Page 249 of A Vicious Love

So that was the system.

Be unpleasant, lose touch.

Be useful, receive her hand.

Slow horror moved through me, colder than lake water.

She was training me.

Sienna Bellemere had discovered my leash beneath a breakfast table and begun using it with the gentlest fucking fingers imaginable.

“There is also a west-port licensing delay,” a cousin said. “If you had any thoughts⁠—”

“I have several thoughts about men who ask for free counsel before noon.”

Sienna’s thumb stopped. Damn it. I inhaled, looked at the cousin. “Stop submitting through the old committee. They’ve already decided against you and enjoy watching you. Go through transport safety.”

The cousin stared. “That could work.”

“It will work if you stop letting your father write the letters.”

Sienna’s thumb resumed.

Excellent.

The Bellemeres smelled opportunity after that. Like wolves. A land valuation question came from one uncle. I corrected the appraisal structure and told him exactly which rainfall claims to drop before they exposed the estate to secondary review.

A shipping husband asked about donor-backed transport access. I gave him a clean path through a charitable corridor no one had bothered leveraging because this family apparently used daughters better than lawyers.

Disgusting.

Sienna stroked my hand.

Her mother, perhaps sensing the table had drifted beyond her control, set down her teacup.

“Bellemere influence has always rested on subtlety,” she said. “A softer hand often achieves more than open force.”

Sienna’s hand paused. I looked at her mother.

A softer hand.

Lovely phrase from a woman who had likely strangled daughters with silk and called it guidance.

“What you call subtlety,” I said, “often looks like withholding authority until women become useful.”

The table went silent, Sienna’s fingers slipped away.

Fuck. Too hard.

I found her hand again under the table, slower this time. I curled my fingers around hers and waited.

Punishment.

Harsh woman.

I turned back to her mother, adjusting. “A softer public face works if actual power sits behind it.”

Sienna’s thumb brushed mine once.