Page 23 of We Are the Match
Just right to center of the chest, upward angle beneath the ribs. And then twist, my love. Always twist the knife.
And then Marcus steps back. “Of course,” he says. “I wanted to congratulate you, Helen. My brother ... my brother is a good man.”
“He is.” I wait, lengthening the pause, my eyebrows rising just a hairline. Not enough to be openly rude, just enough to make him feel like I am waiting for him to continue. Because I want more. I want toknow, to know exactly what Marcus thinks of me. To know if he, perhaps, is making his own moves to clear the playing field, to ensure I have no living allies once I have married his brother. To set up Altea or Hana or Frona for somethinghehas done.
“My brother,” Marcus repeats. “Helen, my brother loves you. Do you know that?”
He should not. If Milos were from this world, he would not have hopes that an alliance could ever be more.
“Of course,” I tell Marcus.
“Milos deserves—well, you know,” he says. “I am ... protective. Of my brother, of our family. Of ourinterests.”
“As you should be,” I murmur, leaning in a little as he spills more of himself in front of me. “We are all protective of our families, Marcus.”
“Ah,” he says. “Yes. This is the part where my brother would say to keep things civil, pretend we are talking about our kin when I am talking about threats. Your father’s fixers will look outside of his family for a threat. But if I find you staged any part of this—that you are planning to overthrow your father’s rule and use my brother as a plaything along the way—”
He steps closer, and my knife flashes in the dark between us.
I hold it the way Mama taught me, fingers wrapped around the hilt, tip of the blade just under his throat. “The only one looking for a plaything is your brother.”
So it was not Marcus playing with my life and the lives of all the partygoers, then. Unless he is more skilled at this game than he lets on.
Marcus’s intake of breath is sharp, his broad chest rising and falling, corded muscle beneath his tailored suit. He is smiling now, an expression as beautiful and dangerous as us both. “Well,” he breathes. “There is more to you than the pretty plaything, then.”
“Get out of my room, Marcus.” I press the knife in just slightly, a bead of blood appearing at the end. “I have learned all I have wanted.”
He does not flinch. Instead, he smiles back at me, looking at the blade as if death is a companion he is well used to.
Finally, he takes a step back. “Good night, Helen,” he says, and then he is gone.
When he leaves, I call for the guard outside my door. It is on the tip of my tongue to send for Tommy, but he would not approve of me playing this game with Marcus, so I do not call for him, after all.
“Can you get me out of this house undetected?” I ask the young guard standing in my doorway.
He opens his mouth and then shuts it again, and then nods.
In the early days after my mother’s death, bold recklessness drove me more than it does these days: I would sneak out at night, down through the passageway beneath my room, to the boat in the hidden cove that only Tommy, my father, and I know about.
But this is simpler: many cars are coming and going tonight. I will not be noticed.
“Yes?” the boy-guard answers faintly. “I think I can?”
“Go and get a car ready, and then come back for me,” I tell him.
I call Tommy as soon as the boy is gone. He answers on the second ring.
“Kid,” he says.
“I’m sorry to bother you—”
“Skip the apologies,” Tommy says. “I figured you’d be shaken up tonight.”
“Keep an eye on Marcus,” I say.
“Already doing that,” Tommy says. “Any particular reason why?”
I cannot lie to Tommy, so the news that Marcus was in my room will not be kept forever, but at least—for tonight—I will keep him at bay.
