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Rollant broadened his stance. “We are not lovers,” he said with a voice that rose above the murmurs. “And you are hurting her. You should let go of her arm before it bruises.” There was an emphasis on his last word, bruises . It quieted the crowd.

élise noticed the turned heads and the pressed lips.

Again, they silently pleaded guilty to seeing but saying nothing.

They all depended on Gabin for bread. They were all trapped as she was.

She resented them for doing nothing, but she understood their plight.

Rollant was her only advocate there because he did not rely on Gabin.

She had let herself become entrapped, and if she wanted freedom, she had to take it back, just as she told her community the first night she had met Rollant. It wouldn’t happen overnight, but small steps and small actions would eventually allow her to be free of Gabin.

“You are hurting me,” she said in a bold voice, its shake only audible to her ears.

“Shut up, woman,” he said, shoving her away to square his shoulders with Rollant. He pushed a stiff finger into Rollant’s chest. “I know you took three days to bed her at the inn, and she returned to me. So what does that say about you? Are you weak in bed, sea rat? A little limp fish you have?”

Rollant chortled. The high insult brushed past him as if it were nothing.

“Oh, Monsieur Roux,” Rollant sighed with an amusement perched on his lips.

“I did no such thing.” He shook his head.

“She had her own room. If you can spare the hours’ walk, go and ask the innkeeper.

Two rooms. She is loyal to you, Gabin, and always has been.

There is no need to hurt her. She has no feelings for me.

You are the bigger man, the better man. You provide for her, and she admires your generosity. ”

The words came out with ease. So much ease, élise thought they were true and wondered what other lies he might have told her that seemed genuine.

Rollant continued. “Don’t treat her harshly because of me. It is all for naught. She loves you and only you, Gabin. If she didn’t, would she have returned?”

“She knows I’d find her.” His voice lowered as he tried to shove Rollant backward.

His face flushed red at Rollant’s rooted stance.

“She is mine,” he gritted. “She is my woman! Not yours! And now you know it. So don’t come here again, or we will string you from the street lamp and put your little fish on display. ”

“I don’t seek trouble, Monsieur Roux,” Rollant said, unfazed by Gabin’s threat. He glanced at élise with an intensity that made her knees weak and made her know the following words he said would be kept. “But if harm comes to her again, I will find my way back here—and you won’t like what follows.”

A murmur rippled through the crowd at Rollant’s bravery. Gabin’s eyes swept over their faces before narrowing on Rollant like a predator on its prey.

“I’ve already told you,” Gabin gritted. “I have never harmed élise!” The crowd’s hums of disagreement sent Gabin into a rage. He yelled at the crowd.

“You eat my bread every day, don’t you? Who else in this entire district has offered you as much? I keep this bakery running for your families, and still, you stand there gawking, letting a stranger mock me in front of my own home!”

Some people nodded faintly, shuffling their feet. élise’s heart sank as she caught their hesitant approval of Gabin’s words. She clenched her fists, willing someone to speak out, but their heads dipped, their gazes sliding away.

Gabin released a low growl. “I am the one who ensures you’re not starving, and this is how you repay me?

This is how she repays me?” He returned his grip on her arm and jerked her shoulder up.

The sharp tug drew a gasp from her lips, but he ignored it, his voice building in anger and bitterness.

“After all I’ve done, I am betrayed. This navy man comes here, flaunts his coin, takes my woman, and makes fools of us all! ”

Rollant’s gaze never left Gabin, and a look of boredom sat heavily on his face. “I already told you, Monsieur Roux, I did not bed élise. She had her own room. False assumptions are not becoming of such an honored position in this community, such as yours.”

“Liar!” Gabin sneered amid the crowd’s murmurs and brandished a bread knife from his belt.

élise froze with her eyes wide. The crowd shrank back.

The blade glinted from the bakery’s inner lamp, its jagged edge as unpolished as Gabin’s temper.

The knife trembled in his grip as he fought to maintain control.

élise’s breath hitched. She envisioned the cold steel against Rollant’s skin, him dying in her arms as Gabin’s murderous rage sliced through her fragile resolve at the show of betrayal. It was enough for her to yell, “No! Gabin!”

Olivier and Yanis’ hands shot up as they stood next to Rollant, and they shook their heads.

Rollant remained still and asked a simple question, “Are you to murder me with the bread knife with which you cut all the bread for your fellow townspeople?”

Gabin’s blade stopped mid-air as Rollant continued. “A knife can never fully be cleaned. You’d be feeding my blood to your friends. I’d never knowingly barter for bread with another man’s blood on it.”

A murmur swept through the crowd, and flickers of doubt or guilt flashed on their faces. It was the first night élise had seen any cracks in Gabin’s control over them and Rollant had brought the cracks to light.

As Gabin thought about the implications, his knuckles grew white around the thick wooden handle.

“Gabin,” Yanis whispered. “We saw élise after she left the charity hospital. She could barely walk. Rollant took her to an inn and nearly had to carry her; she was so weak.”

Olivier put a hesitant hand on Gabin’s shoulder. “Rollant didn’t mean anything by what he said. He saved your business, ensuring élise was well so you could tend to the bakery, right? I doubt élise would have even had the strength for an affair, Gabin.”

Gabin snorted and popped his neck. He pushed Olivier and Yanis out of the way and leaned into Rollant’s space, who still stood rooted to the spot.

élise’s fists clenched so hard they ached. Her shoulders tensed up to her neck. “Gabin, I love you,” she whimpered. “Rollant is a gentleman. He never did anything inappropriate?—”

“You didn’t have a coat before, élise?” Gabin asked, glancing back with eyes that ran the length of her new dress beneath her new coat.

“Yes,” Rollant answered for her. “I saw she had no coat and a threadbare dress, so I got her a dress and a coat suited for the winter. I thought it would be one less expense for you and her. I know the cost of baking bread is at an all-time high, and I don’t want you to lose your apprentice due to the coming winter’s cold nor cut into the number of loaves you could make for these good people. ” Rollant gestured to the crowd.

“If you’re so rich, why don’t you just buy everyone bread?” Gabin asked and pointed his bread knife at Rollant’s face.

Rollant smirked. “I am not rich, my friend. Oh, how I wish I were. I only have two coins left and need them to take the ferry up the river to the port, which reminds me, I must be leaving. The captain is not kind to those who tarry.” Rollant dipped his head.

“Goodnight, Monsieur Roux and Mademoiselle.” He glanced at élise, but Gabin moved to block his line of sight.

élise shrank back, knowing Rollant could do nothing more.

He had already done so much. She held her breath as she watched him walk away amid the parting crowd, his steps measured and deliberate, his frame becoming smaller the farther he went.

It was as if a door was closing, and the warmth shut out.

Each step carried away the only light she’d ever known. She should have gone with him.

Gabin spun around, knife still in hand. Red filled his bloodshot eyes, locked with hers, before scanning the crowd. “What is everyone waiting for? Are we to have a meeting or not?”

He pointed the blade’s upturned tip at élise’s face.

The knife didn’t need to move anymore; it spoke in the way Gabin’s fingers curled too tightly around the handle, draining the color from his flesh.

His breath came hot and shallow, matching the tension of his shoulders as if poised to strike.

The promise of punishment held her breath captive, and she only hoped to see the morning.

He slammed the knife back on his belt and entered the bakery.

The gathered townspeople slowly followed, not meeting her gaze.

Some shuffled their feet, others whispered behind cupped hands.

None of them would speak up for her—they never had.

Gabin’s bread was their lifeline, and her suffering was the price they seemed willing to pay.

élise felt the world spin as Malo offered her the chair in the corner. Her chin fell to her chest to process everything that had happened.

She took a few deep breaths, wishing Rollant would return for her, but she knew she had waited too long and lost the opportunity.

She only hoped he would return soon. She wouldn’t turn down his offer a second time.

She’d figure out how to help her friends in Faubourg Saint-Antoine and live a life away from Gabin’s control.

Pulling a knife was the first time Gabin had ever done that, and she wondered if he’d do it again with her in the privacy of their room.

Would the bread Gabin sold be tainted with the taste of her blood, her suffering seeped into every loaf?

She lifted her gaze to the people, who were half-listening to Gabin and half-staring at her. Hot tears welled in her eyes and blurred their faces, but she knew them—silent, complicit, trapped. Her neck throbbed, her knuckles ached, and fear had paralyzed her. But she refused to let it win again.

Her fingers slid along the coat’s sleeves, hesitant at first, until she hugged herself and pulled the coat tighter around her.

Rollant believed in her enough to buy her a coat—a green coat, the color of growth and life.

Its thick wool shielded her from despair, buttressed her resolve, and constantly reminded her that this wasn’t the end.

She yearned for Rollant’s scent of old wood and candle smoke, a trace of him she could readily keep in his absence.

Instead, it was a gift, a blank slate, waiting for her to make it her own.

She turned her face into its upturned collar.

Its wool absorbed her silent tears. She made a promise in the fibers—she’d been saved many times, and one day, she vowed to save herself.