Page 180 of Saint Céline
He knew.
He had Katherine’s phone, and he knew.
My knees nearly weakened, but I forced myself to stay standing.
“Fuck you.” My voice sounded raw.
“There she is. My lovely little murderess. I was tired of waiting for you to bring it up yourself. I can’t believe this is how we are ending up discussing it.”
I lunged for the bottle; it didn’t matter anymore, but I needed something to do with my fury.
Vincent caught my wrist easily.
I tried to twist free.
He caught the other.
For one moment, we stood too close, my wrists in his hands, the empty bottle trapped between us, the air thick with dinner and rain and everything we had not yet admitted.
“You have Katherine’s phone,” I said.
His face did not change.
“It fell on the terrace, and you took it… How long have you had it?”
“Since that night, sweetheart.”
“You were there?”
“Yes.” The confirmation came quietly.
The truth opened beneath me, endless and black.
“Did you watch us?”
“From the beginning to the end.”
He released my wrists slowly, as if I might break if he let go too fast. The thought enraged me enough to steady me.
“You sick bastard. You watched her fall and didn’t even attempt to help! You watched me—”
I stopped. My throat closed around the rest. I could not say it. Not to him. Not while he stood there holding the bottle I had emptied into a glass and the knowledge of Katherine’s last living moments in the same hand.
Vincent stepped closer, and I stepped back.
He dragged me by the hair back to the dinner table.
“You think this makes you powerful?” I whispered.
“No,” he said. “I think you trying to drug me at dinner makes you careless and afraid of me, and I need to teach you a lesson.”
I laughed, but it shook.
“I should be afraid of you; you have too much over me!”
His grip tightened slightly in my hair, enough to tilt my face up.
“Are you?”
