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Headlights come up the lane.

It's his car. It slows at the gates, turns in, and rolls up the drive. I lift the phone and text Denis one word.

Now.

I wait through the horrible silence, and nothing happens. I think Denis has got it wrong, and something in me is almost relieved.

Then the house explodes.

The sound comes first, so big it isn't really a sound, more an experience that blows my insides into a million shards. I feel it in my chest and my teeth. The windows blow out all at once, and then the fire climbs up out of the building, roaring and massive, lighting up the whole lane in orange. His car stops dead. The door opens before it's even stopped moving.

He gets out.

Even from here, I witness exactly how he's reacting. He's got both hands on his head and he's turning, staring at the fire then his back to it, going in a circle. Then he does something I've never seen him do. He screams. My husband, who stays calm through everything, stands in his own driveway with his house burning in front of him and screams as though a vital organ is being torn out of him.

After he gets it all out of him, he turns toward the lane.

And he sees me.

I don't hide. I don't start the car. I sit there with the fire lighting up my face through the windscreen, allowing him a good look at me. His hands come down from his head. His whole body goes still, and we look at each other across the darkness and the light with everything we did to each other in between.

Somewhere behind him, faint and getting louder, the first sirens start.

As he stares at me, my soul dies.

I should celebrate, feel triumphant. After everything he put me through. I told myself he has other homes he can use. He won’t be destitute.

But this was his favorite. This is where he spent the most time, the one in which he chose to live. The home where we lived. Together.

The doubts seep in. Am I getting revenge because he did something to me, or because he made me look in the mirror to see a monster I never recognized?

Laszlo taught me about myself. But I didn’t want to know this much. I could have lived in blissful ignorance. From now on, I won’t be able to live at all because where do I go from here? Where does one go when they’ve discovered their true nature, and now there’s no going back? For years I’ve enjoyed sitting on my high horse, knowing I’d never become as ruthless as my father or anyone in his world. The joke’s on me!

My husband managed to destroy that delusion in nine months. I know now that I’m capable of as much horror as any of the Valmonts or the Novaks. Every. Single. One. Of. Them. Charles would be laughing at me from wherever he is right now.

Fuck me.

Fuck Laszlo Novak.

Why should I be sorry?

You took everything from me, and I gladly allowed you to come in and take it. What the hell did you expect?

Look at him now, just as lost as me. For the first time in the last few weeks he knows exactly where I am, and there is nothing at all he can do about it.

Starting the car, I pull away carefully, driving through the tears that blur my vision. But as the sobbing wracks me from head to toe, I don't once dare to look in the mirror at the man I love and hate with all of my being.

CHAPTER 33

Laszlo

The Hudson Valley house is no more. Whatever remained was leveled and cleared in weeks, because you can't leave ruins standing in a place like that. It would affect the value of nearby homes. Now it's a foundation line and a basic frame, waiting for the new build to come into existence. I drive out there sometimes to check on things, but I don't stop. It's been a year of investigators, permits, architects and blueprints, and I've taken it slow. I want the exact replica of that house to replace what once existed. Anything different won't do, and I don't care who disagrees. My Hudson Valley address will return to its former glory.

There was no pretending it was an accident. You don't level a house like that with a bad gas line, and the men who look at these things knew inside a day it was a charge, set to go when it was meant to. So the report says this was intentional, and it was fortunate nobody was in the house, because Manon made sure of that. Her heart got in the way of her revenge. What the report doesn't say is who, because that part I buried myself. Every thread runs into a wall. No suspect found. It'll be a cold day in hell before that changes.

Manon wanted to hurt me and she did, though not for the reason she thinks. Yes, that house was my sanctuary. It became one when she was in it. Without her, none of it means anything. I put men in the ground and don't lose a minute of sleep, but losing her took me apart in a way none of my sins ever managed. If I told myself I don't miss the place, not the building but the version of my life that lived in it after she moved in, I'd be lying.

I can make an exact replica of that house real again, down to the last hinge, and it still won't have what was in the rooms. Her voice. Her joy, her frustration, her exhaustion, her temper. Her body next to mine at night.