Page 50 of Silent Schemes

"I want to hear you say it."

"Because I'm not done with you yet."

His laugh is dark, knowing. "Liar. You came back because you wanted to. Because whatever this is between us is more real than anything your controlling father offers you."

"This isn't real," I protest, but even I can hear the lie in it. "This is a game. A mission. A scheme."

"Then let's play." He tosses me a pair of wraps. "Unless you're afraid to get in the ring with me without your knives."

It's a challenge I can't refuse.

Won't refuse.

Because maybe if I hit him hard enough, I can forget the way he makes me feel.

Maybe if we fight, I can remember who I am, what I'm supposed to be doing.

Maybe violence will remind me that I'm a weapon, not a woman who's falling for her target.

I wrap my hands slowly, aware of him watching every movement.

The cut on my cheek throbs, and I know he's cataloging that too, adding Vincent Carlisle to some mental list of people who will pay for touching me.

The thought shouldn't warm me from the inside out, but it does.

"You know about the poison," I say as I finish wrapping my hands.

"The vial in your left pocket? Yes."

"You know about tomorrow night."

"The gala. The very public death your father has planned for me." He stretches, muscles rippling with the movement. "I know everything, Sienna. The question is what you're going to do about it."

We circle each other in the ring, two predators sizing each other up.

He strikes first—a testing jab that I deflect easily.

I respond with a combination that would have dropped most men, but he flows around it like water.

"You smell like him," Varrick says, dodging my hook. "Like cigarettes and cheap cologne and fear."

"I don't fear Vincent."

"No, you fear what he represents. What happens if you fail?" He lands a body shot that steals my breath, follows it with an uppercut I barely avoid. "What happens to Maya?"

I spin, catching him with an elbow that splits his lip.

First blood to me. "Don't talk about my sister."

"Why? Because it makes you emotional? Makes you sloppy?" He grabs my next strike, uses my momentum to pull me against him.

For a moment, we're pressed together, breathing hard, before I break free.

"Or because it reminds you that you're not just fighting for yourself?"

I sweep his legs.

He goes down but rolls, coming up fluidly and ready.