Page 71 of Silent Schemes

The blood on my cheek, the guilt in my eyes, the weight of betrayal in every line of my body.

The penthouse is quiet when I return, but I know Varrick is here.

I can feel him, like gravity, like magnetism, like the pull of the moon on the tides.

He's in his office, I know without looking.

Probably watching the security feeds, probably saw me sit in the car for ten minutes in the parking garage, trying to stop shaking.

I find him at his desk, working on something, but he looks up the moment I enter.

His eyes immediately go to my cheek where Bastian hit me, where blood has dried in rusty streaks, and something dangerous flashes across his face.

The kind of dangerous that ends with bodies in dumpsters, with entire family lines erased.

"Who?" The word is quiet, controlled, which makes it more terrifying.

"It doesn't matter."

He's on his feet, crossing to me in three strides that eat up the distance between us.

His fingers ghost over the mark, gentle where Bastian was violent, and the contrast makes my eyes burn with tears I refuse to shed.

"It matters to me." His thumb brushes the edge of the cut, comes away with fresh blood.

He stares at it like it personally offends him. "Name, now."

"My cousin. Bastian. He wanted to make sure I remembered what I am."

"And what are you?"

The question hangs between us, loaded with meaning.

What am I?

My father’s weapon?

Varrick's lover?

A traitor to both?

A woman drowning in impossibilities?

"Compromised," I admit, the word breaking something inside me. "Completely compromised."

I can't tell him about the flash drive, about Will, about the betrayal I've just committed.

The blood oath we swore weeks ago burns in my memory—no lies between us.

But this isn't lying, it's omitting.

It's protecting him from the truth until I can figure out how to fix it.

But I can show him something else, something real.

I kiss him with desperation that has nothing to do with what I’ve been tasked to do and everything to do with need.

My need for him, for this, for something that isn't built on lies and blood and inevitable betrayal.