Page 41 of The Carver

We entered my family home, the place I hadn’t set foot inside for many years. It was exactly as I remembered, smelled exactly thesame, felt like my father still paced in front of the fireplace in his study.

Men were everywhere, instructed to guard my mother from a secondary attack.

We walked into the main sitting room, a round table near the nook off the side of the kitchen. The grand dining table was in a whole different room, could accommodate twenty people for the holidays.

She sat there, her eyes dry from the spent tears and dead inside. A cigarette sat between her fingers, the burning tip dangerously close to her nails. A small pile of ash was underneath her hand, like she’d sat still for minutes and hadn’t noticed the cigarette slowly burning away.

I never saw my mother when she didn’t look her best. She didn’t leave her bedroom unless she was presentable for the day, in her designer clothes and pumps, with her hair and makeup done like she had somewhere to be, even though she usually stayed home all day. It was the first time she’d broken that tradition, her makeup washed away in the flood of tears, her hair knotted like she’d fisted it and tried to yank it out of her scalp. Even at her calmest, she looked deranged.

Godric approached the table first, and even though my mother must have known he was there, she acted like she didn’t. The burn of the cigarette continued to inch closer to her exposed skin. “Mother.”

She didn’t even blink.

He gently took the cigarette from between her fingers and put it out in the ashtray.

She didn’t seem to notice.

Godric pulled out the chair to her right and took a seat.

No reaction.

I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down.

Her eyes shifted to me, like she hadn’t expected another person, and once the flash of recognition came over her face, her eyes softened into the deepest look of emotion. New tears appeared on the surface of her eyes, my mother’s love for me breaking through the mask of sorrow.

I’d turned my back on her the way I had with the rest of my family, even though she hadn’t done anything wrong. I just wanted a clean slate, to have no association with the Dupont family at all. But in that moment, I felt like shit about it because it was obvious she truly loved me. My father had viewed Godric and me as pack mules—but not her.

She reached her hand across the table and grabbed mine. “My baby…” She squeezed my hand with both of hers as her bottom lip trembled. She did her best to defeat her emotions and remain strong in a room full of armed guards, but the sight of my face made her succumb to tears.

“I’m sorry, Mom.” Sorry that my father was dead. Sorry that I hadn’t called.

“I never thought I would be happy again, and then you walked in.” She continued to squeeze my hand as she looked at me, her blue eyes identical to mine. Godric was my father’s son, but I was my mother’s son.

After moments of silence, she finally let me go. She took a breath, let it out slowly, and then cleared her throat. “We’ll find out who did this—and we’ll make them pay.”

I didn’t know the details of his death. I assumed their identity was already known.

She turned her gaze on Godric. “You’re the head of the family now. You’re in charge of the business. I want you to find the motherfucker who took your father from me and bring him to me—so I can shoot him in the goddamn face.”

Now I knew why my father had married her.

Godric nodded. “Yes, Mother.”

She turned to me. “And you will help him, Bastien. You’ll watch his back as good as he watches his front. Whoever thought they could hit the Dupont family without consequence was sorely mistaken.”

I didn’t move an inch, but I felt my body slowly drift away. “I’m sorry that Father is gone, and I hope you find the revenge that you seek. But my stance on the family business hasn’t changed. I want no part of it, and no amount of guilt or threat will change that fact. I loved Father in my own complicated, fucked-up way, but I despised what he did.”

Godric sat with his arms crossed over his chest, eyes on the table.

My mother stared with her steel-like gaze, clearly unhappy with that answer but maintaining her silence. Father was impulsive with his anger, but Mother was patient. “Godric, give us the room.”

Godric rose from the chair. “I have work to do anyway.” He left the table, walked toward the armed men, and gestured for them to follow him into the dining room so they could get to work.

Now it was silent, the uncomfortable kind of silent.

“Bastien—”

“Don’t waste your time.” I didn’t raise my voice, not to my mother, but I wanted to. I wanted to shout from the rooftops. No amount of persuasion would change my mind. I thought of that missing girl often, the one shot dead in the snow by my brother’s hand. I’d found her name and sent her parents some money anonymously…along with a note saying she was dead. It was cruel, but it was crueler for them to wake up every morning wondering whether she was dead or alive, if she suffered, clinging to a hope that she would ever come back.

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