Silver Tears(70)

At that moment, Faye realized she had made a mistake. Jack had somehow tricked her. And now he was going to kill her. He raised the hand with the knife in it. Faye screamed and everything went black.





FJ?LLBACKA—THEN

Although they never found Roger’s and Tomas’s bodies, they held a ceremony for them.

I was there in the church and heard every single word about what fine upstanding boys they had been. Mourners were in tears in the pews. The priest struggled to keep his voice steady. Personally, I wanted to be sick when I remembered all the things they’d done to me and what I’d had to endure.

Their smiling portraits mocked me from the altar. I put my hand to my breast where the necklace that Mom had given me had once hung with reassuring weight. They had taken the last of my confidence away from me.

The only thing I could think about was how Roger and Tomas had held me down, forced themselves into me, and laughed at my pleas for them to stop. The way that Tomas’s sparkling eyes had been transformed into something cold and hard.

I hated them for what they had done and I was so happy they were gone.

I didn’t even feel sorry for their parents or Roger’s grandmother. They had raised them and made them into what they had become. It was their fault too.

But the whole community celebrated their lives and grieved for them. And it widened the gulf between me and Fj?llbacka—it just increased my resolve to leave and get away from the hypocrisy. The silence. The holding of tongues.





Faye opened her eyes. She was lying on the cold bathroom floor. Her head was splitting, pounding. She slowly raised her hand to her brow and could feel that it was sticky. She held up her fingers in front of her and saw that she was still bleeding.

Despite the pain, she was glad she was alive. Jack had struck her head with the handle of the knife and she must have fainted. Although the pain was shooting through her head in waves, she was alive. That was what mattered most.

“You should have killed me, Jack,” she muttered.

She calmly wondered why he hadn’t, and hoped her father wasn’t waiting somewhere close by. She couldn’t think about that now.

She got up on unsteady legs, supporting herself on the sink, and examined her wounded and swollen face in the mirror.

Jack.

And David.

Both of them were going to get what they deserved. The fact that Jack had the photo that proved Julienne was alive was a disaster. But she would retrieve it. He wasn’t going to rush to the nearest police station brandishing the photo. There was still time. Her temporary downswing—when she had wanted to give up and escape it all—was over. That wasn’t her. Faye never gave up. She gave as good as she got.

She screwed her eyes shut tight, remembering the photos of Julienne she had found on Jack’s computer. Photos of Julienne undressed and vulnerable. Abused by the person she loved most. That was what had triggered it all. It was what had made her do what she did best. Take care of the people she loved. And defend herself. No matter what the cost was.



She had lulled herself into a false sense of security, in the hope that Jack was gone forever. That had been na?ve. Innocent. She wouldn’t repeat that mistake. Now she was going to put a stop to Jack. Permanently. For her own sake, but above all for Julienne’s. He was never going to be allowed to get close to her again—he was never going to be allowed to hurt her again.





It was just past midnight and Revenge’s offices were dark and empty. The only light that was on was in Faye’s office, and as Faye looked up she could picture Henrik sitting there working. On Revenge. Her Revenge. She drove past the building quickly. She didn’t want to see it. Instead, she carried on through the darkness toward Liding?. The asphalt glittered black following a gentle evening shower that had come and gone in the space of ten minutes. She had to go to Alice’s to speak to Ylva.

So much depended on Ylva. And Alice.

If Ylva refused to help Faye, she wouldn’t be able to stop Jack. The best outcome would be that she’d end up in prison, the worst case was that her father would murder her first. He was out there somewhere. Jack too. And she needed both Ylva and Alice to win back the company.

She rang the doorbell and Ylva opened up. Ylva’s eyes widened when she caught sight of Faye’s face. She opened her mouth but then shut it again.

“Alice isn’t home. Are you okay?”

Faye took a couple of steps inside the hallway.

“I’m okay,” she said briefly. “But I need to speak to you.”

“What’s happened?” said Ylva, leading her to the guest room where she was staying.

Faye had wondered how honest she could be. She had decided to tell Ylva everything. No more lies. At least not for Ylva. If she suspected Faye was lying, there was a risk she wouldn’t trust her. Faye couldn’t take that risk.



“Jack.”

Ylva put a hand over her mouth.

“He attacked me at the apartment. Beat me unconscious. I woke up on the bathroom floor.”

Faye sat down in an armchair and reached for the picture of Nora on the nightstand. She examined it, thinking about the picture that Jack had taken from her: the one proving that both Julienne and Faye’s mother were alive. It made her pluck up courage.

“There are things about Jack I haven’t told you, Ylva. Things that I haven’t told anyone. I lived with him for almost my entire adult life, but I never saw those sides to him—didn’t understand them. Not until near the end. That’s why I doubt whether you will have seen them, even though you also know Jack and shared a life with him.”