Page 186 of A Vicious Love

She had stopped. And the silence had been unbearable, I hated everything lately. Mostly myself, which was new and deeply inconvenient.

“You don’t think it’s enough,” Reeves said.

I looked at him. “What?”

He was standing near the table, expression controlled. He did that when he was deciding whether speaking would get him fired, shot, or merely glared at until lesser men developed ulcers.

“You keep buying things because you don’t think it’s enough.”

“It isn’t enough.”

Reeves stared back.

That was the problem with a second hand. He was the man assigned to your shadow by blood and history, which meant every now and then he forgot survival and told the truth.

I flicked ash into the tray. “You done?”

“No.”

“Unwise.”

“You asked me to prepare the convoy. I did. You need me to set up communication at an estate that has apparently chosen to cosplay the eighteenth century. I did.”

“And?”

“And none of that changes that you need to speak to her.”

My grip tightened around the cigarette.

“I’m going to speak to her.”

“When?”

“When I arrive.”

“And if she doesn’t want to speak to you?”

My mouth curved. “Then I’ll speak anyway.”

Reeves sighed.

Actually sighed.

Beside me, in my house. Unbelievable.

“You know,” I said, “there was a time when seconds respected danger.”

“There was a time when first hands didn’t buy eleven necklaces because one girl stopped calling them a nickname.”

I pointed the cigarette at him. “Careful.”

His expression didn’t change. “Always Sir.”

Underneath my anger, guilt moved like acid.

Veil got twelve angles of Celeste beside me. Now, society accounts to put her name next to mine. I ground my teeth hard enough pain moved through my jaw.

Tomorrow morning, at the hunt, I would speak to her father. I would tell them Celeste’s name did not belong near mine again. Then I would explain what would happen if anyone told Sienna about it before I did.