Chapter 2 A Pit of One's Own Making

It had taken twenty-six minutes.

Twenty-six minutes for Odette to print the agreements, wave them under Reginald's nose, and collect his signature and his private seal. Twenty-six minutes for Alistair Vance to abandon Seraphina's hospital bed, drive across the city, and ink his thumbprint on the annulment, because he had wanted to sign it that badly. Twenty-six minutes for a notary to stamp both papers while Josephine wiped the old computer's hard drive clean behind her.

She had not done that for nothing. Her last life had taught her that this house kept very few secrets from its own owners.

Now she stood in the hall in a rented wedding dress, three sizes too generous, and let it hang off her like a flag on a windless day.

The hall had been her father's pride. Marble floor, crystal chandelier, a staircase wide enough for a bride to descend with dignity. She had cleaned this floor on her knees more times than she could count. Today, it was lined on both sides with men in black suits, hands folded in front of them, faces blank. Not one of them looked at the chandelier. Not one of them blinked at the same time.

At the head of the room sat the wheelchair, and behind it a lean man with a calm face, Darian Voss, holding the handles like they were part of his own hands.

She read them one by one, the way she had learned to in prison, where reading a face fast was the difference between a bruise and a broken bone.

Odette was twisting her rings. She did that when she was afraid and pretending not to be. Reginald was sweating through his collar, bowing so low his belly folded. Corbin the servant had pressed himself so hard against the doorframe that he looked glued to it. And the Veyron men, every one of them, kept one eye on the man in the chair.

Not on the door. Not on the Titans. On him.

That told her more than any rumor had.

Black-suited men lined both walls. Nobody breathed. Karl Veyron's wheelchair stopped in the center of the room, and the air seemed to drop ten degrees around it.

"Where is the bride?"

His voice was low and unhurried. Reginald scurried forward, bowing, and Josephine watched her father's spine bend in a way it never had for her.

"Lord Veyron, you honor us. Josephine, come, come..."

Karl's eyes moved to her. Over the loose bodice, the sagging waist, the sleeves that swallowed her wrists. Josephine did not fix any of it. She only stood still and let him look.

She was gambling. A lie told today would be a leash around her neck tomorrow. If he was the man the rumors described, he would see through her in a minute. She wanted him to see through her now, while it could still be turned into honesty.

"The bride's measurements were in my file," Karl said. "Yours do not match."

Silence.

"Where is the real bride?"

Reginald panicked. "Lord Veyron, there has been a small misunderstanding, this is merely my eldest daughter, the real bride is our Seraphina, who..."

Odette dropped to her knees beside him. "Our Seraphina has a severe heart condition, she is far too frail for you, my lord. Josephine is healthy, well mannered, gentle..."

Karl lifted two fingers.

One of the men at the wall crossed the floor in three strides and drove his palm between Reginald's shoulder blades. Reginald hit the marble on his knees. His private seal skittered out of his pocket and rolled to a stop at Karl's wheel.

Karl looked down at it.

"You put your name on a marriage contract," he said, "with a woman who does not exist."

"My lord, I can explain..."

"Silas."

A broad man stepped out of the line. Silas Thorn. He did not look at anyone's face. He looked at Reginald's right hand.

"Begin there."

Silas caught Reginald's wrist and pinned his hand flat against the marble. A short blade appeared in his other fist, and he raised it without hurry.

Odette screamed. Corbin dropped the tray he had been holding and did not even look down at the glass.

The blade came down.

It buried itself in the stone with a crack, a finger's width from Reginald's thumb. Reginald made a sound so high it barely seemed human. Then the room went completely quiet, and he stared at his hand, which was still whole, and shook.

"That was the courtesy," Karl said. "The rest will not be."

Josephine did not move.

She was watching the man in the wheelchair. He had not raised his voice once. He had not looked away once. He sat there like a verdict, calm and beautiful and utterly without pity, and the whole house shook at his lightest word.

Rumor said he destroyed companies with a sentence. Rumor, she realized, had been generous.

And somewhere beneath the cold in her chest, a very small, very dangerous thought lit up.

Reginald, Odette, Seraphina, Alistair. A man like this could erase all of them before dinner.

That was exactly the problem.

Karl turned his chair toward the door. "The Titan family has no further reason to exist. Finish it, Silas. Every account, every property, every name."

Every property. Every account.

Her mother's inheritance. The companies. The safe deposit box she had not been able to protect last time.

Everything she had come back to take with her own two hands would be gone in an hour, swallowed by Veyron fire along with the people who deserved to burn slowly.

Josephine took a step forward. The dress slid off one shoulder and she let it.

"Wait."

Every head in the hall turned.

Karl's wheelchair stopped.