Page 89 of Silent Schemes

The confession breaks something in both of us.

His hand drops from my throat, and suddenly I'm in his arms, his mouth on mine, desperate and angry and grieving all at once.

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

"We have to warn him," Varrick says.

"It might be too late."

"Then we make sure it isn't." He's already reaching for his phone, calling Will, voice urgent.

I watch him try to save his mentor, and my hand drifts to my stomach.

There's no movement yet—too early for that—but I swear I feel something.

A presence. A future that demands I be better than what my father made me.

Will answers.

He's alive.

Varrick's warning comes just in time—they were moving on him tonight, while we were distracted at the gala.

But Will's smart, paranoid.

He'll disappear, regroup, survive.

When Varrick hangs up, he looks at me with something I can't quite read. "You could have let him die. Kept your cover intact."

"I told you. I'm not playing anymore."

"Your father will know. He'll come for you."

"He was always going to come for me. The only question was whether I'd face him as his weapon or as myself."

"And which are you?"

"Yours," I say simply. "Whatever that makes me."

He studies me for a long moment, then pours another drink. "There's something else. Something you're not telling me."

My hand involuntarily goes to my stomach, and I force it back to my side.

But he catches the movement, files it away in that mind that misses nothing.

I can’t tell him, not now, not yet, not until I know what my final play is going to be.

If I have to take Maya and run, there won’t be a corner of the Earth Varrick won’t track me down to find his child.

"We all have secrets," I say.

"Not from each other. Not anymore." He moves closer, backs me against the desk again, but this time it's different. Not threatening, just intense. "What aren't you telling me?"

For a moment, I consider it.

Telling him everything.

About the baby, about the impossible situation we're in, about how I'm trying to save everyone and will probably end up destroying us all.