Page 32 of Inside the Wicked

I throw my dart, which hits the outer ring, crooked. “He said Damien tried to have them killed.”

“Like I said, his mother likely spun that story in her own delusion. I have no doubt he was firm and clear with her. Maybe he did threaten her if she threatened my mother in any way. People interpret things how they want to hear them sometimes.”

Silas went to retrieve the six darts we’d thrown, stalking back with them.

“Do you think he could have turned out differently ...? Do think all of that with his mother, who his father is too, made him the monster he became?”

“Honestly? No. I don’t believe rape, battery of women, and seeing flesh with a price tag can be blamed on nurture or blood relations. I don’t believe there are anywhat-ifsto a person’s circumstances for that. There are criminals like me—and I’ve warned you before, I’m among the most wicked of them—but then there’s pure evil. Nothing more than sick, vile pleasure. If Matt were alive, now I know all he’s done, I would kill him myself.”

He says it so cold and confidently. He despises what Matthew did even though he doesn’t know me or Nina, or if there were others. This is his side of trust. And it’s time to flip a new coin. Each one feels dangerous, but Silas might be my only hope to get to Rhett.

I can’t help the glance I spare behind us. Kenna sits nearby, on a stool by the private bar now, leaning with her elbows on it as her crossed leg swings and she idly watches the crowd, lost in thought.

Silas hands me three darts, voicing his observation quietly. “You don’t trust her?”

“I barely know her. I’ve never truly been in Alistair’s service, but she has, for more than thirteen years. She’s his best spy. It’s her job to tell him information he wants.”

“She’s never smiled—not truly.”

“Your point?”

“Do you knowhowshe came to be in Lanshall’s service?”

“No.” I shift my eyes to him then as a muscle in his jaw flexes as he watches her.

He asks tightly, “How do women usually end up in his service?”

I frown. “He deals in trafficking, but I don’t know any other women there recruited against their will.”

“You know one of his locations. One of dozens, Ana.”

“She— No, she can’t be there against her will. I’m pretty sure she’d assassinate him tomorrow if that was her wish.”

Silas sets down his darts, and I shiver at the change in him this topic has evoked. I watch him. It’s as if he’s dissecting every possible prospect and scenario regarding Kenna Radley and Alistair Lanshall.

“How do you know she’s just an assassin and a spy?” he asks. His dark eyes lock on me, and I feel the threat in them. He studies me as if he’s waiting for the slightest reaction that will give him reason to make me his enemy and shatter the small dose of trust we’ve built.

“I ... I don’t. I’ve only been there just over three months, and the first time I even seen Kenna was for this task.”

Something I said relaxes an inch of him, but his mind is still storming.

“Wouldn’t it be highly possible she was sold to him young, trained by him, and now used by him? For all we know, she has nowhere to go, and perhaps there are moreskillsof hers he’s exploited as hisbest.”

I realize what he means. Why this is getting to him so much that I’m beginning to fear he might march out of here and confront Alistair for the sure answer himself. He thinks Kenna is sleeping with Alistair, perhaps against her will. If not by force, then by manipulation.

Now I have the idea in my head, it’s racing my thoughts too. She’s so cold, distant. Kenna wears steel around her mind, heart, and soul. What if that’s the only way she copes with things I can’t begin to imagine?

“Oh god,” I whisper.

“Don’t say that. I’m already one loose thread away from doing something very reckless.”

“You can’t do anything—please.”

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t pay our friend Lanshall a visit right now to discuss this alliance that will begin and end with a bullet in his eye?”

My heart pounds; my skin slicks. He can’t.He can’t.

“Rhett Kaiser is alive,” I blurt.

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