DAGGER
The Alpine had collected an admirer in uniform by the time we came out of the station. I paid the fine and would have paid ten of them.
We left the rental in the car park for tomorrow, and Maelle drove us to Valais, telling me these were the roads she’d taken to catch me, then driving them twice as fast.
“I want to run Valais,” she said when we rounded the first hairpin. “I’ve wanted it my whole life and never said it out loud until this week.” Her chin came up. “How do I do that and keep you? Your work is—”
“Our work.”
She took her eyes off the road for exactly one second.
“I’ve had a plan for a week,” I said. “Praying you’d ask me to stay. Since you asked now, I’ll tell you what it is. The mission isn’t over, Maelle. We still don’t know who Vasiliev answered to or who Géraud worked for. There’s someone above them. If there weren’t, Fontenay would’ve folded.”
“Okay—”
“I’m not finished. It makes no sense to work this from the other side of the world.
It would be more logical to operate from a European command center.
I’ve already talked to Blackjack and Beacon.
Preacher and Cassidy are staying. You and I decide who else we need.
I’m thinking we can start out in the cottage in Beaune—”
“Not Beaune. Valais,” she said like she’d been thinking about it as much as I had.
“Where?”
“There’s more than one vault under the estate. The one past the west stairs has nothing in it. It has stone walls a meter thick, one door, and no signal in or out unless we build it ourselves.” She slowed when we reached the gate.
We scheduled the team videoconference in the solarium. Maelle laid her ideas out in under two minutes, and nobody argued.
“It’s official,” Blackjack said. “The K19 Genesis Consortium European Command Center will be headquartered at Domaine Valais. Dagger and Givre, you’re in charge. Preacher and Cassidy—you’re team one.”
“The people above Géraud are still out there,” said Beacon. “Build it strong.”
The window closed, and Maelle shut the laptop.
“Now,” she said, “I tell my father I want Valais.”
“Do you want to do this alone?” I asked in the corridor. I expected her to say no but asked anyway.
She stopped walking. “Will you come with me?”
“Try to keep me out,” I said.
The study door was closed. She knocked.
“Entrez,” Bertrand called out.
He sat behind the desk, with the ledger closed in front of him, and took his glasses off.
“I see you didn’t leave,” he said.
“I did, but my fiancée brought me back.”
“Then, the wedding is on, after all.”
“In May,” Maelle said. “But, Papa, there’s something I need to speak with you about.”
“And I have something I must say to you. Allow me to go first.” He came around the desk and stood in front of her.
“Yesterday, I told you how wrong I’ve been.
Talk is cheap. Valais needs someone to take over, Maelle, and I’m asking you to be the person to do it.
Not as Rémy’s replacement. As my daughter, who should have had the opportunity to continue our legacy from the beginning. ”
Maybe she was stunned or too emotional to do so, but she didn’t say a word.
“I hurt you. For years, and I’m sorry for it. I know sorry will never be enough, but I hope one day you will find a way to forgive me.”
Her chin came up. “I came in here to ask you to consider me as your successor.”
He laughed. “Then, we are agreed for once.”
“Not everything is forgiven, Papa. Not today.”
The smile left his face. “I know. On Tuesday, I will show you everything Rémy kept from us both. The domaine needs you now, not after my funeral.”
He put out his hand, and she took it.
Chantal’s first treatment fell on a gray Monday. Bertrand drove the four of us.
Marthe packed a basket with enough food for a week and handed it to me on our way out.
At the clinic in Dijon, Chantal settled into the chair while the three of us arranged her blankets, her water, and her view.
She raised her hand. “You are all making far too much of a fuss. Maelle, we had an agreement. No hovering.”
“The agreement has been renegotiated,” Maelle said. “Too bad.”
“Get used to it,” I added.
“Whether you like it or not, Maman, I’m going to pamper you. Today, and every third Monday, and all the days between if I choose.”
“And I,” said Bertrand, “am going to pamper my wife.”
When Chantal appealed to me, saying I was the last sane person in the family, I handed her another pillow.
“Very well,” she said and surrendered.
When the treatment began, Bertrand read to her from her favorite book until she slept to the sound of his voice.
Nobody left the room.
That evening, after we’d returned to Valais, Maelle took the serpette I’d given her for Christmas from its box and asked me to walk out to the vineyard with her.
“You said you wanted me to teach you. This is winter pruning, and we’ll start with my least favorite varietal rather than my father’s.”
She fit the blade to a cane and showed me where to make the cut. I butchered my first three, and she fixed them without laughing at me, then took a man’s knife from her pocket and handed it to me.
We worked up the slope until the light faded. At the top of the rise, we stopped and looked out over the valley.
“Marthe told me that it was here my father asked if you loved me,” she said.
“I told him the truth.” I gathered her in my arms. “I dreamed this, Maelle. You and me, in the vineyard, gold light shining on the rows of grapevines. I knew then, before you even agreed to my scheme.”
“I know.”
“You do?”
“Do you think Marthe taught me nothing? Why do you think I became a spy?”
“I should’ve known she trained you.”
“There’s more. She swore to me that you were always this man. Everything else was a shield you used.”
“She’s right. I didn’t change, mon feu. I put the shield down. It took finding the woman who made me want to be the man behind it.”
“I spent a year believing I knew exactly who you were.” She reached up and cupped my cheeks. “I’ve never been so happy to be wrong.”
“Stay wrong. When you’re one hundred and I’m one hundred and four, I’ll still be saying, ‘Good morning, my love.’”
“It’s evening, Killian.”
“I’m getting my practice in early.”
We laughed, and I kissed her in the row we’d pruned together, under the last of the gold.
“Tell me how the dream ended,” she said.
“You were mine.”
“I am. And you?”
“Yours,” I said. “All yours.”