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“You’re proposing I sit back and let you kill my wife?” I snarled, feeling the rage rising inside. “Fucking unnatural dogshit family!”

They were trying to stand, hands reaching for their knives, but I was already lunging against the table, lifting it with a screech against the floor and flipping it forward.

Fucking Réjean managed to avoid getting crushed, the table landing on his leg as his men leaped forward to extricate him.

Yves wasn’t so lucky, the heavy wooden table pinning him across the chest.

There was a searing pain in my forearm as some red-headed devil struck me, but my knife was already plunging forward and I heard a crack as Yves’ first rib broke.

I drove his head back against the hard floor as he struggled to free himself.

“Have you already tried to kill Léonie?” I spat on him as someone else came up on my other side.

Jerking my knife back, I struck some goddamn cousin straight in the heart, blood bubbling down his chin as I yanked my weapon back out.

There were arms trying to pull me off, as I dragged the knife down Léonie’s Da’s forehead.

Réjean landed a blow on my jaw, forcing me to get up to avoid another blow landing on my skull. I kicked out sharply at his knee, feeling blood run down my arm.

“Stay away from Léonie,” I warned him through gritted teeth.

“Why do you care what happens to a woman you called a whore?” he taunted.

I smelled gasoline.

Fuck.

The Pinoteaux couldn’t win in honorable warfare, so one of their fucking lackeys would rather burn down the tavern rather than admit defeat.

“Everyone out,” I roared as I saw liquid splatter against the window.

Glancing back as I guided my mother and Faustine out, I saw Pinoteaux cousins bending over Yves.

Had I killed him?

Fuck. Léonie wasn’t safe at the lodge. I needed to move her location immediately.

The attempt hadn’t been on Hugo at all. Léonie had been the target all along.

Fucking shithell, I had fucked up.

If I moved quickly I could run some of their trucks off the road, isolate each one and kill whoever was in it.

There was no other option now that I knew what they were capable of.

Faustine was still hanging onto me, and I shook her off impatiently as flames began to lick the dry grasses around the tavern.

“Stop fucking breathing on me. I told you never to touch me unless we’re in that negotiation room.”

Her eyes looked wide and hurt.

“But you’re injured! I’m just trying to help.”

“You aren’t,” I bit out.

“But I thought⁠—”

“You thought fucking nothing. Give me that ring. There’s no need for you to wear it anymore.”