She dropped her arms.
We did not discuss it.
Now she'sin a black gown, and I'm having a religious experience I didn't ask for.
The dress is simple. Silk, floor-length, no embellishment. It's what she does to it — the long line of her collarbone, the bare stretch of her back, the way the silk moves when she walks like it's trying to keep up with her. She did something to her hair. Up, with loose pieces framing her face. One piece of jewelry. A small diamond at her throat that catches light when she turns her head.
She looks exactly like what she is.
A Virelli heir who chose to become a surgeon instead.
Dangerous. Untouchable. Mine.
That last word keeps arriving without permission. I bury it beneath everything else and offer her my arm.
She takes it. Her fingers settle in the crook of my elbow, and I feel it in my jaw.
"Stop."
"I haven't said anything."
"You don't have to." She looks straight ahead as we approach the entrance. "You're doing the thing."
"What thing?"
"Where you look at me like I'm a problem you're trying to solve."
"I'm assessing the room."
"You're not looking at the room."
She's not wrong. I make a deliberate effort to look at the room.
The room is irrelevant.
The Metropolitan Museumof Art in black tie is the same as it always is: four hundred people spending money they didn't earn on causes they don't understand, while the men who actually run this city confirm arrangements in corners that will never appear in any ledger. Crystal. Candlelight. Old money. Rot underneath.
I've been to this event seven times.
I've never brought anyone.
Serafina steps into the Great Hall, and the room recalibrates in real time. Subtle. A shift in attention. A reorientation of who's watching whom. She does it without trying. Chin level, spine straight, she moves through the crowd like she's assessed them all and found them mildly interesting at best.
Every man within twenty feet notices her.
My hand moves to the small of her back. Possessive. Completely involuntary.
She doesn't comment. That's almost worse.
"How many people in here want us dead?" Her lips barely move.
"Tonight specifically? Three confirmed. Two probable." I scan the far end of the hall without turning my head. "Northeastcorner. Grey hair, navy tie. Senator Calloway. He's on Hale's payroll. He'll report that he saw us together."
"Good. We want to be seen."
"We do."
She takes a glass of champagne from a passing tray. Fingers steady. Of course they are. "You're still doing the thing."
