Page 165 of A Vicious Love

On the feed, Sienna tucked one hand beneath her opposite elbow and shifted her weight off one foot. Her wrap sweater was thin. Pretty, of course, because the woman could make impractical clothing look like a religious experience, but absolutely fucking useless against Harlan weather.

Poor thing was freezing.

Because the building was incompetent. Not because I had evacuated it. That was an important distinction.

My eyes moved over the pavement. Someone laughed near her. A man from the office block held a coffee and stared too long at the line of girls waiting on the curb.

I zoomed the camera in.

His face filled one corner of the screen.

“Who is that?”

“Checking now, sir.” Reeves answered immediately.

“He’s looking at her.”

Another pause. “He appears to be looking in the general direction of the evacuated crowd.”

“He is looking at her.”

“Understood.”

“He has three seconds to remember his life has value.”

“Sir.”

“What?”

“He has turned away.”

I watched the man step aside and pretend to be very interested in his phone.

Sienna shivered. She pulled the sleeves of her sweater farther over her hands and smiled at another dancer like nothing was wrong.

“Reeves.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Is it rational for me to go down there with the coat myself?”

There was a silence long enough to become offensive.

“Reeves.”

“I’m considering the safest answer.”

“That was not the question.”

“No, sir. It would not traditionally be considered necessary for you to personally deliver a coat during a building evacuation you are monitoring remotely.”

I stared at the screen. “That was too many words for no.”

“It was a carefully structured no.”

“Wrong.”

“Of course, sir.”