Page 14 of Silent Schemes (Broken Blood)

“Depends,” she says. “Do I get to choose the game next time?”

I nod, once. “As long as you play to win.”

She closes her fist around the tooth, and for the first time tonight, she looks happy.

We leave Petrov slumped against the radiator, the wet click of blood dripping into a bowl of old ramen echoing behind us.

Outside, the world is clean and silent.

I offer her a cigarette.

She takes it, lights up, and watches the smoke curl into the stars.

We don’t say anything else on the way home.

There’s nothing left to say.

We get back to the penthouse just before dawn.

The city is emptying out, the bars closing, the janitors reclaiming the blocks.

I park the Vic under the building, wipe down the handles, then ride the elevator up with Sienna.

She’s quiet, but it’s a loaded silence. Not passive.

She’s processing.

No one notices the blood, and if they did, no one dares to say anything.

Inside, I go straight to the kitchen.

The space is intensely blank: poured concrete, exposed vents, a butcher block scarred by a thousand cuts.

The island is long enough to prep a corpse on.

I sit, flexing my hand.

My knuckles are split open, blood dripping onto the counter.

Sienna appears with the first aid kit, not asking, just acting.

She sets the kit down, clicks it open, and lines up the tools in a perfect row—iodine, gauze, suture tape, a pair of old trauma scissors.

She stands over me, plucks the first alcohol pad, and presses it to the wound.

It stings and she presses harder, but I don’t flinch.

Her eyes are unfocused, lost somewhere past my shoulder.

“You ever think about what you’d be if you weren’t this?” she asks, voice soft.

“This?”

She snorts. “A fucking animal. A machine built for breaking bones.”

I roll my wrist, letting her clean the blood. “Probably would’ve become a priest. Or a mortician.”

She laughs, lips curling around the sound.

She tapes the wound, then picks up my hand, palm up.

There’s a scar across the meat of my thumb, pale and knotted.

She traces it with her own thumb. “How’d you get this?”

I look her dead in the eye. “First kill.”

She doesn’t let go.

I say, “I was fourteen. My father’s top man tried to take a cut on the side. I found out. Cut his tongue out and left him to bleed out in a church bathroom.” I pause, remembering the way the body twitched. “He bit me before he died.”

Sienna tilts her head. “Were you proud?”

“Didn’t feel anything.” I shrug. “It’s easier if you don’t.”

She cleans, uses antiseptic and then grabs the butterfly band-aids and pulls the skin together where it split, then lets my hand drop.

She leans against the counter, arms crossed, staring out at the skyline.

“My mother used to make me and my sister play hunger games,” she says.

“Not the bow and arrow bullshit. Real hunger. She’d lock us in our room with a single protein bar and tell us to make it last three days.

First one to cave got the bar. The other went hungry.

” She closes her eyes. “I always let her win.”

I slide off the stool, close the distance.

Take her wrist, hold it, not hard.

“No,” I say. “You won, and then you gave it to her anyway.”

She tries to jerk free, but I tighten my grip, thumb on her pulse.

“You don’t fool me,” I say, voice knife-sharp.

She rips her arm away, glaring, and stalks off, bare feet silent on the hardwood.

I watch her go, and she slams the bedroom door.

I want to storm after her so badly, but then I hear laughter from down the opposite end of the hall.

Deciding to go see what my brothers are up to, I head that way, ignoring the pulsing in my heart, trying to force me to go after her.

The war room is at the far end, lit with screens and LED strips and the low flicker of tactical maps on the walls.

Korrin is there, hunched over the city grid, a stiletto spinning in his fingers.

He looks up as I enter, eyes like twin blasts of propane.

“Nice bruise,” he says, nodding at my neck. “She choke you out, or just marking territory?”

Cyrus is perched by the window, glasses glinting, reading something on his tablet.

“Cross family is mobilizing,” Cyrus says, not looking up. “Heavy weapons, half a dozen shooters. They’re planning something ugly, brother. Something we need to be prepared for.”

I light a cigar, torching the end with the kitchen blowtorch, then exhale over Korrin’s map. “She’s mine to handle.”

Korrin slams the knife into the table, blade vibrating. “You’re getting sloppy, Varrick. You think you can leash a wolf, but you’re the one bleeding.”

Cyrus clears his throat. “Statistically, proximity breeds either trust or assassination. No third option.”

I let the silence stretch, then lean over the table, hands spread.

“When she betrays you,” Korrin starts.

I cut him off.

“ If ,” I say.

The room goes silent except for the hum of the electronics and the city outside.

I take a long drag on the cigar, stare at the board, and picture every piece moving.

Sienna is the queen, the unpredictable.

But I’ve always played chess without a king.

“She won’t betray me,” I say, softer now.

Korrin’s laugh is low, dangerous. “Hope she strangles you, at least.”

I grin. “Get in line.”

Cyrus sets the tablet down, and I see a flicker of something in his eyes. “You really trust her?”

I tap the ash off my cigar. “No. But I trust myself more. Now get out and go home.”

The meeting is over. They know it, even if they want to argue.

I take the cigar, the pain in my hand, and head back to the kitchen.

My brothers mutter under their breath as they file out of the apartment, not sparing Sienna a glance as she leans over the sink, running cold water over her hands.

She doesn’t look up.

I stand next to her, so close our shoulders brush.

She whispers, “I could have run.”

I whisper back, “You never wanted to.”

She turns, finally, and faces me.

For a moment, she looks small, almost breakable.

Then she squares her jaw.

“If you ever lie to me, I’ll cut your heart out,” she says.

I nod.

“If you ever try, you’d better not miss,” I say.

We stand there, side by side, smoke curling up toward the dead lights above.

In this house, every day is a war.

But in the wars that matter, I never lose.

She grabs the cigar, takes a drag, and turns, her hips swaying as she walks back down the hall.

This woman will be the death of me.

Either by her hand, or by mine.

By the time I collect myself, she’s waiting in my bed.

I step into the room, kill the lights, and let the city shine through the windows.

Sienna sprawls across the sheets, one leg crooked, my white dress shirt buttoned halfway, the tails riding up her thigh.

The silk sheets look black under her, the knife in her hand gleaming like a shard of moon.

She’s sharpening it against a leather strop, slow, careful, eyes on the door the whole time.

“Expecting company?” I say.

She grins, flips the blade in her palm, and tucks it under the pillow. “You always sneak up on me.”

I cross to the bed, sit on the edge.

The mattress dips, and she leans toward me, hungry or angry or both. “Come here.”

I do.

I sit, legs spread, hands on her knees.

She closes the gap, plants herself in my lap, the knife suddenly back in her hand, pressed under my chin.

She kisses me, blood and whiskey and rain.

I take the knife from her, let the edge flirt with my own jugular, then set it to the side.

“I could gut you,” she whispers, lips on my jaw.

“Try. It would be a worthy death,” I murmur into her ear, fingers curling around her wrist.

She shifts, drapes the shirt off her shoulder, exposing the line where my teeth bruised her the night before.

I pick up the knife and flick it open.

Her eyes go wide, pulse jumping in her throat.

“Give me your hand,” I say.

She does. Not even a moment of hesitation.

I press the blade to her palm, slice a thin line.

She doesn’t flinch.

I cut my own, deeper.

We press our hands together, blood slick and hot.

“Blood oath,” I say. “You don’t lie to me. I don’t lie to you.”

She leans in, puts her hand on my shoulder, before taking it off, licking the blood off my collarbone.

It’s animalistic, and I love her more for it.

“What if the truth’s worse than the lie?” she asks.

I bite her earlobe, not gently. “Then we face it honestly.”

She shoves me back, straddling my hips.

The knife is in her hand again, tracing a path down my chest, stopping just below my ribs.

It cuts my shirt, and her hands open it before the blade is back on me.

She presses until it breaks the skin, a single red drop welling up.

I laugh, low and guttural. “You’re not afraid.”

She shakes her head. “Never.”

We tear at each other, shirt, skin, sweat.

She drags the knife along my spine, not to hurt, but to mark.

I grab her by the throat, thumb on her windpipe, just enough pressure to make her eyes flare.

Unzipping my pants enough to push my cock through, I push her onto the bed, popping the buttons of my shirt off her body and exposing her perfectly delicate skin.

We fuck like death is chasing us.

Her thigh holster digs into my hip, the pistol on my belt cold against her inner leg.

Neither of us takes the weapons off.

We don’t trust each other enough for that.

She bites my shoulder, hard enough to leave a print.

I hold her, drive her into the mattress, hands locked on her wrists above her head.

She writhes, slips one hand free, rakes her nails down my back.

The sting is perfect.

I don’t stop.

Not until the sheets are soaked through, the headboard streaked with handprints and blood, and we’ve both drawn more from each other than we probably should.

After, we lie tangled together, both bleeding, both too stubborn to admit we need the other.

She runs her finger along the cut in my ribs, then puts her palm to the wound, sealing it with her heat.

“If you ever leave me,” she says, “I’ll hunt you down.”

I laugh, softer this time. “We both know you’d do it anyway.”

She smirks, then rolls on top of me, her pulse thundering against my heart.

We stare at each other, silent. There’s nothing left to say.

She kisses me, slow, dragging her teeth across my lip, drawing just enough blood to taste.

Her nails press into my chest, carving trenches through the tattoos.

And I know, right then, there’s no going back.

Not for either of us.