Chapter 326: The Man in the Basement Has a Mother

Jade was already on her feet.

"I have to go." She shoved the phone into her hoodie pocket and missed the first time. "I have to find him. She’s going to—"

"Assieds-toi."

Séverine didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t have to. Jade froze halfway to the door.

"Assieds-toi, Jade. Tu ne sais même pas où il est."

(Sit down, Jade. You don’t even know where he is.)

Jade’s face crumpled. She sank back into the armchair and pressed the heels of her hands against her eyes.

Aria looked at her aunt. "Who is Valérie?"

Séverine sat back down. For a moment she just watched the fire, and Aria thought she might refuse to answer.

"La vraie tête des Vipères," she said at last. "Lydia porte la couronne. Valérie tient la laisse."

Jade lowered her hands. Her voice came out wet and hollow. "The real head of the Vipers. Lydia wears the crown. Valérie holds the leash."

Aria let that sink in.

Lydia. The woman who had poisoned her mother, ruined her father, and spent years making Aria’s life a living hell. Somebody’s dog.

It should have been satisfying. It wasn’t. It only meant that whatever held the other end of the leash was worse.

"She said I have something of hers," Aria said. "She means the Key."

"No," Damien said. "She means the man I have locked up."

Aria turned. Damien had moved to the window, phone already in his hand.

"Nobody has come for him," he said. "Nobody has asked about him. I assumed he wasn’t worth anything to anyone." His golden eyes settled on Séverine. "I was wrong."

It wasn’t a question.

Séverine’s mouth thinned into a hard line.

"C’est son fils."

Jade’s head snapped up. She stared at Séverine like she’d never seen her before.

"Her son," Jade whispered. "He’s Valérie’s son."

The room went silent.

Aria remembered the way her aunt had dismissed him. An idiot. A nobody.

"You told us he didn’t matter," Aria said.

"J’ai dit que c’était un idiot," Séverine replied. "Pas qu’il ne comptait pas."

"She said she called him an idiot," Jade translated faintly. "Not that he didn’t matter."

’Of course,’ Aria thought. ’Of course that’s the distinction.’

Damien was already dialing. He put the phone to his ear and turned his back to the room.

"Ken. The prisoner. Double the men on him, starting now. Nobody goes in or out unless they hear my voice first." A pause. "I don’t care what time it is there. Do it."

He hung up.

"So it’s a trade," Aria said. "Her son for Leo."

"Her son and the Key for Leo," Damien corrected. "She’ll want both. She gave you seventy-two hours because she thinks you can find it in seventy-two hours."

"I can’t."

"She doesn’t know that."

Aria’s stomach turned over.

Three days. Three days to dig up a memory she had buried so deep she hadn’t even known it was there.

"Please."

Jade was looking at her.

"I know what we did," Jade said, her voice cracking. "I know why we were sent. I know you don’t owe us anything. But he’s all I have."

Aria thought of Leo. Leo following her around like an overeager puppy. Leo in that ridiculous bucket hat, grinning at her like she’d hung the moon.

Whatever he had been sent to do, he had also shown up. Every single day.

"He lied to you for months," Damien said quietly.

"I know." Aria didn’t look away from Jade. "We’re getting him back."

Damien held her gaze for a long moment. Then he exhaled through his nose.

"Fine."

Jade burst into tears.

Séverine rose and crossed to the armchair. She rested one hand on top of Jade’s head, the way someone might steady a frightened child.

Then she looked at Damien over Jade’s shoulder.

"Valérie ne négocie pas," she said quietly. "Elle prend."

Jade translated between sobs. "Valérie doesn’t negotiate. She takes."

Damien slid his phone back into his pocket.

"So do I," he said.

***

The guest room Séverine gave them was on the third floor, tucked under the slope of the roof.

The wallpaper was peeling here too. Rain drummed on the slate above their heads. The bed was an antique iron frame, and it was so short that Damien’s feet hung off the end.

He hadn’t complained once. Aria suspected he was saving it for later.

She lay on her back, staring at the ceiling.

Somewhere below them, through the old pipes and thin walls, she could hear Jade crying. Quiet, muffled sobs that went on and on until they finally stopped. Aria wasn’t sure which was worse.

The lullaby wouldn’t leave her alone. It kept circling in her head, around and around. Her mother in the garden. Something small and cold pressed into her palm.

’C’est notre secret, mon trésor.’

"You’re thinking loudly," Damien murmured into the dark.

"I’m trying to remember something I’ve never remembered once in my entire life," Aria said. "In three days."

He didn’t answer. His arm tightened around her waist.

Aria turned her head toward him.

"Damien. You read my mother’s journals."

A pause. "Some of them."

"What was in them?"

"Recipes. Notes about the garden. Things she wanted to plant." He shifted behind her. "Half of it was written in some kind of code. I couldn’t break it."

"And the other half?"

"I stopped reading. It felt like reading someone’s diary."

"It was literally her diary."

"Yes," Damien said. "That’s why I stopped."

Aria almost smiled. "Where are they now?"

"In the safe at the penthouse. With everything else from the box." He was quiet for a moment. "Including the key."

Aria went still.

The key.

She had forgotten it existed. An old, rusted thing in a velvet pouch. She had found it in her mother’s box the day she cleared out the Vale estate, turned it over in her hand, didn’t recognize it, and shoved it back inside without a second thought.

Aria sat up so fast the iron bed frame groaned.

"Call Ken," she said. "Tell him to get on a plane tonight."

Damien was already reaching for his phone. "And?"

Aria’s heart was pounding.

"And tell him to bring the box."