Another second passed before she added, lighter but edged, “You ever meet someone who makes you feel like you’re exactly where you’re supposed to be… and then acts like you imagined the whole thing?”
There it was.
“Possibly when I was in high school,” I responded. “But in the grand scheme of things, you forget about it because ultimately, there are bigger and more important things in life.”
She scoffed. “Thatis impossible to forget.”
She didn’t have to elaborate on whatthatwas. She never referred to her kidnapping as “kidnapping”; that was seemingly a result of her dare with an Irish mobster. That single action got her kidnapped and on the radar of the men that should have never known Sienna existed.
“And now you want to ‘teach him a lesson,’” I said.
“Something like that.”
I rubbed my temple. “What about it makes you think that’s a smart thing to do?”
A pause followed before she took a deep breath in and exhaled over the line. “I want to make him feel it.”
“Feel what?”
She let out a quiet breath. “Doesn’t matter. He’ll know.”
My grip tightened on the phone. “Sienna…”
“No, hear me out,” she cut in, energy sharpening. “I get close. I let him think he’s in control, like he always does to me. I let him believe whatever version of me he wants.”
“And then?”
“And then I take it away,” she said simply.
The calm in her voice sat wrong.
“That’s not a game you want to play,” I said.
“Why not?” she shot back. “Men like him do it all the time.”
“Men like him don’t lose.”
“They do if someone’s smarter.”
“And you think that’s you?”
“I know it is.”
I pushed up from the couch, pacing now. “You’re talking about someone who—what? Messed with your head?”
Another quiet pause. “Something like that,” she said.
“Sienna—”
“I’m not sitting around over it,” she cut in quickly. “I’m just… evening things out.”
“By putting yourself back in his orbit?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not control.”
“It is if I’m the one choosing it.”
