Page 6

RHAIM

I sabelle’s apartment hadn’t changed.

The books were still perfectly lined up on the shelves, their spines untouched. The handcrafted cashmere throw she’d draped over her couch sat exactly where she’d left it. And I thought I could smell the faint floral scent of her perfume hanging in the air, although I knew I truly couldn’t.

It was just a memory, haunting me like Isabelle’s ghost.

I shouldn’t have asked Lia to come here.

I shouldn’t have been here myself.

But it was the only place where I could be certain no one would overhear us.

Is she coming?

I texted to Sable, who kept tabs on all of Lia’s electronics for me.

Rather than texting me back, she rang, so I picked up. “Rhaim,” she said, in a disparaging tone.

“Is she on her way?” I snapped. Lia was supposed to have been here half an hour ago.

Sable ignored me. “The news has hit—and honestly, if she murders you tonight, I’m going to have to let her.”

“Yeah,” I muttered darkly.

“You knew I take it?” she asked, but then answered her own question. “Of course you knew. Oh, Rhaim—I might have to help her murder you tonight. Girl code and all that.”

“Is she being followed?”

“No, but?—”

“How much longer?” I demanded, and Sable sighed.

“I don’t want to betray her, but, she’s been sitting in a car outside the lobby for the past fifteen minutes. Hopefully loading a weapon.”

“Thanks,” I told Sable with maximal sarcasm, before hanging up to take the elevator down.

I didn’t recognize the car idling outside the apartment lobby, and the windows were tinted—but I knew it was the right one as I crossed the dark stripe between Isabelle’s building and the streetlights outside.

“Are you coming inside?” I asked, opening the door to the backseat. “Or did you want to have this conversation here?”

I was surprised to find Lia, green dress, jacket, and all, just as I’d left her at the party, after I couldn’t take St. Clair’s groping and smugness anymore—or Nero’s crowing about his match having been successful. Not even the promise of obscene wealth could soothe the beast inside me.

“I’m very mad at you,” she said. Her mascara hadn’t smudged—which meant she hadn’t been crying, at least.

I didn’t know whether or not that was a good or bad thing.

“You have every right to be,” I agreed, offering her a hand.

She didn’t take it, but she did step out, placing one elegant silver heel upon the ground. “I’ve tipped you extra—thanks for waiting,” she told the driver, before putting her phone into her purse.

She stood near to me as we headed back toward the lobby, then zoomed away like a perilous comet once we reached its bright interior, standing as far from me as she could while the elevator arrived—but when it did, she stepped inside it first.

“How long have you known?” she asked me without looking over, crossing her arms.

“Long enough to hate myself for it,” I said, as I tapped in Isabelle’s floor.

Long enough to figure out how to commit two perfect murders, went unsaid.

Now I’d just need to add on a third.

“And you weren’t…going to tell me?” she asked, finally daring a glance.

“What would that have changed? You’d still be engaged to a man who doesn’t deserve to breathe the same air as you—only you wouldn’t have spent the past two months proving your worth to Corvo.”

She blinked as the elevator door opened. “So you were protecting me? Is that the story you’re going with?”

“It’s not a story. It’s the truth. Plus, I hoped—” I said, my voice drifting, wishing that Nero had been able to see the same version of Lia that I did.

Or, failing that, I thought darkly, hurried up and died, before his spectacularly shitty announcement. I ran a hand through my hair, hating myself for my betrayal of him—but then again, why should I for that particular instance, when the man’s daughter was here?

What could be worse to Nero than that?

Lia lifted her chin, somehow making her look even more aristocratic. “So what’s the plan?”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “The less you know about any plans the better.”

Her eyes shot daggers at me. “Because you think I can’t handle it?” Her voice arced and she bent down to take off her shoes—probably to try to stab me with a heel.

“No. Because we’re not married, and so anything I tell you isn’t privileged conversation. I don’t want you getting subpoenaed.”

She was half a foot shorter with her heels off, and her prior full-lipped frown became tinged with concern. “That makes it sound like you’re going to go make bad decisions.”

I spread my hands open in front of her, like I was stilling a horse. “We’re both in the same room alone, aren’t we?”

That didn’t change her mood. “I don’t want you to die, Rhaim.”

“Funnily enough, I also do not want that. But it’s a risk I’m willing to take,” I said, stepping toward her meaningfully.

She stepped back, just as fast, and so I stopped. “And what if I’m not?”

“What do you mean?”

She did her best to look imperious, wrapping herself with the shreds of her pride she’d been denied earlier in the night. “Corvo still needs you, for the IPO.”

“Ahh,” I agreed, nodding heavily. “And that’s the only reason you want me to survive, is it?” Her skin flushed and I crooked a finger for her to come forward. “Come be furious with me from over here.”

She snorted. “I’m sorry, I can’t hear you over the sound of my fucking engagement ring from someone else,” she said, ripping the thing off and throwing it savagely across the room.

Well.

At least we both felt the same about that.

“What— is your fucking — plan ,” she demanded. “Because I’d rather die than marry him, Rhaim?—”

I closed the gap between us in an instant, picked her up, and shook her, making her gasp. “Don’t even joke about that.” I knew she’d tried to kill herself before, and she knew I wasn’t having any of it. “You know the rules.”

“I belong to you?” she mocked me, her voice rising in a challenging arc. “Then why the fuck did you let me wear his ring?”

“Because life isn’t fair,” I said, setting her down slowly.

“Not till I make it be.” I ran one hand up into her hair, making it through the fine mist of hairspray that’d miraculously kept it intact in the bathroom, down to the softer layer below.

“But I can’t tell you about that, Lia. It’s not safe for you. ”

“And it’s going to be safe for you?” she said, with the same tone again, only this time there were tears brimming in her eyes. “How do you know?”

“Because I don’t play fair either, little girl. That’s why I’m the best at what I do.”

She savagely wiped her eyes with the back of one hand. “How long?” she asked, sniffling, which was worse than her anger.

I’d made women cry before, so many, many times, but not like this—not from fury twisted up with yearning.

Not because they wanted me to kill for them.

“How. Long,” she repeated, nodding with the words.

“Depends on how badly you want me.” She blinked and swallowed, pulling back, confused, and I advanced again, eating up all of the space she’d put between us.

She was almost in the kitchen now, her back against a white marble bar.

“If you do still want me, Lia, then I can’t tell you—not just because it’s not safe for you to know, but because I don’t know, yet.

The kind of retribution I prefer to plan takes time, especially if I’m going to come out clean. ”

A solitary tear finally escaped the corner of her eye, and I brushed it away with my fingertips.

“But if you don’t still want me,” which was something I had to make allowances for, considering, “then I’ll go over there tonight and kill him and everyone in his family on principle, for taking you away from me.”

Her eyes desperately searched mine. “You really would do that, wouldn’t you.”

It wasn’t a question. “Absolutely.” I took off my suit jacket and set it on the back of the bar chair she stood beside, before picking up her hand and placing it on my chest, so that she could feel the steady beating of my heart.

“So you tell me, Lia. Because the only thing I’m certain of is that I don’t want to go on without you.

” I stepped even closer, until she was trapped, between marble and two tall, heavy, leather chairs—and by everything else that had fucking ever happened in her life.

I couldn’t begin to imagine what it’d been like to be Nero’s child, or to go through whatever-the-fuck happened in her head that made her hurt herself sometimes.

All I knew was that I loved her—and discovering that knowledge struck me still as a thunderbolt.

“I trusted you,” she said, sounding bereft, bowing her head, finally breaking and taking a piece of my heart with her. I watched a kaleidoscope of emotions play across her face in that moment, and it was like watching a dealer shuffle cards before dealing you twenty-two.

“I know,” I said, deeply solemn, just as disappointed in myself as she was, before taking hold of her waist to pick her up, sitting her down on the marble counter. “Don’t stop.”