Page 40 of Silent Schemes
Every table is full by six, and the air is ripe with drunk laughter.
Sienna sets her napkin in her lap. “You always eat in your own club?”
I sip my drink. “I don’t like surprises.”
She smiles, sharklike. “Me neither.”
There’s a pause while we both stare at the menu, neither of us reading it.
She’s working something out in her head.
So am I.
That’s when the gunfire starts.
It’s so loud it doesn’t sound real, at first… more like a string of firecrackers, rapid, blunt, echoing off the black marble.
The glass wall behind me explodes, showering the booth with daggers.
The guests don’t even have time to scream—most just duck instinctively, some freeze, a few fall instantly.
I’m already moving, flipping the table, and pulling Sienna down with me.
She rolls, comes up with the gun I gave her earlier, and scans for targets.
Three men in the entrance, all heavy, all shooting for effect.
The first two are clearing the floor, spraying indiscriminately.
The third is different—he’s walking steady, head up, pistol raised but not firing.
His eyes are on me.
Matteo Rosetti.
He’s younger than I remember, or maybe just cockier.
He walks over bodies like they’re nothing, never breaking stride.
When he sees me, he grins.
I duck back, grab Sienna’s ankle and pull her closer. “Four o’clock,” I mutter.
She nods, doesn’t bother to answer.
Her eyes have gone flat and calculating.
More gunfire.
One of my guards returns fire from behind the bar.
He gets a shot off before his head splatters across the whiskey bottles.
Matteo’s voice carries across the suddenly silent floor. “Bane! I know you’re in there. I brought you a present.”
He kicks a body aside and steps over the table barrier.
Now he’s twenty feet away.
