings, my eyes drinking in every wave of his destruction.

With trembling fingers, I pulled out my breast to nurse Ciel, then tucked him securely in his wrap.

And I walked toward the gate.

Faustine was lying dead on the ground, her eyes frozen with shock.