“I will risk this house’s habit for a future,” I say. “And I’m not risking it. I’m rewriting it to keep what you say you want. Money. Routes. That crest on the right doors. You keep all of it if you don’t make me your debt today.”
He leans back. The wood sighs. He decides whether I’m a pawn that learned a new move or a queen he didn’t place. He prefers two kinds of pieces. He forgets hands.
“Speak your price,” he says.
“Publicly, I end the engagement because I will sit the chair without an anchor,” I say. “Privately, Adrian signs a confession that locks him out of accounts he can’t remember opening. Two of his men drop into quiet posts where failing is the point. No one touches my chair.”
“And if they do?”
I don’t raise my voice. I don’t look away.
“I will kill them myself,” I say, and let him see I can.
He looks for my mother’s eyes and finds his pride in them. He hates that. He returns to paper.
“This voice. Do you have his name?”
“I have twodoors that open onto it,” I say. “Wires that land where his fingers sit, and a voice that confessed to a room that didn’t know it was a choir. We will show the Commission the door they prefer so they can walk through without admitting they saw the other first.”
He tastes the politics and relaxes one degree. He wants the part where we dress the wound, so the suit hides it.
“You will not send tapes to anyone outside the Commission.”
“Incorrect,” I say. “A clean copy moves to a mouth that dislikes them. Timed. If they believe we hold the only blade, they will take it and call it charity. I’m not a child and this city is not a church.”
He smiles. It is ugly because he believes it is love.
“You have learned to be cruel,” he says.
“I have learned to be exact,” I say.
He stands. The door men straighten. He lifts his hand as if to prompt me to rise. I don’t. His hand hangs and falls. The floor remembers how to hold a woman. He leaves it there like nothing happened.
“You think the Moretti boy will stay bought?” he asks.
“He didn’t come as a purchase,” I say. “He came as a choice. He will put his name on the clause besidemine. He will bring the voice by the neck. If you had a son like that, you would sleep.”
A small sound escapes the consigliere. My father turns and the sound dies.
“You gave yourself to him.” It’s not a question. It’s an accusation that’s suddenly in my face. My father’s hand strikes my cheek before I can answer. “Whore like your mother.”
I hold my cheek as I shrink in the chair. “Don’t speak of mother.”
“Moretti lured her to her death.”
“Did you push her into the river?”
“No. But she met Moretti in secret.”
“A lover?”
He shrugs, but the hurt in his eyes is more than grief.
“Am I even your daughter?” I ask, suddenly doing math I’d rather avoid.
“Of course. She didn’t even know Moretti when you were conceived. Your mother was pure. We made sure of things like that back then.” He laughs and it doesn’t land. “Your mother wore the cage like a proper woman destined to be betrothed to a Valentine.”
“The cage?” It takesme a second. “Do you mean a chastity belt?” I ask, gagging at discussing this with my father.
