Page 102 of Silent Schemes
They're all watching me, waiting to see if the princess will execute the king or join him in death.
I think about the baby.
About the future I'm carrying that might die today before it ever has a chance to live.
What would our child look like?
Varrick's dark eyes or my green ones?
His strategic mind or my trained reflexes?
Will it matter if we're both corpses in the next few minutes?
At exactly noon, the door opens.
Sunlight streams in, backlighting two figures like something out of a Western.
The hero arrives for the shootout, except this isn't a movie and heroes don't survive in our world.
Varrick walks in like he owns the place, which technically he might—he owns half the warehouse district through shell companies.
His suit is perfectly tailored, dark blue that brings out his eyes, no vest underneath.
Fucking bastard.
He told me he was going to wear the fucking thing.
He knew what this was and chose not to protect himself.
That tears something inside me.
Will is beside him, older, moving carefully but alert.
His white hair is neat, his own suit immaculate despite his age.
He's in his seventies but moves like a man who's survived too much to die easily.
They're both armed, I can tell by how they move, but their weapons are holstered.
Not surrender, just acknowledgment of the odds.
Varrick's eyes take in everything in seconds—the soldiers, the setup, Maya in her sacrificial white, me with the gun.
His expression doesn't change.
No surprise, no fear, no anger.
Just that cold calculation that made him king.
But I see something else, something only I would recognize after all these weeks in his bed.
Resignation.
He knew this was coming. Has probably known since the beginning.
"Hello, Ruin," he says, voice carrying across the warehouse, using the pet name like a declaration of ownership even now.
Will starts to draw his weapon—fifty years of loyalty to the Bane family demanding he protect his surrogate son—but Varrick stops him with a gesture.
