Page 157 of Hidden

There was nothing.

Not even confusion.

“Vienna,” she said, and the way she used the name made something inside me go still, completely and unnervingly still, like the world had shifted half an inch off its axis and I was theonly one who had noticed. “I was wondering how long it would take you to catch on.”

The words didn’t land straight away. They hung there between us, heavy and misplaced, like they’d been dropped into the wrong conversation.

I let out a short, disbelieving breath, shaking my head once as I tried to make sense of it. “Catch on to what?” I asked, forcing a half laugh that didn’t feel right even as it left me. “You’re going to have to be a bit clearer than that, sweetheart, because right now—”

“This,” she cut in, her hand lifting in a vague gesture around the room, encompassing the Riders, the Devils, the entire situation like it was something simple, something obvious. “All of this. I didn’t think you’d be this slow about it.”

“I think we should take this somewhere more private—” Dante began, but I silenced him with the back of my hand slapped against his chest.

“No,” I said, the word firm, immediate, because whatever she was implying, whatever game this was, I wasn’t buying into it. “No, don’t start with that. If this is meant to be funny, it’s not landing. What the fuck are you talking about?”

“You told me everything,” she continued, her voice calm, almost detached. “Routes. Meetings. Who was where and when. I didn’t even have to try that hard.”

A murmur rippled through the room behind me, low and uneasy, the kind of sound that comes when people start putting pieces together they wish they hadn’t been given in the first place.

My grip tightened around the neck of the bottle in my hand, the glass biting into my palm. “No,” I repeated, quieter now, but no less certain. “No, you don’t get to twist this into something it’s not.”

“I laughed, you know,” she went on, her gaze flicking briefly to one of her own before returning to me, and there was something in the way her lips curved that made my stomach turn. “After I left you. The way you opened up like that, like I actually gave a fuck what you had to say.”

“Gabby…” I breathed, the name slipping out before I could stop it, softer this time, less certain.

“Don’t,” she snapped, and for the first time there was a flicker of something sharper in her tone, something that almost resembled emotion, before it smoothed back out just as quickly. “Don’t call me that, Vienna. "

You’re not Luke anymore.

“You meant nothing to me,” she said, holding my gaze steadily, unflinching in a way that made it impossible to look away. “The Devils meant nothing to me.”

A pause followed, deliberate, calculated, before she added, almost as an afterthought, “My dad’s been loving the updates, though.”

Her father chuckled at that, stepping forward slightly, clearly pleased with himself. “Very informative, sweetheart. You’ve done us proud.”

“No,” I muttered, the word quieter now, more to myself than anyone else. “No, this isn’t—”

“How’s the VP training going, Macbeth?” she said then, the question slipping into the space between us so easily it took a second for it to register.

Behind me, I felt Macbeth go completely rigid, felt the way Dante’s arm shot out to hold him back before he could react, before he could do something that would turn this into something far worse.

“Oh, dear,” her dad laughed. “Did Mac not get the message? You ain’t it, kid. Your younger brother is next in line. They’ve been playing you.”

I stared at her, properly stared this time, searching her face for something—anything—that would tell me this wasn’t what it looked like, that there was some angle here I hadn’t caught yet, some explanation that would make it all fall back into place.

There was nothing.

Just Gabriella.

Cold. Controlled. Completely removed from anything we had ever been.

Her father reached into his pocket then, pulling out a small, clear bag with the same casual ease as everything else he’d done since walking in, and before I could even process what he was doing, he tossed it toward me.

It hit my chest and dropped to the floor between us.

I didn’t move straight away. I didn’t even look.

Because some part of me already knew that whatever was in that bag wasn’t going to be something I could unsee.