Page 279 of A Vicious Love

Julian nodded toward the line of women near the stands. “All good. Excellent, some of them. Sienna is the only one who doesn’t like guns.”

Sienna lifted the gun awkwardly.

Everything in me rejected it.

Her father stood behind her, instructing. “Higher. Lead the target. Not that high. Relax your shoulder. Don’t relax too much.”

Reeves stood near the security line beyond the pavilion, black suit immaculate despite heat, eyes already on me. He saw my hand move. Nothing anyone outside my world would read. Barely a flex of two fingers against my thigh.

Reeves’s gaze shifted to one of my men near the far equipment table.

Good man.

Sienna fired.

The clay disc sailed untouched through the air and vanished into the grass.

Polite claps followed from people who should have been ashamed of themselves.

“Again,” her father said.

Sienna reloaded under supervision. Her shoulders had gone stiff. Her mouth stayed soft because Bellemere daughters apparently smiled their way through family tradition.

She fired again.

Missed.

Uncle Theo began explaining where her eyes had gone wrong. Her father corrected her stance. Sienna fired a third time and missed by enough that a few men looked down politely.

Adrian moved.

I caught his sleeve without looking at him.

“Jamison.”

“Wait.”

“I usually stop it now.”

“I said wait.”

He glanced at my hand on his sleeve, then at my face. Something in him measured the danger and chose patience.

Smart man.

Her father’s voice kept going. “Try to anticipate the arc. You dance…surely rhythm should translate.”

Sienna’s smile flickered.

My mood dropped. Reeves’s man moved into position near the far trap line with the casual invisibility of Crow security. No one noticed. The Bellemeres were all watching Sienna fail.

The next clay launched.

Sienna lifted the gun.

Her eyes were open this time.

She fired.