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“I just miss her so much,” he whispered. “I can’t believe she’s gone. Sometimes I close my eyes and she’s right there, you know?Elle me manque, Zeno.”
I never liked talking about her, but I allowed Benjamin to mourn in peace.
“Je sais,” I returned, squeezing his shoulder.
The Toussaint family used to live in Montardor and hailed from France, just like the De la Croixes. Before they packed their bags and left the city a year ago, they used to work for us. Gabriel Toussaint was our lawyer and Antoine Toussaint was one of our enforcers.
Antoine and I were the same age, but while my work ethic was impeccable, his was as loose as his morals. You’d often find Antoine intoxicated with a lazy smile on his face at our meetings. My time was precious and I was not lying when I said you weren’t worthy of working alongside me if you didn’t match my standards.
Antoine Toussaint was a fucking clown and he knew it.
I’d said it to his face many times.
We just couldn’t ‘fire’ him because our families were tight-knit.
Angélique Toussaint—who died ten years ago—used to be Céline’s best friend, and her daughter Violette Toussaint—Antoine’s half-sister—was Ben’s best friend from their pre-teen years.
They were like brother and sister. We used to joke around the house that Violette was Benjamin’s long-lost twin. They had the kind of friendship where they finished each other’s sentences and went to comic book conventions together like true geeks.
I didn’t care too much for her. I was older and saw her as Ben’s snotty little companion.
But things changed over a year ago.
Violette had come back to Montardor after a long stay abroad and caught my attention at one of Céline’s fundraisers. Maybe it was the three whiskeys warming my system, but suddenly I noticed Violette in new ways. Her glossy hair. Her form-fitting gown. That come-hither look in her eyes.
I always knew Violette had a silly crush on me, yet I never paid her any attention.
Until then.
In retrospect, I never should have looked at her, touched her, fucked her.
We were in a four-month friends-with-benefits arrangement the night before she died.
And the night I broke up with her, we fought.
I gave her a callous version of me as a last memory. Something that I regretted till this day. Violette was family and I should have approached the need to end our arrangement in a more respectful manner, even if I never loved her.
I brought my gaze back to her tombstone.
Violette Toussaint
Loving daughter and sister.
Ce n’est qu’un au revoir.
My tie felt too tight. The itch to loosen it was strong, but I refused to give in. “Ready to leave?”
He never was, but it was worth a shot.
Ben smiled nostalgically. His blue eyes were glazed with an unshed quality he never showed anyone but me. “You know what baffles me to this very day, Zeno?”
“What?”
“She had a closed casket funeral.”
The fall left her body mangled, according to the coroner. Ithadto be a closed casket funeral. “What are you trying to say, Ben?”
“That it feels like she never really left.” He gazed at her tombstone with furrowed brows. “Because I didn’t see her in there, sometimes it feels like she’s still here. Amongst us. Breathing the same air. But never to be seen.”
