Severed Heart (Ravenhood Legacy Book 2)

“As for who you were, your name is Delphine Moreau Baptiste.” I spit Alain’s last name like the dagger it feels like. “Your father, Matis Moreau, was a highly decorated soldier who served in the French army, which is why he was recruited to be an informant for a new and highly classified intelligence branch within. His expertise quickly led him down a rabbit hole to infiltrate a group of very dangerous men. Men he consorted with regularly to build his case. But in an effort to guard his young wife and infant daughter, he tucked them in a hideaway in Levallois-Perret until he could see his mission through.”

Her mouth continually parts as she stares at me, bewildered.

“Your mother, Nicole Dubos, met Matis while he was on leave while serving when he was twenty-nine and she was only nineteen. Promising himself to her, he courted her for a year before they married. Shortly after, they became pregnant. Their relationship was volatile from the start and took a turn for the worse when Matis fell victim to heroin, which the thugs he was investigating happily supplied him with. During that time, your mother became well known for taking marriage lightly and having embarrassing public affairs, which further fueled Matis’s growing addiction. Nicole’s frequent affairs led her to eventually fall in love with a French writer, and for him, she left Matis and you when you were five years old.”

“Tyler,” Delphine croaks. “How do—”

“With that writer,” I continue, “she fled Levallois-Perret but was only with him a year when she drowned while on holiday off the French coast. A death your father had no knowledge of during the short years he raised you alone. Up until the day Matis died, he tried to shield you from his biggest mistake, one of which was thinking his government would protect you both. This perspective gifted from a very old, very cranky British man by the name of Frederick Bell, whom Matis called upon to rescue you the night the thugs came to collect you. Bell, who worked for British intelligence at the time, was stationed in France. Though he served with your father, he refuted the possibility of your father’s legitimate assignment because of his spiral and addiction. Bell, now mostly retired, lives in St. Albans, twenty minutes outside of London, and still works from time to time in intelligence. He sends his regards and has deep remorse for how he relayed the reasoning behind your father’s debt to you. That and the fact that he didn’t believe Matis. A confession he probably still regrets due to the lingering sting of the severely bruised jaw he suffered after clearing his conscience to me.”

She stills fully, almost unblinking, as I recall the details of the rest of that meeting.

“After Bell admittedly ripped you from your screaming father’s arms, he deposited you on Matis’s nephew’s porch. Where Francis Moreau and his wife, Marine, immediately took you into their custody. Francis, an aristocrat by day, remained an activist by night, keeping his involvements hidden well, especially from his wife, Marine, whom he divorced a year after their only daughter, Celine, disappeared.”

Delphine cups her mouth.

“Francis imparted this tearfully to me after learning of his daughter’s untimely death and your own fate. He would very much like to talk to you. I have his number.”

She gasps behind her palm as I take a knee in front of her.

“Marine passed two years ago from complications of gallbladder surgery. Francis has been happily remarried for fifteen years and has a son set to start HEC prep next fall. Which means you still have family in France, Delphine.”

“Tyler,” she expels, her croak muffled as tears continually pour from her eyes.

“Your second cousin, Celine Moreau, nearly nine years your senior when you landed, heartbroken and traumatized, on her doorstep, was instantly taken with you. Her affection for you eventually bonded you more as sisters than cousins. And it was Celine’s involvement with her first husband, Abijah Baran, Tobias’s birth father, that led you to an introduction to Alain Baptiste when you were just barely twelve years old. Baptiste was raised in a severely impoverished and volatile family which scattered to ashes after his father was killed in a bombing. Alain, ambitious to become an activist in the wake of his father’s death, hopped on a train to the nearest city to seek out others like him. It was on those streets that he came across Abijah Baran, who took Alain under his wing until Alain’s ambitions warped him to the point that he went against Abijah’s orders and bombed a police station. Just after, Abijah washed his hands of him, and Alain fled France with the closest in his circle—including his childhood best friend and confident, Ormand Anouilh. Ormand, whom you must have had lingering trust for since you sent Tobias to him, deeming Ormand your nephew’s first to contact when he landed in France. Ormand, who, to this day, remains one of Tobias’s most trusted French business partners.”

Delphine presses her palm more firmly to her mouth, muting herself from any noise, her body visibly trembling as she hangs onto my every word.

“Ormand did not take part in the bombing, which severely wounded twelve officers, but killed two, a crime which has kept Alain on the most wanted list to this day. But before Alain fled both police and Abijah’s wrath, he courted you, promising to send for you once he settled in America. Infatuated with Alain’s idea of himself and blind to his sadistic ways, when he sent you an aisle-seat ticket as promised, you fled Francis’s home and boarded that plane. You left the only family you had with Celine, with hopes of becoming an independent street soldier—to become a part of something bigger than yourself. But mere weeks after you got to Triple Falls, you quickly found yourself a victim of Alain’s manipulations and horrific abuse.”

She visibly shakes as I continue to speak of the information I’ve spent years collecting, the last of it with Phillip’s help in locating Bell during my last trip to France.

“After months of nonstop domestic abuse, many accounts written by your own hand in letters to Celine, urging her to leave Abijah, who was rapidly deteriorating due to schizophrenia, Celine took you up on your invitation. She managed to secure a safe escape from Abijah with the help of a man she’d fallen in love with—a man by the name of Beau King. It was with Beau that Celine and her five-year-old son Tobias joined you and Alain here in North Carolina. Finally reunited with your sister—no doubt hopeful things would take a turn for the better—you realized far too late that would never be the case when you woke up in the hospital in critical condition after having suffered multiple injuries dealt by the hands of the sadistic fuck. One who lured you to America only to have you support him and endure his abuse. Even with Celine and Beau here, and the fast addition of Dominic King once they arrived stateside, Alain continued to habitually terrorize you for years up to the night he tried to kill you, the very night he disappeared,” I state, my heart growing heavier as she stares back at me, in utter disbelief. Unblinking now as her tears continue to fall, one by one, her grief evident, her shock more so.

“Mere months after you woke up in that hospital, your sister and her husband—the two people whom you’ve long convinced yourself remained your only true family—Celine and Beau, the only witnesses to what transpired the night of Alain’s disappearance, were murdered in a plant fire, leaving you none the wiser of what happened the night you were hospitalized. Their sudden and tragic deaths left you to raise their two orphaned boys. Abijah’s son, Ezekiel, and Dominic, fathered by Beau.”

“How did you—”

“Terrified, you took on the responsibility of raising two young boys while still recovering from injuries you sustained months before at your husband’s unforgiving hands. Already alcohol dependent and afflicted with seasonal depression, thanks to your father and that fateful day in the snow, you attempted to begin to support Celine and Beau’s orphan boys. You were triggered daily due to PTSD after years of verbal and physical abuse from Alain, including habitual sexual assault. A responsibility that terrified you because you were still trying to gain your bearings and heal from an endless list of injuries that Alain left you with the night he tried to end your life, the most damning—a traumatic brain injury to your left temporal lobe. An injury you’ve desperately tried to heal from without the doctor’s recommended rehabilitation.”

I grip her hands.

“All of these things collectively adding up, keeping you confused and terrified. Feeling utterly alone, you turned to the bottle again and again to help you both quiet the fears and numb the pain of the betrayal thanks to the men in your life.”

I lower my propped knee, leaving myself on both in front of her.

“You’ve been fighting a very long war alone to try and put the pieces together, as well as quiet your mind enough to heal. But you’ve been kicked while down one too many fucking times and plagued daily with reminders of the horror you endured. Prideful but too ashamed, you’ve refused to seek help, guilting yourself for the last twenty years for the mistakes of others due to the decisions you made when you were just a young girl.”

A sob erupts from her as I hold steady.

“Mistakes made due to the pain and loss of surviving the trauma you went through because of the horrific crimes the men in your life committed against you. From those you trusted most from a very young age until the day your own husband tried to end your life. Blaming yourself for other people’s failures. Blaming yourself over and over for not being able to recover from an injury that cannot be healed. Could never be healed because the damage is permanent.”

I bite my lip, agony lacing my words. “It’s a traumatic brain injury, Delphine,” I deliver against her muffled cries, intent on having her hear me. Sobs wrack her tiny body as she stares over at me, completely exposed, as I lean in and palm her cheek. “This can cause hazy vision, both short- and long-term memory loss, severe mood swings, bouts of anxiety and depression, as well as problems with writing and reading comprehension, and can also affect speech. An injury you suffered at the hands of your ex-husband, which makes you a victim.”

Taking her shaking hands, I squeeze them lightly while keeping command of her eyes.

“So, all this guilt and shame you’ve piled upon yourself for not being able to piece together what happened, of not being able to repair yourself, and Alain’s lingering reign of fucking terror, ends today—ends right now if you want it to,” I relay, the sting in my chest intensifying tenfold at the sight of the woman rapidly unraveling in front of me, her composure crumbling.

“You’re not going to find the peace you seek in a bottle or that book. You know that by now. You’ve tried to do it alone every day since you woke up in that hospital, but you don’t have to. You don’t have to do it alone anymore, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but it’s not the drink we’re up against, Delphine.”

My heart speaks now as I allow my own pain to ring through.

“The only way you’re going to find peace is by being brave enough to live again.” Her cries multiply as I soften my gaze and keep her hands in mine, rubbing my thumbs soothingly along the back of them.

“You’re right, you don’t owe me anything, but I’m begging you for this. I’m begging you that if you want any part of that future, let me help you get to it. But it’s not the fucking bottle we’re up against, Delphine. Never has been. It’s just how you numb it. And aside from sorting what happened and putting that son of a bitch behind you, he doesn’t get to have any more of you or a second past these few of your future.”

Her face twists in agony as shuddered cries erupt from her.

“Because I want those seconds. I want as many of them as I can get. I need them because I need my goddamned general back.” I falter slightly along with my delivery as her hands tighten around mine. “I know I told you once that soldiers don’t stay, General, but they don’t fight wars such as these alone. If you want to finally end this battle, I swear to God, we’ll go in and do it together.”

She visibly fractures before launching herself at me, wrapping herself around me as her cries surround me.

“Soldierrrr,” she expels as if it’s being ripped from her, her cry so guttural that I collapse on my heels and cage her as she breaks against me. The anguish-filled lilt behind her call I know I’ll never forget as long as my fucking heart beats. Decades of pain and confusion inside of it, thanks to the monster who not only tried to rob her of her life but damaged her in a near irreparable way. In knowing that, I bring her shaking hand to my heart while keeping her nestled firmly to my chest as I make what promises I know I will keep. But only if she’ll allow me.

“Tell me you want it,” I whisper.

“I w-want it,” she cries. “I w-want it s-so much.”

“Then I will not leave you. You know my promise is real. You know I meant every word I just said. It scares you, just like it scared you then. Let yourself fucking feel it all, Delphine,” I whisper. “Stop numbing and let me be here when it comes. I want this for you, always have, but you have to want it too, or it won’t work.”

“I want it,” she repeats as her tears soak my neck while setting my heart alight with hope. She’s clutching me back so tightly that I think it might hurt her. “P-please, Tyler, I w-want it,” she whispers brokenly, shattered in my arms, her hurt seeping out of her like the rivulets still pouring from the table. “I’m s-so scared,” she croaks, her chest bouncing involuntarily as her breaths become shuddered.

“I know you are, but I swear, Delphine, you have nothing or no one to be afraid of because as you were fighting your war, you created a soldier who made it his first mission to keep you safe, and to this day will never allow any threat within an inch of you. He’s been on watch of you since he was sixteen years old, and there’s absolutely nothing on earth he wouldn’t do for you. Because being with you created him and helped make him the man he is for better or worse, so he’s going to tell you one of the secrets he’s been hiding from everyone since he left, and you’re the only soul on earth he’ll confess it to.” She pulls away, her eyes anxiously tracing my face, my every feature.

“Your soldier needs you just as badly right now,” I declare, that truth filtering down my cheeks. “He’s not the same without you. He’s been missing a very large piece of himself for eight long fucking years.”

Her lips tremble as my voice shakes with my admission.

“I’ve loved you for nearly eleven years of my goddamned life, Delphine, and only had your body one night. It was never about sex for me and never will be, but I need you. I need to heal, and you’re the only one who might be able to help me do it, so please let me be your friend again, General. That’s all I want, I promise.”

“Oui. I want that so much.” She nestles back into me, her head on my chest as she nods into my neck. “My f-fishin’ b-buddy, my b-best friend. I missed you s-so much.”

“I won’t let go this time. I swear this to you, I won’t fucking let go, no matter what, and I won’t leave you,” I tell her as she continually nods into my neck. “I fucking promise on all that I am, this war we fight together.”

Time be damned, disease be damned, illness be damned, I’ll defy it all and keep my promise. To make the most of every fucking second she gives me. But most importantly, make the most of hers.

I cage her in my embrace in the silent moments we spend in her decision, guarding her from the shame and humiliation that plagues her.

Even if I never have her love in return, I have her for the time being, for as long as it takes for her to heal—maybe for us both to heal as I speak my last truth. “We healed each other before, Delphine, and we’re going to do it again,” I vow. “We’re going to do it again.”