Total pages in book: 47
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 46899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 234(@200wpm)___ 188(@250wpm)___ 156(@300wpm)
She snorted, despite herself. “Good thing you’d still be pretty without it.”
"Devastatingly,” I managed to grind out. “I’m aware I’m walking, talking sex. Don’t let me lose my best assets, wife.”
Another wave hit. She didn’t flinch. Just kept holding my hair like it was the most natural thing in the world. Like she’d done this before. Like she might do it again.
No. I shove away the errant thought.
This wasn’t real marriage.
It was a game. Sort of.
A game I’d agreed to.
And in the end only one of us would truly win. As long as I got the information I needed, I didn’t mind the casualties.
At least that was what I told myself so I felt better. So I could sleep at night. So I didn’t actually fall for her or believe my own games.
When the agony in my gut finally passed, I sagged back against the tub, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand.
She didn’t let go.
“Why?” she asked.
Just that.
Why.
I closed my eyes. Considered the truth. Then chose which parts to bleed.
“You ever see someone you love die right in front of you?” I asked quietly, “and know—without a shadow of a doubt—that the people who did it don’t even care?”
Her grip tightened.
“I mean really know it,” I continued. “Not suspect. Not guess. Know.”
She didn’t interrupt.
“That kind of thing rewires you,” I said. “You stop believing in justice. Or mercy. You start believing in access.”
I glanced up at her. Her face was shuttered, unreadable now. Guarded. I wondered how much harder I could probe before she broke. I wondered how much more she’d hide from me before she started to actually trust me. “To infiltrate. To gain information. To get close enough that people stop lying to you because they forget you matter.” I shrug. “Knowledge is power.”
She swallows. “So, you married me for access.”
“Yes.”
Clean. Honest. Easy.
I could give her at least that.
“Not just one family,” I added begrudgingly. “Five. And this little poison experiment?” I gestured weakly toward my stomach. “That gets me entrée into his.”
Her brow furrowed. “Cassian.”
I didn’t correct her. I should.
Let her think Vescovi. Let her think Cassian.
That was my pawn. That was my play.
“What if,” she said, speaking slowly, “the killers are someone you know? Someone you care about?”
I gave a half-smile. “Nobody loves me. I love no one. No offense.”
She lifted both hands. “None taken.”
I exhaled… then shook my head. “That’s not entirely true.”
She stilled.
“I loved him,” I admitted. “And he never got a day like today.”
Her eyes flicked to the hallway—to the laughter, the balloons, the chaos.
“No balloons,” I continued. “No stupid dinosaur cake. No ice cream worth bragging about.” My voice tightened despite myself. “All he had was trust.”
I met her gaze fully.
“And he put it in me.”
Silence stretched between us.
“He lost it with a bullet between the eyes,” I finished quietly. “So even if the killer turns out to be you…”
Her breath caught.
“…I’ll return the favor in kind,” I whisper hoarsely.
She didn’t respond right away.
Didn’t even flinch.
Had she already accepted her fate?
The air was still, stagnant between us, filled with too many questions and not enough answers, maybe because neither of us had any.
She let go of my hair slowly. Carefully. Like touching me might cost her something.
And in that moment, I realized something dangerous.
I didn’t plan for her to see me like this.
And I didn’t plan for it to matter as much as it did.
I didn’t expect to feel, and I didn’t want to. I wanted to get the job done and stop being distracted by the obviously beautiful woman in front of me and the danger lurking behind the depths of her eyes.
15
TEMPEST
Power is everywhere; not because it embraces everything, but because it comes from everywhere. — Michel Foucault
Ididn’t follow him right away.
I waited until his footsteps faded down the hall, until the house swallowed him back into noise and laughter and lies. Until I was alone in the bathroom that still smelled faintly of bile and mint and something raw I didn’t have a name for.
My hands were shaking.
That never happened.
I braced them on the sink and stared at my reflection like it might explain me to myself. My face looked the same—composed, sharp, untouched. The kind of woman people underestimated because she didn’t look like she’d already planned their funeral.
But something was wrong.
It was in the way my chest ached. The way my throat tightened like I swallowed glass. The way his words wouldn’t stop replaying.
You ever see someone you love die right in front of you…?
I squeezed my eyes shut.
I’d seen death. I’d caused it. I’d cataloged it, weighed it, measured its effects like a variable I could control, when in the end nobody really could despite their strongest desire to. Men went to great lengths for it, but we all ended up the same in the end.