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I give her the last orange slice. “Not even if it’s my last one, and we’re playing coverall?”
“I don’t think that warrants a response, pet.”
“Not your pet, princess.” Tossing the peel in the trash, I yawn and survey my happy family kitchen in what was never my happy family home. Life can change so quickly—even in the darkest shadows. “We have our meeting soon. Then we need to catch our jet to Pittsburgh. Is there anything else we need to do before we’re thousands of feet in the air?”
“Go tux shopping.”
“Antonio has already cleared the men who will be coming with us for backup. No one will get on or off the property surrounding the venue without someone who reports back to us knowing.”
“So we have some time to go tux shopping?”
“Why are you so obsessed with getting me in a tux?”
Her head rocks back against my shoulder. “I’m very invested in seeing you cosplay as a penguin. Obviously.”
“What kind of penguin?”
Her brow arches. “Does it matter?”
“Some mate for life. Others don’t. So, yes, it matters.”
Lifting an arm, she pokes me in the skull. “Why do you have random penguin facts up here, Rowan? Why are these things that you know? Explain yourself to me. In detail. With bullet points. Starting with an answer to what you meant last night.”
I grab her hand. “I would, really, but we’re going to be late to our meeting.”
“No, we aren’t,” she says, but I’m already pulling her out the door.
Chapter 34
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Uh-oh spaghetti-o.
Briar
Get in. Get out. That’s the plan.
But hasn’t that always been the plan with Rowan?
That’s the plan with all my projects, my victims, my prey.
I get in, get what I want, and get out. Sometimes, that means leaving a trail of casualties behind. Most of the time, actually. Which is probably why not a single one of my marks thus far has been a good person. Mama and Papa knew what they were doing whenever they assigned me my missions.
In their absence, I’m floundering.
The security attendants at the venue entrance allow Rowan and I to slip gracefully into the glittering, expansive ball room. Heavyset men in dark clothes monitor illegal weapons in glass cases while more showmen present a quarry of rare and endangered animals on the opposite side of the room. Live music drowns out the noise, which drowns out the live music.
It’s all lavish elegance, as far as the eye can see, but none of it comes close to drawing my eye half as much as Rowan.
By the end of the night, this charade will be over. By the end of the night, Rowan and I will never speak again outside of professional, encrypted email. If that.
But, for the rest of the night, I have to deal with looking at him
He’s tall, and not in a tux, but what he’s wearing is arguably better than a tux.
Vantablack. Form-fitting. Heavy boots. Slicked-back hair.
Despite the fact he’s not exactly wearing a reaper cloak, if he appeared at the foot of my bed in the middle of the night, I’d assume my time had come and give up the ghost.
