Page 48 of Perilous Healing

You could hear a pin drop as everyone watches.

“Great. Now. Let’s eat!” River holds out both hands and the servers leave the room, only to return moments later with individual silver trays for everyone.

Names are engraved on the top in elegant script, making me painstakingly aware of the fact that River has meticulously planned out and given orders for each person’s meal. This can only mean one thing. Someone’s going to die tonight. The question is…who?

Neither Silas nor I touch our food as the others around the table—River included—remove the silver lids to their trays. Only two people at the table hesitate. And it’s that hesitation that catches River’s eye.

A trick I only know because it’s one straight out of my father’s book. I saw him use it one time…the night he killed my mother.

My free hand tightens in my lap.

“Here, let me help you.” River removes the lid, then picks up my steak knife and a fork.

Silas’s hand closes around the handle of his own blade as he watches while River cuts up the steak on my plate—humming the entire time. Once it’s in tiny pieces, he sets the knife down right in front of me, leaving the fork on my plate.

Is he mocking me? Daring me to take it?

Silas lowers his hand back into his lap, but the knife is no longer on the table. My heart begins to pound, and I lock eyes with him. Surely, he’s not going to attack River at the table.

“So, Silas howisfatherhood?” River asks, then shoves a piece of steak into his mouth.

Silas doesn’t answer.

“You were always so chatty before, now you have nothing to say?”

Still, Silas doesn’t speak.

“How about you, Selena? How are things in your life?”

“At the moment? Not great.”

River laughs. “How’s the arm?”

“It hurts.”

“So little conversation, wouldn’t you say so, James?” He shifts his attention to the man sitting to Silas’s right.

“Not nearly as chatty as I remember them.”

Even if I didn’t understand what he was as I was growing up, I learned two things while living under my father’s roof.

One, if you open your mouth, you’d better have something powerful to say.

And two, never let them see you’re shaken.

So, I turn to James. “Funny, I don’t remember you at all.”

His gaze hardens. “You wouldn’t. But your mother would.”

The anger hits me so swiftly, I have to force myself to take a deep breath or risk losing the temper I’ve worked so hard to restrain.

The elevator doors ding.

“Sorry I’m late.”

My heart begins to race.

My stomach churns.

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