Page 13 of Silent Schemes

Just like hope.

Just like dreams of a normal life, where I could be something other than an instrument of death wrapped in expensive lingerie.

We practice for hours.

How to hide weapons in the smallest spaces—a blade in a lipstick tube, poison in a perfume bottle, a garrote wire in a necklace.

How to kill from every position, even the most vulnerable ones.

Vincent makes me rehearse the killing stroke over and over, until my muscles memorize the exact angle needed to pierce a heart from beneath, from above, from behind.

"When you're on top," he instructs, positioning my arms, "the angle is forty-five degrees upward between the third and fourth rib. When you're beneath, you need more force—drive upward with your hips for momentum."

The clinical nature of it should disturb me.

We're discussing murder like it's a ballet routine.

But this is my normal.

This is what the Cross family made me.

"You'll likely have one chance," he says as I practice drawing a gun from a thigh holster while on my knees. "Make it count. Varrick Bane doesn't give second chances. Neither should you."

By the time we're done, my muscles ache and I'm covered in sweat.

But I can draw and fire in one point three seconds from any position.

I can find a carotid artery in the dark.

I can smile while sliding a blade between ribs.

I am aperfectlycrafted weapon.

And I hate every inch of what they've made me.

It's not just about knowing how to kill.

It's about knowing your target, gathering intelligence.

And, that's what I'm doing, staring at Varrick Bane's life laid out in photographs and reports across the table like a map to follow.

I study everything from his daily routine, to his known associates, to even his preferences in women—brunettes, apparently, though he hasn't had a steady one in years.

I even know his drink of choice—whiskey, neat, specifically Macallan 18.

By the end of this, there isn't one thing I won’t know about him.

Though I doubt there are many weaknesses.

"He values loyalty above everything," my father says, standing over me as I memorize the layout of his penthouse. "His men would die for him. He's built his empire on respect rather than just fear."

Unlike you, I think but don't say.

My father has always been known to rule through terror, through blood and brutality.

His men follow because they fear him more than death itself.

"He has two half-brothers," I note, studying their photos.