Page 7 of Silent Schemes (Broken Blood)

CHAPTER FOUR

Sienna

Silk sheets have never felt like a cage before.

I wake slowly, consciousness returning in layers—the softness beneath me, the weight of expensive fabric, the dull throb in my shoulder where the bullet grazed me.

My training kicks in before I even open my eyes: catalog the threats, find the exits, locate the weapons.

The penthouse is quiet except for the distant sounds of the city below and something sizzling from what must be the kitchen.

Varrick's scent lingers on the pillows—whiskey and gunpowder and something uniquely him that makes my pulse quicken against my will.

I sit up carefully, assessing the situation, remembering what happened.

The Black Crown and afterward.

Varrick injecting something in my neck, and then lights out.

My weapons are arranged on the nightstand like an art display—my gun, three knives, even the garrote wire from my necklace.

All there. All useless.

The gun's magazine sits separately, bullets lined up in a neat row like soldiers.

The knives have been cleaned of blood.

The door is cracked open, but I already know it won't matter.

The main exits will be biometrically locked.

Varrick Bane doesn't make amateur mistakes.

My dress from last night is gone, replaced by an oversized men's shirt that smells like him.

The presumption of it should anger me.

Instead, I'm cataloging the ways this fabric could be used as a weapon—strangling, suffocating, blinding.

My father would be proud, and I hate that.

I pick up the gun, check the chamber—empty, of course—and pad barefoot toward the kitchen.

Varrick stands at the stove, his back to me, shirtless.

The morning light streaming through floor-to-ceiling windows turns his skin golden, highlighting a geography of violence written in scars.

I catalog them automatically: knife wound on his left shoulder blade, old but deep.

Bullet scar on his lower right back, through and through—he was lucky with that one.

Multiple defensive wounds on his forearms.

Burns on his right side that look deliberate, torture, not accident.

And there, just above his hip, a tattoo—a chess piece, the king, with a date underneath. Five years ago.

"Eggs Benedict," he says without turning. "Poison-free. Though the hollandaise might kill you—I'm not much of a cook."

I raise the gun, aim at the base of his skull where the spine meets the brain.

Kill shot. Quick. Clean. Mission accomplished.

He doesn't stop cooking. Doesn't tense.

Just flips something in the pan like he couldn't give a care in the world.

"Safety's on," he mentions casually.

I check without lowering the weapon.

It is.

When did he?—?

I remember checking it last night before the Rosetti attacked.

He must have done it while I was unconscious, after tending my wound, but before placing the gun just within reach.

Close enough to give me hope, far enough to make it useless.

"You're very trusting," I say, not lowering the gun.

"No, I'm really not." He plates the eggs with surprising elegance for someone who claims he can't cook. "But you're not going to shoot me. Not yet."

"You sound very sure of that."

He turns finally, and I hate how my breath catches.

In the daylight, his eyes are different—still dark, but with flecks of gold that make them seem almost warm.

The scar through his eyebrow is more pronounced, and there are other marks I didn't notice last night.

A thin line across his throat—someone got very close to killing him once.

"You had plenty of chances to let me die last night," he says, leaning against the counter like we're discussing the weather instead of murder. "The Rosetti hit was real. You saved my life. Why?"

"Maybe I want to kill you myself."

"Maybe." He gestures to the plates. "Hungry?"

"That depends. Are you going to stick another needle in my neck if I refuse?" I touch the tender spot where the syringe went in. "What was that—your special blend for unconscious guests?"

"Midazolam. Fast-acting, short half-life. You needed medical attention, and you were about to fight me for the privilege of bleeding out." He pours coffee, slides a cup toward me. "Would you have preferred I let you stay conscious while I cut your dress off?"

"I would have preferred you didn't drug me at all."

"No, you wouldn't. Because if you'd stayed conscious, you would have tried to complete your mission while bleeding. I would have had to stop you. Violently. The sedative was a mercy."

"Why show mercy at all? Why not just..." I make a gun gesture with my fingers.

"Kill you?" He meets my eyes. "Because unconscious women can't make choices. And I want you to choose, Sienna. Every step. Every decision. Every betrayal. I want you wide awake for all of it."

The weight of that lands between us.

He's telling me he knows how this ends—with me betraying him—and he's going to let it happen anyway.

But eating feels too much like surrender, too much like trust.

My father’s voice echoes in my head: Never accept food from a mark. It makes you weak, comfortable. Comfort kills.

But I'm already compromised.

Already in his territory, wearing his clothes, breathing his air.

What's one more line crossed?

I lower the gun and follow him to a dining table that probably costs more than most people make in a year.

The view is spectacular—Vancouver spreads out below us like a kingdom.

His family’s kingdom.

We eat in silence for several minutes.

The eggs are actually good, which annoys me.

Men like him shouldn't be able to create anything but destruction.

"You know who I am," I finally say, setting down my fork. "What I'm here to do. Why haven't you killed me?"

He leans back in his chair, studying me with those impossible eyes. "Same reason you haven't killed me. We're having too much fun."

"This isn't a game."

"Everything's a dirty game, Sienna, and if it isn’t, it’s a silent scheme. The only question is whether you know the rules of the game."

He stands, and I tense, hand moving to where my knife should be.

But he just walks past me, close enough that his heat brushes my skin.

"Come on. Let me show you something."

I follow because what else can I do?

The penthouse is massive, all clean lines and expensive minimalism.

But he leads me to a door I didn't notice this morning, hidden behind what I thought was just wood paneling.

The room beyond takes my breath away.

Maps cover every wall.

Photos, documents, strings connecting points like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream.

But this isn't madness—this is methodical, organized, brilliant, and terrifying.

Because I'm up there.

My photo, multiple photos actually, spanning years.

"Been watching you for two years," he says, moving to stand beside my section of the wall.

"You killed the Dmitri brothers. Made it look like they turned on each other.

Masterful work." His finger traces to another photo.

"Castrated the Romano heir before you slit his throat.

Poetic justice for a rapist." Another photo.

"The Nakamura job—everyone thinks that was poison, but it was an air embolism, wasn't it? Harder to detect, more personal."

I should feel exposed. Violated.

Instead, I feel something else entirely.

Seen.

"You're artwork with a body count," he continues, and there's something like admiration in his voice. "Every kill tells a story. Every death has meaning. You're not just a weapon—you're an artist."

"I'm my father's tool," I correct, but the words taste like ash.

"No." He turns to face me fully. "Tools don't think. They don't choose. You chose to save me last night."

"That was?—"

"And before that, at the casino. You could have signaled your backup. Could have had me surrounded. Instead, you came alone."

He's too close now.

I can see the pulse in his throat, could calculate exactly how much pressure it would take to crush his windpipe.

But I don't move.

"You want to know why I haven't killed you?" he asks, voice dropping lower. "Because I've been waiting two years to meet the woman behind the reputation. And you're so much more than I expected."

"You don't know me."

"I know you protect your sister. Maya, sixteen, currently at St. Catherine's Academy. I know you've been siphoning money from your father's accounts—small amounts, nothing he'd notice, but enough to build an escape fund. I know you hate what you are, but you're too good at it to stop."

My hand moves without conscious thought, grabbing for the knife that isn't there.

He catches my wrist, gentle but unbreakable.

"I know," he continues, "that you're planning to kill him. Your father. Not today, not tomorrow, but someday. When Maya is safe. When you have enough power. And I know you're wondering if I might be what gives you that power."

"You're wrong."

"Your pulse says otherwise." His thumb presses against my wrist where my heartbeat hammers traitorously fast. "Here's what's going to happen.

You're going to try to seduce me, because that's your mission.

And I'm going to let you, because I want to see how far you'll go. But we both know how this ends."

"With you dead."

"With both of us destroyed." He releases my wrist. "The question is whether we take everyone else down with us."

The challenge in his eyes makes something dangerous wake up in my chest.

This is wrong.

All wrong.

He's supposed to be a mark, a target, a dead man walking.

Not this.

Not someone who sees through every mask I wear and doesn't flinch.

"Is this what you want?" I whisper, going up on my toes to bring my mouth close to his ear. "The dangerous woman in your bed? The knife at your throat while you sleep?"

His hands come to my waist, and I expect him to push me away.

Instead, he spins us, backs me against the window.

The glass is cold against my spine, his body furnace-hot against my front.

Vancouver spreads out twenty stories below us, and I'm acutely aware that nothing but glass separates me from falling.