Whatever Levi had told her about Vianca Augustine, she hadn’t been prepared for this. The way Vianca looked at her, touched her...like she was a possession. This meeting felt more like an appraisal than an interview. Under different circumstances, Enne would have fled the room and the donna’s frightful presence.
“I’m going to do you a favor, Miss Salta. I’m going to give you this job.”
“Thank you, Ma—”
“But I need a favor in return. I need you to do another job for me.”
I will find Lourdes,Enne recited, winding herself back up.I will find her and bring her home. No matter what it takes.
“Of course, Madame,” she responded swifly, despite her nervousness.
“I need you to deliver messages to my enemies. Can I trust you to do this for me?”
Enne swallowed, staring into the woman’s predatory gaze and vicious smile, and wondered who would be reckless—or dangerous—enough to make an enemy of someone like her.
No matter what it takes.
“Yes, Madame.”
“Hold out your hand,” Vianca instructed. When Enne obeyed, she clasped both of her wrinkled hands around Enne’s. She whispered something that Enne couldn’t hear, and a cold tingling shot up Enne’s arm. Enne gasped, but when she tried to yank her arm back, Vianca held it in place. The tingling accumulated in Enne’s chest, and her lungs shook and hardened as if surrounded by a shell. No air would release. She couldn’t breathe. Her balance swayed, but Vianca just gripped her hand tighter, her face unconcerned.
Her nails dug deep into Enne’s skin, and Enne choked for breath. Nothing. Nothing. There was no panic like the panic of suffocating, and she stared wildly at Vianca’s apathetic green eyes, pleading for aid.
Help, she mouthed, but no air came out.
Just as her vision began to darken, the feeling released. Air rushed down her throat, and Enne coughed as her lungs stretched like cramped muscles. She collapsed on the floor, tears welled in her eyes.
“Thatwas my omerta,” Vianca said, looming above her. “It’s not an oath I bestow often. But now you are mine.”
Enne grasped for Lourdes’s rules, for something to tell her how she should react, how she should behave, when confronted with the worst. Words to recite. Words to wind herself back up.
Don’t let her see you squirm,Levi had said.
Never show them your fear, Lourdes had warned.
But the loudest word, the only word, was Vianca’s.
Mine.
Mine.
Mine.
Enne stared at Vianca in horror. The woman had strangled her without touching her. Though Enne’s lungs had returned to normal, a phantom soreness lingered, and panic still clawed up her throat. For several moments, she’d thought she would really die, that Vianca would kill her in this dreadful office, while her secretary and Levi waited outside. She could’ve died. And no one had heard a thing.
Enne felt small. She felt ill. What had Vianca done?
“You may sit now,” Vianca told her, a smile playing on her lips.
Enne sat down slowly, carefully, and she watched the old woman with growing alarm. She needed to run. To be alone. To bathe. She needed comfort, and there was none to be found in Vianca’s domineering expression, in the stiffness of the desk chair or the uncomfortable heat of the office.
Vianca called it an omerta, but Enne had never heard of such a thing. What had she done to her? And Levi...had he known she could do this? Why hadn’t he warned her?
“Sedric Torren will be paying St. Morse a visit tonight,” Vianca said, already returning to business. “Your first assignment will be to bring a message to him in the Tropps Room at ten o’clock.”
The name sounded familiar for some reason, but Enne was too traumatized to place it, picking at a scab along her thumb to focus on anything other than the woman before her. By the way Vianca spoke the name, it sounded as if everyone should know him.
Her scab popped off, and blood trickled down her palm.
