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“Adolph is Frannie’s father. I am her grandmother.”

The moment she says it, my head flips back to that night, nearly ten years ago. The blond kid rutting against my mother, perhaps no more than mid-twenties back then. He was one of three who ultimately raped my mother.

“There were three of them.”

“Oh, c’mon, Thierry. Two of those men were Mexican. Tell me, does Frannie appear to have a lick of Mexican blood in her? She’s as white as a ghost.”

I will my hand to remain steady, to keep from giving away the anger festering inside of me. If the woman thinks she can snake beneath my skin with this story, she might believe she has the upper hand.

“I didn’t know about her until years ago, when the information sort of fell into my lap. She was my only granddaughter, that I was aware of, so I paid an exorbitant amount of money to have her tracked down. That’s when I found her back at that godawful facility. Don’t get me wrong, they were the best in the state. I don’t fault you for sending her there. But the building was not the best, so I decided to become an investor. To update and modernize the facility, while looking out for my dear Frannie. My sweet little girl.”

All these years, it never made sense to me why Jude hung around the place all the time. A woman with her money. Why she seemed so invested in my sister. It’s possible she’s telling the truth. “Your son raped my mother.”

“And a beautiful child blossomed as a result. Could you imagine a life without Frannie?”

I won’t even give her the benefit of answering such a stupid question. Even if the answer is no, I never agreed with my mother’s decision to carry the baby. A sadistic rapist’s baby.

Eventually, I learned to care for my sister, but that doesn’t change the fact that, given the chance, I’d have slit his throat before he ever had the chance to impregnate my mother. “Mark my words. I will kill him tonight.”

“You can’t kill an immortal soul, Thierry. It’s impossible.”

“I guess we’ll find out.”

* * *

“The Charpentier Estate?” Through the windshield, I stare up at the abandoned house that stands dark and seemingly empty. Except, parked in front are about a dozen vehicles to suggest otherwise. On seeing them, I do a quick check of my gun.

“I figured the monument should be left to those of us who still bear the misery of its history. My husband’s ancestors were burned for their beliefs. And for what? A bunch of rebellious slaves whose souls weren’t worth a pot of piss.” She climbs out of the driver’s seat, and with my gun still at the ready, I follow.

Distant sounds echo from somewhere in the house, as we climb the staircase to the second floor. The hole in the wall, where I first found Céleste the night I came here to investigate, has been widened, the surrounding drywall completely torn down, revealing the door to the backroom.

Crossing through the room beyond, Jude glances back at me and smiles. “What a gem, finding this hidden chamber. So many references and wonderful sources. So magical!” She leads me to a red door, through which I have to duck my head, or risk hitting it.

Quiet chants reverberate off the stone walls as we descend a winding staircase. The smell of burning candles and incense overpowers the undertones of damp mold.

The walls open to a vast chamber, with four separate archways that stand opposite each other. When Jude gets ahead of me, I grip her shoulder to hold her back, keeping my gun trained on her in case shit goes down.

Smack in the center, a group of twenty, or so, chant and hum, all of them wearing goat skulls, like the one in the video I watched. They gather around what appears to be some kind of fucked-up altar, with a raised bed covered in a black cloth, and black candles placed around it.

Laid across its surface is Céleste.

My muscles tense at the sight of her dressed in a white gown, her body still. Motionless.

Lifeless? Hard to tell from where I stand. Something inside of me snaps like a fragile branch, and I’ve got the barrel of my gun pressed so hard into Jude’s spine, she can probably feel the rage rattling through me.

“I promise she’s still alive, at this point. Just drugged,” she says over her shoulder, as if she can hear my thoughts.

Yet, in my mind’s eye, all I can see is the man in the skull, the grainy video of him brutally rutting against the girl on the ground, wearing that contraption on his dick. My head dares to imagine him on top of Céleste.

Those screams. The fucking screams hammer against my skull. Of all the ruthless things I’ve witnessed and carried out myself, that video somehow messed with my head.

Even now, seeing her laid out like this, I can’t let it go. I can’t stop hearing her screams.

Her screams. Not the girl’s in the video, but Céleste’s. Ma Céleste.

The air in my lungs thickens, fingers gripped tight around the trigger, ready to blow every one of these crazy bastards away, starting with the demented bitch leading me. This edginess isn’t normal for me. For years, I’ve sharpened my ability to remain calm when stepping into enemy territory. To think and strategize before reacting, because hasty moves get you killed.

Seeing Céleste has fucked with my head.