Page 141 of Severed Heart

She stares at me, her gaze solid.

“You want to fish and hunt? Well, it’s in your backyard. You want to watch sunsets in every season? There’s a show every night. You want a place to do that at? I happen to know a place you fucking love.”

She whips her head up where I now tower over her. “So easy,” she scoffs.

“Absolutely not. At this point, you’re close to institutionalized in your thinking. The bottle is step one. Step two is sorting your past and finally putting it behind you. Step three will be you actually living your dream. I know exactly what life you want, and I’m offering it to you right now. You once told me that it’s the tests in life that make or break you. You can do this, Delphine,” I state. “You could have all along. My only condition is this, as long as you try, really try, and even if you fail, I won’t fucking leave you.”

“You can’t make that promise,” she whispers.

“I just did,” I declare with certainty.

“You have so much—”

“I know what I have. I’ll do what I need to do. If I can make this happen, then you can too. Show me, Delphine. Show me you want it, and I’ll move heaven and earth to be there for you, to help you succeed, and won’t ask for a damn thing in return.”

She bites her lip, eyeing the glass before lifting it, her eyes meeting mine in challenge.

“We both know it’s not the drink we’re up against,” I state emphatically. “It’s not the fucking drink.”

Doubling down, I pull out the last of my armor and decide to fight dirty. To forcibly try to create that shred of hope and pull out my arsenal. An arsenal I’ve been building in the years since I left her.

“You turned down life with me for what? For this?” I fist my hands at my sides. “Well, that’s fucking insulting, but again, I’m not here to win your heart. I’m here to fight for what life you have left. Long or short, I want you to have it because it’s clear you’re no longer fighting at all for yourself and haven’t since the night Alain tried to kill you.”

Chapter Thirty-Seven

TYLER

SHE GAPES UPat me in shock as I stare down at her, resigned to finally see this through.

“As for who you were, your name is Delphine Moreau Baptiste.” I spit Alain’s last name like the dagger it feels like. “Your father, Matis Moreau, was a highly decorated soldier who served in the French army, which is why he was recruited to be an informant for anewand highly classified intelligence branch within. His expertise quickly led him down a rabbit hole to infiltrate a group of very dangerous men. Men he consorted with regularly to build his case. But in an effort to guard his young wife and infant daughter, he tucked them in a hideaway in Levallois-Perret until he could see his mission through.”

Her mouth continually parts as she stares at me, bewildered.

“Your mother, Nicole Dubos, met Matis while he was on leave while serving when he was twenty-nine and she was only nineteen. Promising himself to her, he courted her for a year before they married. Shortly after, they became pregnant. Their relationship was volatile from the start and took a turn for the worse when Matis fell victim to heroin, which the thugs he was investigating happily supplied him with. During that time, your mother became well known for taking marriage lightly and having embarrassing public affairs, which further fueled Matis’s growing addiction. Nicole’s frequent affairs led her to eventually fall in love with a French writer, and for him, she left Matis and you when you were five years old.”

“Tyler,” Delphine croaks. “How do—”

“With that writer,” I continue, “she fled Levallois-Perret but was only with him a year when she drowned while on holiday off the French coast. A death your father had no knowledge of during the short years he raised you alone. Up until the day Matis died, he tried to shield you from his biggest mistake, one of which was thinking his government would protect you both. This perspective gifted from a very old, very cranky British man by the name of Frederick Bell, whom Matis called upon to rescue you the night the thugs came to collect you. Bell, who worked for British intelligence at the time, was stationed in France. Though he served with your father, he refuted the possibility of your father’s legitimate assignment because of his spiral and addiction. Bell, now mostly retired, lives in St. Albans, twenty minutes outside of London, and still works from time to time in intelligence. He sends his regards and hasdeep remorsefor how he relayed the reasoning behind your father’s debt to you. That and the fact that he didn’t believe Matis. A confession he probably still regrets due to the lingering sting of the severely bruised jaw he suffered after clearing his conscience tome.”

She stills fully, almost unblinking, as I recall the details of the rest of that meeting.

“After Bell admittedly ripped you from your screaming father’s arms, he deposited you on Matis’s nephew’s porch. Where Francis Moreau and his wife, Marine, immediately took you into their custody. Francis, an aristocrat by day, remained an activist by night, keeping his involvements hidden well, especially from his wife, Marine, whom he divorced a year after their only daughter, Celine, disappeared.”

Delphine cups her mouth.

“Francis imparted this tearfully to me after learning of his daughter’s untimely death and your own fate. He would very much like to talk to you. I have his number.”

She gasps behind her palm as I take a knee in front of her.

“Marine passed two years ago from complications of gallbladder surgery. Francis has been happily remarried for fifteen years and has a son set to start HEC prep next fall. Which means you still have family in France, Delphine.”

“Tyler,” she expels, her croak muffled as tears continually pour from her eyes.

“Your second cousin, Celine Moreau, nearly nine years your senior when you landed, heartbroken and traumatized, on her doorstep, was instantly taken with you. Her affection for you eventually bonded you more assistersthan cousins. And it was Celine’s involvement with her first husband, Abijah Baran, Tobias’s birth father, that led you to an introduction to Alain Baptiste when you were just barely twelve years old. Baptiste was raised in a severely impoverished and volatile family which scattered to ashes after his father was killed in a bombing. Alain, ambitious to become an activist in the wake of his father’s death, hopped on a train to the nearest city to seek out others like him. It was on those streets that he came across Abijah Baran, who took Alain under his wing until Alain’s ambitions warped him to the point that he went against Abijah’s orders and bombed a police station. Just after, Abijah washed his hands of him, and Alain fled France with the closest in his circle—including his childhood best friend and confident, Ormand Anouilh. Ormand, whom you must have had lingering trust for since you sent Tobias to him, deeming Ormand your nephew’s first to contact when he landed in France. Ormand, who, to this day, remains one of Tobias’s most trusted French business partners.”

Delphine presses her palm more firmly to her mouth, muting herself from any noise, her body visibly trembling as she hangs onto my every word.

“Ormand did not take part in the bombing, which severely wounded twelve officers, but killedtwo, a crime which has kept Alain on the most wanted list tothis day. But before Alain fled both police and Abijah’s wrath, he courted you, promising to send for you once he settled in America. Infatuated with Alain’s idea of himself and blind to his sadistic ways, when he sent you an aisle-seat ticket as promised, you fled Francis’s home and boarded that plane. You left the only family you had with Celine, with hopes of becoming an independent street soldier—to become a part of something bigger than yourself. But mere weeks after you got to Triple Falls, you quickly found yourself a victim of Alain’s manipulations and horrific abuse.”