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I drop my hand from her throat and step away, glaring down at her.
“You threaten my life at every turn. So go ahead. Kill me. At least I know you’ll go down too.” She is trembling all over, but she won’t back down. “You hurt Landon because you’re jealous of him, youbastard.”
I slap her across the face before I even register what I’m doing. All because it’s true, and because the weakness that’s still inside me sickens me. She knows me better than I want her to, knows whateffect she has on me. She’s just accelerated her date with death. But for now, I have to let her go, so I grab her by the arm and push her out of the room and through the club. Simon looks at me, his head tilted in question, but I just reply with a furious shake of my head.
I march her past men whipping women at restraint stations, naked women making out in cages that dangle a few feet from the floor, women fucking men up the ass with enormous strap-on dildos. Squeals of pain and thwacks of leather hitting flesh ring through the air, and I know it’s getting to Camille.
I’m fighting not to twist her arm until it snaps. “You have no idea what you’ve unleashed, but you’re going to find out, and it’s going to hurt.”
She just looks at me with contempt. “Your threats are getting old, Bastien. You were seconds away from killing Landon. You’ve run out of threats, you psycho. Stay away from me, and I will leave your family alone.”
“Never.” I continue pushing her forward.
“You’ve already hurt me deeply. You’ve destroyed my relationship and my reputation and cost me my job.” She laughs haughtily. “Congratulations! You’ve had your revenge. Time to move on unless you’re so obsessed with me that you can’t let go, in which case, destroying me wouldn’t help you. I’d be gone, and the obsession would still be there.”
Her words hit hard. They’re the same bullshit my own mind has spewed at me.
“Nice psychoanalysis, you little bitch. I could get more insight from the back of a cereal box.” When I get those recordings back, I’m going to use knives on her. Knives and fire. I’m going to be intimately acquainted with every nerve cell in her body.
When we reach the front door, she steps out into the late afternoon sunlight and moves out of my arm’s reach.
“Now I want fifty thousand dollars, cash,” she snaps.
“Are you insane, Camille?” I shout. “Do not push me any further!”
“You stole money from me and sabotaged my car and cost me my job. I need the money, and you owe it to me. I think you’ve got about five minutes left.”
“I don’t have that much money lying around.” I’m lying. Of course I do.
“Too bad for your family, then.” She turns to walk away.
“Wait!” I shout at her.
I call Simon over and bark orders at him. He runs for the safe, and he’s back within minutes with a bag of cash that I don’t even have time to count. Camille’s standing about ten feet away, and there’s a cab waiting with its motor running.
“Throw it!” she yells, so I do.
She catches the bag. Then she looks back at me, and the expression on her face melts into something I never expected.
Love. And pity.
Her beautiful, shining eyes have softened, and she’s looking at me the way she used to. Anyone who didn’t know us would think we were lovers, soulmates, and for just a moment, I’m speechless and caught in her trap. I’m basking in the warmth of her gaze, and I never want it to stop. I’m cold all the time inside, and she’s my only sunshine. She always has been.
“I meant what I said about finding you help, Bastien. I don’t want to see you suffering. If there’s anything that I can do to help you, tell me.”
I shake myself. We’re not in Lyon anymore. Lyon is gone forever. We’re in the present, in a life she turned dark and ugly with her poisonous lies. “You messed with the wrong guy, Camille. You’ve just condemned everyone you love to death because you didn’t want to take the punishment you earned.”
That works. Because I know her well enough to know whatherbuttons are—her friends, the people she cares about. The light fades from her eyes and is replaced by bitter resolve. “You’d better hope that nobody I care about gets so much as a papercut, Bastien. And I’m not close to being done with you.”
My eyes narrow in on her, mulling over what she could mean. What tricks does the little witch have up her sleeves?
“By the way, I noticed something funny about your family when I started researching them, Bastien. They’re very secretive, and they seem to have appeared in France out of nowhere, right around the time your sister was born. What are they trying to hide?”
If my blood wasn’t already ice, it would freeze with her words.
“Stay the fuck away from them, Camille.” My voice is low and menacing. A promise of retaliation and pain in every word spoken.
But she’s climbing in the cab, not paying me any attention. The car peels away, leaving me to stew in rage that promises to burn down whole cities.
