Chapter 21: The Bait 3
MARGAUX
My eyes flew open wide. The confirmation hit like an avalanche, suffocating and shattering, so much worse than I’d braced for. Hearing him speak it out loud made every invisible bruise inside me ache all over again.
He let go of my hair and turned, walking toward the main entrance like this conversation was over.
I couldn’t let it end there. My feet moved before my brain could catch up, carrying me after him. "Wait."
He kept walking, his stride never faltering.
"I don’t understand." My voice cracked on the last word.
He pushed through the front doors; I followed, barely catching them before they closed in my face. The entrance hall opened before us—a sweep of polished marble and expensive artwork. Above, a grand staircase curved upward. Chandeliers hung from the ceiling, scattering light across the space.
He headed for the stairs without looking back.
"How are you here, Étienne?" The question came out barely above a whisper. "How are you parading as Théo Valcourt?"
He reached the second floor and turned down a hallway. I hurried after him, my dress tangling around my legs. He stopped at a door near the end of the corridor, pushed it open, and stepped inside.
I followed without thinking and slammed the door shut behind me. The sound echoed through what had to be his bedroom—It had a massive bed, dark wood furniture, and windows overlooking the estate grounds.
"Speak to me, Étienne." My voice shook. "I’m glad you’re alive. I thought about you every day and prayed for you. I even tried looking for you when I got older."
The words poured out faster now, desperate to make him understand. "I thought you were dead. I thought my family killed you, and I carried that guilt like a stone in my chest for years."
Tears tracked hot lines down my cheeks; I shook my head, desperate to clear them, to clear the ache. "Why would you do this to me? Why do you hate me enough to turn every memory to poison?"
He turned on me so fast that I didn’t have time to react. His hands slammed against the wall on either side of my head, caging me in. I gasped, my back hitting the surface hard enough to hurt.
"Why?" His voice came out raw and furious. "Why? You ask me that like you don’t know?"
Tears streamed down, hot and unrelenting, humiliation flaming in my chest. I couldn’t turn away from him or block out the ferocity that seemed to vibrate in the air between us.
His hand reached up. Fingers found the edge of the mask.
He pulled it off.
The gasp that left my mouth was involuntary. I stared at the face I’d mourned, the features I’d tried so hard to remember through the haze of years. Those were gone.
The right side of his face looked like it had been melted and then frozen mid-collapse. Chemical burns had eaten through skin in savage, uneven patterns, leaving behind a texture that resembled candle wax that had dripped and hardened into permanent waves. The damage started at his hairline and carved a brutal path downward—across his temple, through his eyebrow, over his cheekbone—before finally stopping just above his jaw.
The scarring wasn’t uniform. In some places, the skin pulled tight and shiny, stretched too thin over bone. In others, it puckered and ridged, creating deep grooves that caught shadow. His right eyebrow was barely there. The hair growth was interrupted by scar tissue that had claimed the space. The corner of his eye looked slightly pulled, as if the skin around it had contracted during healing.
Only a strip remained untouched. From his left eyebrow down to his nose, the skin was smooth and unmarked—a cruel contrast that made the destruction everywhere else look even worse. It was like seeing a painting half-destroyed by fire, the undamaged portion only emphasizing what had been lost.
But those eyes. Those same dark grey eyes that had haunted my dreams. They watched me now with an intensity that made my breath catch, waiting to see if I would flinch, look away, or confirm what he believed: that I’d find him repulsive.
My hand moved before my brain could catch up, reaching toward his face. He jerked back, his jaw tightening beneath the scarred skin.
"You want to know why I hate you?" His eyes burned into mine, and I saw everything I’d felt through the bond reflected there. Rage. Pain. Betrayal so deep it had carved grooves into who he was. "You want to know why I hate you?" His eyes burned into mine, and I saw everything I’d felt through the bond reflected there. Rage. Pain. Betrayal so deep it had carved grooves into who he was. "Because you stood there and watched."
The words hit like physical blows. I took a step back, my hand falling to my side.
"You stood in that square with your father’s hand on your shoulder, and you watched them burn my family alive." His voice dropped lower, each word precise and deliberate. "My mother screamed for mercy. My brother tried to reach me through the flames. My father—"
He stopped, his jaw working as he fought for control.
"And you did nothing."
"I was sixteen," I whispered. "I didn’t—"
"You rejected me." He cut through my defense like it was paper. "Two days before they murdered my family, you came to my cell. I begged you to speak to your father. I told you we were innocent. I got on my knees and pleaded with you to believe me."
The memory crashed over me with brutal clarity. Étienne’s face pressed against the bars. His voice breaking as he swore his family had done nothing wrong. The way he’d looked at me like I was his last hope.
"And you looked me in the eye," he continued, his voice shaking now with barely contained fury, "and said... What did you say again?"
"Étienne..."
"Say it! Do not be ashamed."
"I said, ’I reject you, Étienne Archambault.’ "
"Right...You severed whatever was between us to protect yourself. To make sure no one could use our connection against your precious family name."
Tears burned down my cheeks. "My mother told me to. She said—"
"I don’t care what your mother told you." He moved closer, and I could feel the heat radiating off him. "You made a choice. You chose your comfort over my life. You chose your family’s reputation over the truth."
"I was a child!" The words burst out of me. "I was scared and manipulated, and I didn’t understand what was happening until it was too late!"
"I was a child, too. Was I not?"