“How long have you known Levi was working with my son?” she demanded.
So of all the secrets it could’ve been, it was the worst one.
“I...didn’t,” Enne sputtered.
“Liar,”Vianca sneered. She pushed Enne so that her back slammed against the chair, with a surprising amount of force for an old woman. The omerta’s grip lifted, and Enne doubled over, gasping for breath.
“At every party in the South Side, were you toasting to my downfall? Every time we met for tea, were you plotting my ruin?” Vianca slammed her fists on her desktop. “When you fucked each other, did you both laugh at my ignorance? Without me, you would be working a corner on Sweetie Street, because your finishing school education is worth nothing in this city. Without me, Levi would be dead at the hands of some better street lord, or glassy-eyed over Lullaby just like his friend. You would both benothing!”
Vianca reached over and finished the rest of her bourbon. Enne was absolutely frozen in her seat—from the terror or the omerta, she wasn’t sure. Her thoughts collided together like a car wreck. She needed to warn Levi. She needed to find a way to survive this.
“I’m sorry, Madame,” Enne said quietly.
“You’re. Not. Sorry!”
Vianca threw her empty glass across the room, and it shattered on the portrait of the last Mizer royal family. Enne jolted at the sound and shivered down to her bones. She had seen Vianca furious, broken, and vulnerable. Now she was seeing her as all three, witnessing what she guessed very few had seen who’d also lived to tell the tale.
“I could kill you,” Vianca swore, her voice rasping and shaking. “I could killallof you.”
When Enne didn’t respond, Vianca let out a devastated cry, then pressed her hand to her mouth. She was truly unraveling. “I trustedyou. I never trustedthem, but I trusted you. My girl. And this morning... I’ve been waiting here, expecting a phone call. A chance to rewrite my wrongs from years ago. And instead, who is it? Not Levi. It’s an attendant at the Kipling’s Hotel, informing me of the words spoken at a meeting between Levi and my son.” Her voice became shrill. “You think my son is honest? You think you can simply kill me? If I die, then so will you! To plot my destruction is to plot your own.”
Enne’s stomach clenched in horror. No. That couldn’t be true. She didn’t want to believe it was true. If so, then Levi’s bargain had been empty from the start. Everything they’d worked and sacrificed for was meaningless.
They would never be free.
“No, no, that won’t be enough,” Vianca murmured to herself, as though Enne was no longer even there.
“Madame,” Enne cut in, in the gentle voice she’d grown accustomed to using around Vianca, “I’m sorry for not—”
“You maynotspeak!” Vianca shrieked, and Enne felt her jaw snap closed, so hard she bit her tongue. Her mouth filled with the taste of blood.
Vianca leaned forward over the desk’s corner, unwittingly knocking papers and baubles aside onto the carpet. “I could slit your pale little throat, just like I did Leah Torren’s. It would be poetic, wouldn’t it? History repeating itself.”
Enne had never stopped despising Vianca, but somewhere along the line, she’d stopped fearing her. Now that would be her downfall. Vianca was like a wounded animal, cornered and desperate, and unlike the heroine of a fairy tale, Enne had no means of escape. She was utterly at the witch’s mercy.
This is how I die, she thought, attempting but failing to squirm out of her seat. Her wrists were tethered to her chair by invisible constraints. Her head even leaned back of its own accord, exposing her throat to Vianca. Enne’s heart beat so fiercely she felt its pulsing all over her skin.
“I could kill you both, and Levi would still be devastated, wouldn’t he?” she mused, and Enne wondered who else Vianca was referring to. “He’d be alone. He could spend his life at my card tables. And I could find new pretty dolls and watch him try to save them. How many dolls would it take for him to break?”
For a brief, desperate moment, Enne considered telling Vianca the truth about herself. Her true identity was the only card left up her sleeve. The Augustines were a family of Mizer sympathizers, and surely, if Vianca knew, she wouldn’t kill Enne. It would buy her time.
But then Vianca would own her. Completely. This was the only secret Enne had left.
Before Enne could make a decision, Vianca continued. “No. I’ve been betrayed. Now I know that all this time, Levi has hated me. AnythingIdo would only burn his hate brighter. It won’t be enough.” Her gaze fell on Enne. “It will come fromyou.”
“What?” Enne gasped.
“Youwill do it.” Vianca took several steps closer to Enne so that she loomed over her. She dug her finger into Enne’s breastbone. “You will be the one to break him.”
Dread seeped into her. “I don’t understand. We’re not... We’re not together. Not anymore.”
Vianca laughed, high and sharp. “Leaving him—that’s all your creativity can come up with? I know there’s darkness hidden beneath that pretty face.Think.Harder.” She leaned back onto the desk and twisted her family’s ring around her finger. “Tell him what he wants to hear—anything. Repair whatever you managed to break. And then, you will do it. I don’t want the first method you think of, but the way that will hurt the most.” She purred out her last words.
“I won’t do it,” Enne said firmly.
“You’re just as guilty as he is. Would you like me to kill him instead? I know you don’t believe I could, but I’ve. Done.Worse,” Vianca seethed, snapping forward like something rabid. Bits of white hair slipped out of her bun, clinging to her flushed skin. She grabbed the liquor bottle and cradled it in her lap. “Apparently the most dangerous position to be in is within my affections.”
And then the donna cried.
