Page 101 of A Vicious Love

Reeves had worked for me too long to lie badly. He knew when silence protected him better.

I drank. Sienna would see the clip.

Of course she would. The full sequence could be cut into whatever story Veil wanted.

Harlan would enjoy that.

Sienna—

I shut the thought down. She would probably nod politely and tell herself it was none of her business.

I finished the whiskey, and then stood.

The room shifted around me, as I moved.

Men moved out of the booth quickly. A security line formed near the staircase. Music hit harder as I stepped down into the club, smoke and red light dragging over the crowd.

People noticed.

Phones turned. Veil lenses caught the exit from every angle. I smoked while I walked because I wanted the cameras to understand exactly how little I cared. That was the problem with public narratives. Sometimes you fed them accidentally.

Outside, security pushed back the crowd near the curb. Cars idled in a line beneath the building’s awning.

My SUV waited with the rear door open. Reeves walked at my shoulder.

“Mr. Crow!”

A multiple Veil reporters leaned around the security line, microphone raised.

“Jamison!”

I kept walking.

“Did you attend Sienna Bellemere’s ballet performance tonight?”

“What did you think of your fiancée’s performance?” Another reporter called out.

I stopped beside the open SUV door.

Looked the reporter in the eye.

“Ask a fucker who watched.”

Phones lifted higher. Flashes burst.

“You didn’t watch?” Someone asked loudly.

I laughed once. Harsh. Drunk enough to make the truth uglier than it needed to be.

“It’s ballet.”

The reporter stared.

I kept going because apparently self-destruction needed a microphone tonight.

“People spin in circles beneath pretty lights and Harlan loses its fucking mind. The city will survive without my review.”

Reeves’s hand closed around my upper arm.