Zoe will build a new nest, and this time she may even fill it with babies. I know she wants children. I know I hurt her when I said we couldn’t bring a child into the world, but it was a different world then. I’m a cruel man, but I’ll never be cruel to a child, certainly not cruel enough to spawn bastards and curse them with no recognition, protection, or respect. The more I think about it, the more excited I become about the idea of planting a child in Zoe’s belly, of seeing it grow and knowing I’ve bound her to me by blood.
My mood is so great I stop at the bakery on the way to get Zoe something sweet, something like a box of delicate choux and macaroons. Double fuck. I never ordered a wedding cake. Slamming a roll of bills on the counter, I tell the petrified owner to make sure he gets a pièce montée to the restaurant by five. I give him the name and address before taking my box of patisserie and making my way whistling back to the apartment.
All is quiet when I unlock the door. It’s a good sign. Smiling to myself, I serve the pastries in a plate. Never mind that it’s lunchtime and pastries are dessert. Today is a special day, after all.
Impatient to surprise Zoe, I unlock the bedroom door and push it open. What greets me punches the excitement out of my chest. She sits on the floor, her knees drawn up and her back against the window. Her hair stands in every direction and mascara runs black under her eyes. Next to her lies a pair of scissors, and in front of her the dregs that are left of her wedding dress.
“What have you done?” I exclaim, my vocal cords refusing to rise above a whisper.
“Pay attention, Maxime.” Her lip curls up. “This is my lesson to you. I’m done with your games.”
I’ve never experienced greater rage, neither when I punished Alexis, nor when I revenged Gautier’s death. Not even when I killed the man who took a shot at Zoe. The fury mounts in my body until I shake with it. It’s not the destruction of the dress. It’s what the act stands for.
Uttering a howl loud enough to shake the roof, I throw the plate at the wall. The pastries splatter against the stone, and pink porcelain falls into pieces on the floor. Zoe doesn’t react. Not even a flinch. The old Maxime would’ve been better equipped to handle this. That Maxime would’ve been able to navigate the situation calmly, to find a way to bend his bride to his will. He would’ve been able to do that because it’s hard to get upset when you feel nothing. However, the new me, the feeling me, has too many emotions clogging up my chest. My ribcage shrinks around my heart until all I feel is suffocating anger and incontrollable madness.
She thinks this is a lesson? I advance on my unwilling bride with big steps. Zoe shrinks away from me, but even that isn’t enough to stop me. Grabbing a fistful of her blond hair in one hand and her arm in the other, I pull her to her feet.
She takes the punishment without complaint, hobbling on one foot ahead of me as I march her to the bathroom. Shoving her into the Louis Vuitton chair that stands next to the bath, I keep her there with my hand on her shoulder. I pull the belt of her robe that hangs next to the bath from the loops. I use the belt to tie her hands behind her back, and then drag the chair to the edge of the bath.
“What are you doing?” she cries.
“It’s a little late for questions, don’t you think?”
Pulling the plug in the bath, I let the rose-scented water Francine prepared drain. I had this all worked out to the finest detail. The timing was perfect. I made sure everything was just right before our arrival. I’d handed Francine a set of keys before I left for South Africa so she could come in and set everything up once I’d found Zoe. All of this, Zoe spoiled by making a destructive choice.
I rip open the box of hair dye I left on the vanity counter and grab her long hair to pull her head back. I’m rough. She yelps. I pull the plastic gloves on before squirting the dye onto her hair and using the comb that came in the box to spread the dark color. After working the black dye through to the ends, I set the timer on my phone.
My next task is fetching the cold quiche on the nightstand.
“Open,” I say, stabbing the fork into the quiche and pointing a piece at her mouth like a weapon.
“I don’t want it.”
“At this stage, ma belle, I don’t give a damn about what you want. Open the fuck up, or I’ll force your mouth open with clamps.”
Her lips part even as tears spill over her cheeks, running rivulets through the already smeared mascara. The bite I shove into her mouth is huge. She has to chew a long time to get it all down. I feed her bite after bite, until the fucking plate is empty.
I fill the toothbrush glass with water and hold it against her lips. The water spills over her chin and down her chest when she drinks, wetting her blouse, but I don’t care
