Page 85 of Silent Schemes

"Nothing you don't already know. The Rosetti family wants revenge. You embarrassed them. Do the math."

He studies my face, looking for the lie. But I've gotten good at half-truths, at giving him just enough honesty to satisfy without revealing everything. It's a skill Theodore taught me, though he never intended for me to use it against him.

"I'll double security," he says finally.

"Triple it," I counter. "And wear the vest."

"Ialwayswear the vest."

"The good one. The one that actually stops rifle rounds."

Now he's really looking at me, suspicion clear in those dark eyes. "Sienna?—"

I kiss him to stop the questions, pouring enough desperation into it that he responds immediately, hands tangling in my hair, pulling me against him like he's trying to merge us into one person.

When we break apart, we're both breathing hard.

"Just promise me you'll be careful," I whisper against his mouth.

"I promise," he says, but his eyes say we'll talk about this later.

Later.

Ifthere is a later.

The day passes too quickly.

I spend it memorizing things—the way he takes his coffee—black, two sugars when he thinks no one's looking, the scar on his shoulder from a job gone wrong five years ago, the way he unconsciously reaches for me when I'm near, like I'm his anchor in a storm he doesn't even realize he's weathering.

I help him with legitimate business, reviewing contracts for his above-board enterprises.

It's a fiction we both maintain—that he could be legitimate, that I could be just his assistant or his girlfriend or whatever we're pretending to be today.

But as I watch him negotiate a real estate deal, ruthless even in legitimate business, I imagine a different future.

One where our child grows up with a father who doesn't have to check for car bombs every morning.

It's a pretty dream.

And like all pretty dreams in our world, it's destined to shatter.

By evening, my nerves are shredded.

I dress carefully for the gala—a black dress that conceals weapons and the barely-there swell of my stomach.

Not showing yet, but I feel different. Heavier. Like I'm carrying the weight of multiple futures, all of them precarious.

The dress is backless, showing the constellation of scars father gave me over the years of training.

Varrick traces them with his fingers as he zips me up, and I wonder if our child will ask about them someday.

If I'll lie or tell the truth about what monsters look like.

"Beautiful," he murmurs against my neck, and I don't know if he means me or the violence written on my skin.

The Crimson Hotel ballroom is all crystal and candlelight, Vancouver's criminal elite pretending to be legitimate businessmen.

The mayor holds court near the bar, accepting bribes disguised as campaign contributions.