Page 150 of Saint Céline
“You think you’re too good for me now?”
“I think you need to leave before campus security does it for you.”
He smiled again, but this time there was anger beneath it.
“Campus security. Listen to you.”
“Daniel,”I say with a gritted jaw.
His face changed when I said his name. For a moment, I thought I had made a mistake. Then his voice dropped. “You got money for a fancy coat, fancy school, fancy friends, but nothing for your father?”
“You are not myfather.”
The words came out before I could soften them. The satisfaction vanished from his face. This was the real him. Not the pathetic man in the courtyard. Not the rough voice on the phone. The man beneath it, all grievance and entitlement, believing every refusal was theft because he had confused need with ownership long before I was born.
“You ungrateful little bitch,” he said quietly.
I stepped back. Just one step. Small enough that no one else would call it fear. Daniel saw it. Men like him measured power in inches. His face relaxed slightly, as if he had found something familiar beneath the coat and the name and the careful voice.
“Do you want money?” I asked because anger was easier than fear. “Is that what this is?”
“I want what I’m owed.”
I almost laughed. “You are owed nothing.”
“I kept quiet.”
My stomach dropped. The courtyard noise seemed to dim.
“What?”
He looked pleased again. “I know things.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I know my wife ran off and got herself a nice little servant job with rich people. I know my daughter started calling herself by some French name like she’s better than where she came from.”
He leaned closer, breath sour beneath old tobacco. “And I know rich dead girls make people nervous.”
The blood drained from my face. For one second, I saw Katherine falling. The moment right before. Her hand in mine, wet and cold, her eyes wide with the realization that I was thinking. That was what haunted me most. Not her body below. Not the sound I imagined but never truly heard over the storm. The fact that she saw the choice before I made it.
Daniel could not know that. He could not.
“What did you say?” I whispered.
He smiled slowly. “There’s my stupid girl. I didn’t think you had anything to do with it but your face is very expressive when you’re scared, sweetheart.”
I stepped back again. This time, my heel caught slightly on the wet stone. A hand closed around my arm before I could lose my balance. Not Daniel’s. I knew that touch immediately.
Vincent stood beside me, his dark coat open against the cold, his face calm enough that anyone passing might have mistaken this for a formal conversation instead of something cracking open in public. He did not look at me first. He looked at Daniel.
The relief that moved through me was so violent I hated it.
“Mr. Martin,” Vincent said.
Daniel’s expression changed. It was quick, but I saw it. Recognition.
Not of who Vincent was, maybe, but of the fact that they had spoken.
