Page 56 of Silent Schemes

She’s smiling.

Will’s voice is gravel. “We have a problem.”

“I know,” I say, still not looking at him.

He yanks the Beretta from my hand, holds it up like a judge with a gavel. “You let her in your house. You let her in your bed.”

“She let herself in that time,” I correct, softly. “She’s not the problem.”

He slams the gun back down. “Don’t play fucking semantics, King. We intercepted communications. She’s reporting to her father.”

I turn, finally, and stare him dead in the eye. “I know.”

Will is the kind of guy who can eat gunfire for breakfast but hates when someone out-thinks him.

The vein in his neck is sticking out so far, I wonder if it’ll snap.

He leans forward, voice dropping. “You’re letting her feed them intel? You’re letting her hand over everything we’ve built, one encrypted text at a time?”

“She’s giving them crumbs,” I say, taking the Beretta and racking it, savoring the hydraulic smoothness. “Let them choke. Hell, I was supposed to be dead two weeks ago. This is all entertainment.”

He’s silent.

The city buzzes outside the window, sirens, a late-shift train, the hum of violence in the bones of the place.

I holster the Beretta under my jacket, feel its weight settle against my side like a warm secret.

Will looks at me like he’s seeing a ghost. “You think you’re in control. You’re not. You’re playing with a snake and you keep thinking you’re the charmer.”

I look back down at the workbench, start wiping oil from my hands. “I don’t charm snakes. I wait until they bite, then I pull out the venom and feed it back to them.”

He doesn’t know what to do with that, so he paces—back and forth, shoes slapping marble, each step getting louder.

He finally comes to a stop, right in front of me, breath hissing through his nose. “She’s going to slit your throat.”

I raise my eyes, let my voice go ice-cold. “Only ifIlet her.”

He waits for a response.

There’s nothing more to say.

He scoops up the folder, jams it under his arm, and stalks out, the elevator swallowing him whole.

The doors close, and the hum of the lights takes over again.

I glance at the far wall, the window over the balcony.

Sienna is out there standing, leaning against the wall, lit by the red glow of her cigarette.

She stands in the spot that the roof doesn’t cover, getting soaked through her dress like she wants to wash off the city.

She knows I’m watching.

She doesn’t look back.

Not until I open the door five minutes later and step out into the wetness.

When she does, it’s a slow, deliberate turn.