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I faced her in full, halting so abruptly an oncoming waiter nearly lost his pyramid of champagne flutes. “We fucking hate each other.”
Something I didn’t want to witness flickered in Sylvie's eyes. She raised a hand to my cheek. “Oh, Beau.”
“Don’t fucking touch me,” I snarled, more for the benefit of a hundred eyes who would gleefully report back to my father of my plaything’s attachment to the cold son of a bitch I’d become.
Just like dear old daddy.
She could want me all she liked. Display it, even.
I couldn’t be seen to want her back. Not even a fraction of what she was worth.
Hurt bloomed over Sylvie's delicate face, though that same perceptive flicker was back in her eyes as her fingers pressed beneath my wrist. I swallowed hard at the pressure consuming my chest cavity and forced one foot before the other in the direction I last saw my brother’s head.
“Look who showed up.” Brandon placed an empty crystal tumbler on a passing waiter's tray and ignored me entirely, his hungry eyes I recognized all too well feasting on Sylvie. “And you are?”
Sylvie glanced at me uncertainly, and kept her mouth shut.
Good girl,I praised her mentally, making note to reward her later for playing the bimbo she wasn’t so well.
She turned a vapid gaze on me that left my internal organs shuddering, and not the one that usually responded to her. “Beau?”
“Her name doesn’t matter,” I said curtly, addressing Brandon and ignoring his side piece who wore a similarly vapid gaze, though intelligence flickered there in a rare moment of lack of concentration.Ah, the games we play.I memorized her features in a simple glance, tucking the details away for later. “The point is, she’s mine for the night. A little gift to myself for a job well done.”
“Not yet,” Brandon smiled easily.
Asshole.
“Not yet,” I agreed, digging my fingers into Sylvie’s side until she flinched, biting back a yelp while I relieved a little stress. “Soon. Would you take her for a dance? Keeping her clothes on and the important parts covered, of course.” Like that was a usual family request.
“Keeping it clean. That’s...new.” Brandon held out a hand that bore a similar ring to my signet, the stones in his emerald where mine were bright sapphires.
Sylvie simpered like she'd been born to the role and snuggled into his side. He handed her a fresh champagne flute. “Thank you,” she whispered in that same breathy voice that I suspected had the same reaction on him as it did me.
I glared at her, silently communicating my hate of the situation, but I refused to trust anyone else in the room. Brandon alone knew I’d happily dispatch any fucker who touched what was mine, himself included.
Brothercide was a thing, right? The thought gave me the faintest twinge, but I didn't have time to dissect that odd little emotion.
“Let’s not get feelings, shall we?” I gritted my teeth and smiled until my cheeks ached, then pivoted and strode away without a single glance back.
A long wall of mirrors gave me the perfect view of my brother’s hand sliding down over Sylvie’s ass and squeezing until the material of her dress–the dress I had tailored for her–pulled tight at her waist. His eyes wandered over her cleavage and, when he raised his gaze to meet mine, he licked his lips. The last view I had of Sylvie was her slightly panicked face before I disappeared to get my job done.
Fuck my life.
Checking the room number and the photo of the man who dared cross my father in some capacity or other–I neither knew the reason, nor did I care; this job was about loyalty and trust to the highest bidder, and no one would ever best my father in that respect–I slipped inside where the good senator hid, testing his line of drugs.
I closed the door quietly, waiting in the shadows for a few minutes as I observed my target instead of getting the damn job done like I should, my mind drifting back to Sylvie over and over. She became the distraction I couldn’t afford, but the good senator didn’t care.
Nor did he recognise that his life had a remaining limit of one hundred and eighty seconds or less, so engrossed, or so high, he didn’t hear me until I was right behind him, screwing a silencer to the barrel of my gun.
“Janet?” The bleary eyed, overindulgent man stared past me and raised his hand, pointing slightly off target. “You’re not supposed to be in here.”
I tightened the suppressor, and shook my head. “Actually, it’s you who shouldn't be here, sir.” I raised the gun just as the door opened at my back.
The soft gasp told me who followed me when she shouldn’t, and the click moment later said we were safe from prying eyes.
Sighing, I pulled the trigger twice, dismantling the weapon and stowing it systematically inside pockets in my suit jacket. Blood spread from beneath the senator’s prone form, all boneless and peaceful and quiet. All the stressors he felt he had to numb with drugs left his body, and he had less than a care left as his soul withered to nothingness.
I envied him.
