THE DAY OF SEBASTIAN’S FUNERAL everyone got the day off school. Since his death, I had been left alone by the other kids. Too much had happened in too short a space of time. Shock lay like a blanket over the schoolyard, the classrooms, the metal lockers with their ugly, meaningless graffiti.

The church was full to bursting. Sebastian, who had never had any real friends, had suddenly filled a church. Several girls his age were crying and blowing their noses noisily. I wondered if they had even spoken to him.

Mom had chosen a white coffin. And yellow roses. The roses were pretty pointless, really. Sebastian never cared about that sort of thing. But I reasoned that stuff was purely for the people left behind. After all, Sebastian was lying cold and dead in the coffin. What did he care about anything now?

It was Dad who found him, hanged with a belt from the rail inside his closet. He yelled for Mom, then pulled Sebastian down and removed the belt from his neck. Then he shook him and screamed at him while Mom called for help.

It took a long time for the ambulance to arrive, but I knew it wouldn’t make any difference if they got there quickly. Sebastian’s lips were blue and his skin was white. I knew he was dead.

I could feel everyone staring at us as we sat in the front pew. Dad’s suited arm was shaking against mine. Shaking with rage. Because death was the only thing he couldn’t control. The only thing he couldn’t frighten into submission and obedience.

Death didn’t give a damn about him, and that drove him mad as he sat there in the church staring at Sebastian’s white coffin with the yellow roses Mom had chosen.

There was no coffee afterward. Who would we invite? None of the people who had packed the church to the rafters were our friends. Just vultures who were attracted to our grief and wanted to wallow in it.

Mom and I both knew that Dad would need to vent his anger when he got home. We’d sensed the fury within him for several weeks. Mom told me to go up to my room. I obeyed at first and went up the stairs. But at the top step I stopped and sat down. I leaned my cheek against the wooden post at the end of the banister and felt the cool white wood against my skin. From there I could see down into the kitchen. If they had turned around they would have been able to see me, but they just kept circling each other like two tigers in a cage. Dad with his head thrust forward, his fists clenching and unclenching. Mom with her head held high, wary, carefully watching every movement he made. Ready. Prepared.

When the first blow came she didn’t try to dodge it. She didn’t duck. Dad’s fist hit her straight in the chin, making her head fly back, then bounce forward. Dad punched again. A light shower of blood sprayed from her mouth, peppering the white doors of the kitchen cupboards like an abstract painting. Something flew out of her mouth and skittered across the floor with a hard clatter. A tooth.

She fell to the floor but he went on hitting her. Over and over again.

I realized that Mom wasn’t going to survive long in that house now that Sebastian was dead.

Two days later Compare’s share price hit a new low. Faye was at a lunch meeting about a new collaboration between Revenge and the pop star Viola Gad—who was reeling from the shock of finding her husband in bed with an eighteen-year-old—when Kerstin texted: 49.95 kronor. Now!

She put her cutlery down, apologized to Viola and her manager, and hurried off to the bathroom.

She locked the door and sat down on the toilet. Everything she had been fighting for was suddenly within reach. She had enough capital to buy fifty-one percent of the shares, take control of the board and see to it that Jack got fired. It was a dizzying thought. She felt like yelling out loud. She called Steven, her Isle of Man stockbroker, and instructed him to buy every Compare share he could get his hands on. She told him to get in touch if he needed more money, and she’d transfer several million more from Revenge’s account.

“No problem, boss. It will be yours before the end of the day,” he said.

She waited another minute or so, then shook herself and went back to her table. Her pulse was racing. But as she sat down opposite Viola Gad at the table where the Taverna Brillo’s famous whitefish roe pizza was waiting for her, none of the turmoil inside her was visible.

—

Faye walked across Stureplan, where the lunchtime rush was over and people were heading back to work. The air felt oppressively warm. She sat down on a bench, wondering how to spend the rest of the day. There wasn’t much she could do while the process of acquiring Compare was underway. She called Chris but got no answer. She was probably resting. Johan wanted to organize the wedding himself, but had promised to get in touch if he needed help.

Her thoughts returned to the takeover. A man would have celebrated his success, his hard work, without feeling embarrassed, without having to apologize. She decided that was what she would do, so she sent a text to Robin, who she had thought she was finished with, asking him to meet her at Starbucks.

He wasn’t far away, and they agreed to meet in fifteen minutes. No show of wounded male pride there. He knew what she wanted and wasn’t particularly bothered that she hadn’t been in touch for a while.

He had already ordered for them both by the time she walked into Starbucks.

“Great to see you. I didn’t know if you wanted milk in your coffee,” he said, gesturing toward the mug.

“We’re not going to have coffee.”

He laughed. His handsome face was open and cheerful and she found being in his presence oddly relaxing right now. He didn’t need any explanations, there was no game playing, no subjects that had to be avoided, no excuses. He didn’t require anything from life beyond his gym, food, water, and sex.

“No coffee?” His smile told her he understood what she meant.

“No, I don’t want to drink coffee. I want to fuck you.”

“Really?” he teased, but stood up at once. Like an obedient puppy.

“I’ve booked a room at Nobis.”

He raised his eyebrows.

“We’re treating ourselves today, then?” he said as he put his jacket on.

“I’ve just spent several million buying a company. I think I deserve it.”

“I like you, you know that?”

Robin held the door open for her.

“Good. That’ll make it easier to ask you to do the things I’m about to tell you to do.”

“I’m your slave for the day.”

“You’re always my slave,” Faye said with a smile.

Robin didn’t protest.

Faye and Johan were sitting on either side of Chris’s bed. Her chest was moving up and down, her face was ashen and the skin on her scalp looked tight. She was so small, she’d faded away so quickly.

Johan gestured toward the door. When they were out in the hallway he leaned back against the wall.

“I don’t know what to do. She can’t walk now. We’re going to have to cancel the wedding.”

“Out of the question.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. We’ll do it here, at home. In the bedroom, if necessary. Chris is going to get married.”

“But how . . . ?”

“We bring the priest, makeup artist, and wedding dress here instead. There’s no need to bother with any guests, apart from the most important ones. Chris doesn’t like people much anyway.”

She was fighting her own feelings. Suppressing the gales of grief raging through her. Chris had been strong for so long. She’d been like a big sister to Faye, had looked after her ever since she first arrived in Stockholm. Now it was time for Faye to step up. That was what sisters were for. Chris would get her wedding, and she would get her Johan.

“Tomorrow, two p.m.?” she said.

Johan swallowed several times.

“I’ll call the people we want here, and the priest. The wedding dress . . .”

“I’ll pick it up on the way home this evening. And get hold of a makeup artist.”

“What about food?”

“I’ll sort it. Just make sure that you and Chris are ready to get married tomorrow. I’ll be here first thing to help her get ready.”

—

The next morning Faye was standing outside Chris’s door with Kerstin. She took a deep breath and rang the bell. Johan opened the door, gave them both a hug, then stood aside.

“Everything’s ready,” he said. “Everyone’s taken the day off, they understand that it has to happen like this if it’s going to happen at all.”

“How are you feeling?”

“I don’t care if it’s a big wedding or a tiny one. But before she . . . goes, I want to get married to her.”

“Good. Then that’s what we do.”

He led them into the master bedroom.

Chris was sitting up in bed, propped up with pillows. In front of her was a tray of coffee, orange juice, and toast.

“How’s the most beautiful bride in the world?” Faye asked, sitting down on the side of the bed.

“I know I wanted to be thin when I got married, but this might be taking it a bit far.”

Faye couldn’t bring herself to smile at the joke.

Chris looked up at Kerstin and Johan.

“Can you leave us alone for a minute?” she said. “I want to talk to my bridesmaid.”

After they closed the door behind them Faye gently took hold of Chris’s hand. It was so small and fragile, barely any bigger than Julienne’s.