Page 14 of Savage Reckoning
Now, back in my room, I wait. Time crawls. Nico is in his study, engrossed in a series of intense calls. This is my chance.
I retrieve the phone from its new hiding place beneath a loose floorboard under the bed and move to the corner of the room, positioning myself in the camera’s blind spot. My watch is on the dresser. I can’t risk looking at it. I have to rely on my internal clock, on the rhythm of the camera’s pan I memorized.
I close my eyes, feeling the subtle shift in the air as the camera begins its slow sweep away.
Now.
My eyes snap open. My fingers fly, a frantic, precise dance. One one-thousand: The phone is on. Two one-thousand: My thumbs are a blur across the tiny keyboard.Rmbr when I blinked twice?Three one-thousand: The last words—Coffee soon—and my thumb slams SEND. The small “swoosh” is deafening. Fourone-thousand: I hold down the power button, forcing the phone to shut down.
The screen goes black just as I sense the camera’s return sweep. I shove the phone back into its hiding place, my hands shaking so badly I almost drop it. I move to the bed, picking up a book, my ears straining for any alarm.
Nothing. Silence.
I stare at the pages, the words meaningless. Did it go through? Or did Nico’s system detect the signal? And will Sienna understand?
All I can do is wait.
CHAPTER SIX
NICO
Sunlight streams through the glass,gilding the skin of the woman in the wicker chair. She turns a page, her fingers lingering on the edge as if savoring a secret. Poised. Serene. A queen holding court in a gilded cage, lost in Dostoevsky and seemingly awaiting my next command.
And it’s all a masterful, infuriating lie.
Just last week, this same woman was fleeing barefoot through the woods, thorns tearing at her soles, willing to risk the wilderness over another moment under my roof. People don’t transform that swiftly. Not unless they’ve been shattered.
But I know what shattered looks like—the vacant gaze, the trembling hands, the instinctive recoil. Lea exhibits none of it. When I enter a room, she meets my eyes with measured curiosity. When I speak, her voice is a study in polite deference. When my hand brushes her arm, testing, always testing, she neither yields nor withdraws. She simply... endures.
It's a perfect performance. And it is a quiet siege against my patience.
I’ve monitored every facet of her existence here. Cameras capturing her every breath, guards noting her movements. Nothing is out of place. No meddling with locks, no furtive glances, no desperate scratches on the walls. Yet in her eyes, there’s a gleam of shrewd calculation that tells me she’s simply biding her time, waiting for me to falter.
I tap my pen against a legal pad, the rhythm a betrayer of my mounting irritation. The contracts before me blur; I’m not reading a word. I’m studying her reflection on my laptop screen.Enough, Varela. Control is your domain.
I close the laptop with a decisive snap. She glances up, concern etched with perfect subtlety.
“Everything all right?” Her voice is velvet, threaded with just enough worry to seem genuine.
“Fine,” I reply, my gaze raking her features, seeking a flaw. There is none.
She returns to her book, and a surge of frustration rises in me. This deviates from my design. She was a pawn, then a liability. Now? She’s an enigma. A captive who stirs me in ways I can’t afford, leaving me tense and compelled.
I rise from the desk, striding to the windows overlooking the lake.
“Would you like some coffee?” Her voice drifts from behind, smooth as silk.
I turn. She’s standing now, book set aside, looking at me with polite inquiry. A memory flashes—her body arching under mine, lips parting in urgent whispers.
“No.” I reconsider. “Yes. Black.”
She nods and heads to the kitchen. I follow, watching the slight limp that is the only outward sign of her ordeal. She moves with a new, unsettling familiarity, retrieving the beans and filters as if she’s been doing it for years.
I lean in the doorway, arms crossed. “You’ve made yourself quite at home.”
She shrugs, the motion subtle, her shirt dipping to reveal the elegant curve of her collarbone. “I adapt. It’s a matter of survival.”
Weighted words, delivered evenly. She’s acknowledging her captivity while diminishing its sting. Astute.
