Page 42 of Sin & Secrets

I don’t let her see my amusement. “I would like you to stay here.”

“Aren’t I already your prisoner until I’ve paid off Claudio’s debt?”

“The deal was a farce.” I place the fake contract on the table between us. “You are free to leave whenever you want. I only ask that you stay as a favor to me.”

She gives me a bland look as she pulls the contract toward her. I watch as she notes Claudio’s signature at the bottom.

“You can tear it up if it makes you feel better,” I offer.

“What could you possibly have to gain from this?”

I have to bite my tongue from answering crudely. Instead, I take a gamble, one that I try not to think too hard about.

“I believe Lazzaro has been working with a senior member of my organization to…undermine me.”

“Like a rat?”

I smirk. “Exactly. I need Lazzaro to believe that I’m…distracted so that he contacts the rat again without fearing my attention.”

“You want Claudio to lead you to him.”

“I hope that in your absence, he finds himself bored and resentful enough to try to undermine me again.”

She thinks on this a moment. “Is that why you told him we would be out of the country?”

“If it’s easier for you to lie low abroad, I can make that happen.”

“But you’ll be staying here to watch his movements.”

I nod as I take a sip of my whisky, allowing her a moment to process my request.

“So I’d essentially be stuck here until you managed to find whoever it is who’s plotting against you? How long would that take?”

I offer her a small smile. “I promise you I will have it done within one hundred and one days.”

“Ninety-eight nights left,” she corrects me.

“Fine.”

“And if you don’t do it?”

I pour myself another glass. “Then our arrangement is over. You can go back to Ohio, and you will never hear from me again. The choice is yours.”

She goes quiet for a moment before her chair scrapes against the floor. “I want to think about this.”

As she begins to leave, a dull kind of ache spreads across my chest. I’m not sure when I make the decision to follow her, but Ireach the door before she does and block her path with one lazy, outstretched arm.

Her infuriated expression is almost too endearing.

“I thought the choice was mine,” she snaps.

Wordlessly, I reach into my pocket and pull out her phone. It was a bargaining chip I was prepared to hang on to for as long as I needed.

But it’s the only thing I can think of that might make her stay, even for just another moment.

“Can I trust you with this?” I ask softly.

It might have been a risk to tell her about my plan to smoke out the rat. But this is borderline reckless. I can almost hear my father screaming at me to stop.

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