Page 5 of The Flame

Today, I knew the answer. I had regrets, but I didn’t see how I would have done anything differently. Because maybe what we had in Capra wasn’t all evil, and maybe the Sisterhood isn’t all good, but there was no scenario in which I could keep standing and do nothing.

I pulled myself together when Roman came back inside.

He glanced around. “Did Jessie leave?”

I nodded as I stood and turned to him, clocking the bruised jaw, his swollen face, that cut on his lip, the careful movements… I would have done this differently, the part where Roman fought off half a dozen guards to protect me.

Roman stepped up to me, his knuckles grazing beneath my chin, his gaze searching. “How areyoudoing?”

“Me?” I didn’t understand. “You’re the one I’m worried about. And don’t tell me you’re fine. You’re not.”

“I will be,” he said. “Thank you for taking care of me during the night.”

“I didn’t do much,” I protested.

“Every time I opened my eyes, you were there.”

I swallowed. “Roman, are you mad at me?”

His hand fell away from my face. “Why would I be mad?”

Jessie was, and hadn’t I done much, much worse to Roman? “I’m a Sister of Capra. I joined before graduation, before I even met you. I’ve been working with them…forthem, all this time. I’ve done…things. I’ve kept so many secrets in our marriage.”

He smirked, the gray in his eyes remaining warm. “I’m a warden, Georga. I was raised on the art of keeping secrets.”

He didn’t say it. Didn’t need to. Our marriage had been riddled with secrets on both sides from the start.

But here’s the difference between us: Roman had never used his secrets against me.

I’d used Roman’s position as a warden; I’d snuck outside the walls on the back of his truck. He’d taken me to The Smoke because he’d been concerned about what I might do on my own, and I’d handed everything I’d learned over to the Sisterhood.

I’d put him in theoretical danger more than once, and actual danger last night.

It hadn’t always been a cold, calculated move, but I had betrayed his trust in me, his concern for me, the very bond of our marriage. There was no getting away from that.

And then there was the big one, the one Roman didn’t know about.

“I slipped Julian a sedative and made a biometric copy of his handprint,” I told him. “That’s how they gained access to the armory. Without that, there wouldn’t have been a revolution.”

That was my first—and only—sanctioned mission for the Sisterhood. All the rest, I’d done on my own initiative.

I watched that admission settle over Roman.

Finally, he understood who I was, what I’d done.

Thanks to his friendship with Daniel and Julian, I’d been invited into the bosom of the Edgar family. Thanks to my husband, I’d had the opportunity to get close to the councilman. That’s why the Sisterhood had chosen me for that mission.

Roman took a step back. “What are you saying?”

I braced myself. “I’m not just a passive member of the Sisterhood. They were determined to use my position as your wife, my access to power, to their benefit and I wasn’t exactly opposed to it. They used me and I used you. I used our marriage.”

The warmth bled from Roman’s eyes as stone cold shutters came down. A mask slid over the tenderness in his expression until there was an invisible wall between us.

By now, I knew something about Roman’s masks. The careless indifference, the cool disdain, the cynical amusement. I also knew something about what lurked beneath, and not long ago, that might have soothed me.

Not today.

All those volatile emotions he was so good at masking beneath a layer of arrogant detachment were aimed at me.

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