Chapter 8

Chapter 8

I do not stay in the bed.

The system hums at the edge of my mind like a held breath, and I ignore it. I slide off the mattress, lift the skirt of the wedding dress so it does not drag, and cross the room in bare feet. The door to the hallway is thick, but old houses always have gaps. I learned that in three years of listening to this place from the guest room.

I press my ear to the wood.

"You said you would be on the couch." Sophia's voice. Low now, no performance in it. "The couch is in the other direction."

"I said I would sleep. I did not say where."

Luca sounds tired. I have never heard him sound tired.

"You told me this marriage meant nothing," Sophia says. "You told me to wait until the paperwork settled and then she would be moved out of sight. That was the arrangement."

"It still is."

A new line of text slides across my vision.

[Skill 'Read Lies (Lv. 1)' active.]

[Target statement: "It still is." Truthfulness: 38%.]

My fingers tighten on the doorframe. Thirty-eight percent. Not a lie. Not the truth either. It is what a man says when he has not decided yet.

"Then why is she awake?" Sophia asks. "Why does she look at me like that? Who taught her to grab my wrist?"

"No one taught her anything."

[Truthfulness: 71%.]

"You are lying to me."

"I am telling you she is not working for anyone."

[Truthfulness: 94%.]

I almost smile. He answered the question I asked him in the bedroom, and he answered it the same way. He believes me. I did not expect that. I did not plan for it, and I do not know yet whether it helps me or ruins me.

"Listen to me," Sophia says. Her heels shift on the marble. "You know what Bruno told me this afternoon. Someone has been asking about the east vault. Someone who has no reason to know it exists."

Luca does not answer right away.

"Bruno talks too much," he says.

[Truthfulness: 12%.]

I stop breathing.

The east vault. I have never heard of it. In the first life, in three years, nobody ever said those words in front of me. Luca is lying to Sophia about it, flat out, and she knows he is lying. She is quiet too long.

"You think it is her," she says finally.

"I think you are tired and jealous, and you should go back downstairs."

"I am not jealous." Her voice cracks on it, just slightly. "I am afraid. There is a difference."

I know that line. Luca said it to me a few hours ago, in the same cold tone, about fear and honesty. The difference is that I know why he said it. I do not think Sophia does.

[New mission available: Learn what is in the east vault.]

[Reward: Unknown.]

[Failure penalty: None. Information has value.]

A mission with no punishment. That alone tells me how serious it is.

Then the door handle moves.

I do not have time to run. I step back one pace, and the door opens inward and stops, because I am standing exactly where a woman stands when she has not been listening and has been caught listening anyway.

Luca fills the doorway. Sophia is behind his shoulder, her face tight.

For a second nobody speaks.

"I wanted water," I say.

"There is water on the nightstand," Luca says.

"I wanted different water."

It is a stupid answer. I know it as I say it. Sophia's mouth curls, and I brace for the usual cruelty. Instead she looks at Luca, waiting for him to be disgusted with me.

He is not. His eyes are on my face, and they hold a look I have not seen from him before. Not suspicion. Something closer to the edge of a smile he is refusing to let out.

"You were listening," he says.

There is no use denying it. The old Elena would have cried. The new one lifts her chin.

"Yes. You came to the door with another woman on my wedding night. I wanted to know whether I should start packing."

Sophia makes a sharp sound. "You have no right to ask that."

"I have a ring and a contract." I hold up my left hand so the diamond catches the light. "Which of us has more paper?"

Luca does not laugh. I can tell he wants to.

"Sophia," he says. "Go home."

"Luca."

"Go home. Bruno will drive you."

She stares at him for three long seconds. I watch her work it out: the door that stayed open, the voice that did not argue, the fact that he is looking at me while he dismisses her. Her face loses color, and then it sets into something hard.

"You will regret this," she says to him. Then to me, quietly, in a voice only I can hear, "And you will not enjoy what comes after."

She leaves. Her heels count the corridor all the way to the stairs.

[Rival retreat registered.]

[Reward issued: 800 points.]

[Current total: 2,150 points.]

[Shop unlocked: 'Pleasure System Exchange'.]

A new window opens in the corner of my sight. Rows of items I do not recognize. A bottle labeled Antidote (Basic). A pair of earrings that claims to record sound. A small icon of a key with a question mark over it. Price: 5,000 points.

I close the window before Luca can see me staring at nothing.

He has not moved from the doorway.

"The east vault," I say, before I can stop myself.

I regret it the moment the words are out. His expression changes so fast I almost miss it. The tiredness is gone. The patience is gone. What replaces it is the man from the bottom of the stairs, the one who watched without raising his voice.

"What did you hear?"

[Warning: Target hostility rising. Danger level: High.]

My pulse trips. I make myself stay still.

"I heard her say it," I answer. "I heard you say she was tired. That's all."

"Elena."

"That is all I heard."

[Truthfulness of Host's statement: 70%.]

I did not know the skill worked on me. I did not know the system could mark my own lies, and I understand a second too late that if I can see it, so can he. Not the number. But the tell. The half beat I just took.

Luca steps into the room and closes the door.

"Come here," he says.

"No."

"That was not a request."

"I know. I'm still saying no." My voice is steady. I do not know where it comes from. "You asked who I was working for. I told you. You told me I'd have to earn the rest of your answer. So here is mine. If you want the truth about what I heard, you will earn that too."

He looks at me for a long, quiet moment.

Then, slowly, he reaches into his jacket and takes out a small silver key.

He does not hand it to me. He holds it up between two fingers, in the lamplight, where I can see it.

"Do you know what this opens?"

[Item detected: Key to the east vault.]

[Mission updated: Obtain access.]

I stare at it. I stare at him.

"No," I say.

[Truthfulness: 100%.]

Something eases in his shoulders, so small I would miss it if I had not spent three years learning to read him.

"Good," he says. He closes his fist around the key. "Then you can still be saved from it."

He crosses the room, opens the balcony door, and stands there in the dark with his back to me, as though I am not worth guarding against.

"Get some sleep, Elena. Tomorrow my grandfather arrives. He has asked to meet the wife."

My stomach turns over.

In the first life, the old Don never came. Not once. Not to the wedding, not to the house, not in three years.

"He wasn't supposed to," I say.

Luca turns his head slightly. I realize what I just said. I realize he heard it.

"Wasn't supposed to," he repeats. Very soft.

[Warning: Host has revealed foreknowledge.]

[Target suspicion: 64%.]

[Failure to recover will trigger punishment.]

The ache starts at the base of my spine, quiet, patient, already warming up.

Luca takes one step back into the room.

"Tell me what else was not supposed to happen."