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She’s asking for everything now, so I keep on giving. I must give her the whole truth, not just the nice bits.

"Because your father took the woman my father loved," I say, "so I took his."

"I was a pawn in this revenge game then," she says. She sounds so resigned, not even a hint of disbelief in her tone, as though she couldn’t possibly expect better from me.

"It stopped being about him a long time ago. I told myself it was, that I was owed something, that his ruin gave me the right to you… when the truth was, I wanted you from the first time I saw you, and I created all the justifications in the world for my desire so I'd never have to admit this. But I'm saying it now. Somehow, everything got tangled together."

"Stop." Her hand lifts to halt my barrage of words. I’m almost grateful as I’m set on hanging myself. "Let me think."

I already know what’s going on in her head because it’s the source of all of my nightmares.

"If you hadn't set my brother up, he'd never have gone after Nicko. There'd have been no reason for me to come to your house that night. No reason for any of this." Her voice gets lower with every word. "I'd never have married you. And I'd never have gone to the rink that morning to say goodbye to Charles. And he wouldn’t have lost his mind. And he wouldn’t be dead."

"Manon."

"You didn't just take my life away from me." The look in her eyes is worse than hate. It’s something infinitely darker. "You took his, too. Charles is dead because of you, and you made me believe it was to protect me."

I open my mouth to answer her. For once, there's nothing there. No words at all.

"You made me love you." She’s losing her composure now, and I can’t bear to see the pain in her eyes. "You were good to me, earned it day by day. I’ve overlooked so many things because of the way you treat me. The way you look at me and take everything I give you, good or bad. You put me on a pedestal, worshiped me. That's the part I can't forgive. I’ve fallen in love with you. All of you, from the serious things to the funny things to the way you make me feel when you … when you…”

She turns away, giving me her back as though she can’t bear the sight of me. “I stopped counting the days until the year was up, so I could ask for a divorce. I stopped being someone else and became myself when you were around." She's crying now, quietly, but doesn’t try to hide it. Rather, she turns so I can see everything. "I was going to stay, Laszlo. For good. I was going to tell you tonight."

I'm out of my chair, the weight of what I’m losing now an instrument of torture. She can’t love me and decide to leave me. "Then stay. You can still⁠—"

"No." She shakes her head. "I love you more than I've ever loved anyone. Do you understand that? More than Charles. More than the life I built to get away from men like you. And you're the one who killed it. Not my father or your father, but you. Henri decided for someone else, once. You decided this for us. You took the one pure thing we could have had and tainted it. You manufactured every piece of it, my brother, the garden, the proposal, and let me fall in love with something I never got to choose. And Charles is in the ground because of it. My God, how far would you have gone if I hadn't gone to Basset House today?" Her voice goes flat, her tone final. She's delivering a message to the patient that there's nothing more medicine can do, minus the compassion. "There's nothing left in me for you, Laszlo. You made sure of that yourself."

The final blow hits me with blunt force. She might as well have swung a baseball bat at my head and crushed my skull.

I go down on my knees in front of her. The pain in my chest turns to a blade, twisting, and my heart is slamming so hard the whole room tilts around me. I'm on the floor, ready to beg, ready to do the one thing Laszlo Novak would never dream of doing.

I'd carve my heart out of my chest and lay it in her hands if she asked me to, because there's nothing living inside it but rot and her name. And if she walks through that door, she may as well have my men bury me alive, because there is no life after this one.

Without her, I'm nothing. Without her, I'm no one at all.

"Then finish it," I say. "You want to make this even? Make it even. Kill me. "One of those chef's knives will do it. Just give me a moment to make sure you won't get in trouble for it. My men can call it a break-in. It will be easy. You'll be free. You'll have enough to keep on working or retire. It ends with me, all of it, everything I did to you. I will spend eternity on the other side of life. Put me there. I'm asking you."

"Stop it."

"Manon—"

"Stop. You’re making a fool of yourself. This is not you." She steps around me. "You don't deserve to be saved by me, and I won’t dirty my conscience so you can have it your way. That's the one thing you don't get. Not this time."

I hear her footsteps going upstairs, to our bedroom.

I know she’s packing her things. My body is not mine anymore and I’m about to be sick. She’s right. I’m making a fool of myself. After a while, I stand, but I’m rooted to the spot. The pierogies have gone cold. I’m in my home but everything feels alien, as if I don’t belong.

She comes down with the bag. She's put her coat back on. She stops in front of me, and for one second her hand comes up like she might touch my hair, then it doesn't.

"Don't have anyone follow me," she says. "If any part of you ever loved me instead of trying to own me, you'll let me get in that car by myself."

I hear her take the keys off the hook, and she walks through that door. Her engine comes alive, then the sound of her car going down the drive and out the gate grows smaller, until there's nothing.

I don't know where she's going. Maybe her old place, though there's nothing to go back to, I own that building, and I had her moved out months ago. For so long, I've always known where she was. All it took was a report, a phone call, a picture, a man watching from across the street. Now there's no one out there but me, and I just let her drive away without following. For the first time since I found her, I have no idea where she might sleep tonight.

I sit on the floor of my beautiful house until my legs go numb. Then I get up, pour a shot of Soplica, and I don't straighten the bottle after. I sit in front of the soup and pierogi nobody's going to eat, drinking the liquid fire.

Some hours later, my phone lights up on the table.