Chapter 9

Chapter 9

I could lie. The skill would catch it, and Luca would catch me catching it.

So I do the one thing I have never done in front of this man. I tell him a piece of the truth and let it stand on its own.

"I had a nightmare," I say. "I told you that already."

"You told me a version of it."

"Then here's the rest." My hands are cold, so I fold them in front of me. "In the nightmare, I left this house. You were waiting at the bottom of the stairs. You didn't shout. You didn't even look angry. You just let it happen."

The ache in my spine stops climbing.

[Truthfulness of Host's statement: 100%.]

[Punishment suspended.]

Luca does not move. The balcony door is still open behind him, and the night air moves the curtain against his shoulder.

"Let what happen?"

"The end of me."

I watch the words land. I have spent three years studying this man's face, and I know the small tells. A muscle near his jaw. A slow blink, like he is putting something away to look at later. Right now both of them happen at once.

"Your grandfather never came to the house in that dream," I say. "That's all I meant. He wasn't supposed to be here, so when you said it, it surprised me."

[Truthfulness: 91%.]

Nine percent missing. Luca does not have the number, but he has the tell. His eyes go down to my hands, and then back up.

"You are a poor liar," he says.

"I'm getting better."

"No. You're getting more careful." He shuts the balcony door with one hand, and the room goes quiet. "That is more dangerous."

He walks to the dresser, sets the silver key down on it, and stands there looking at it instead of me. It is the first time tonight he has looked away without it being a decision to hurt me.

"The east vault," he says, "is not a vault."

I wait.

"My grandfather has not left it in three years. He has had two strokes. The doctors say a third will kill him." His voice is level, but he is holding the edge of the dresser. "Outside this house, Salvatore Vescari is dead. The families buried him. I run the empire in a dead man's name, and the only reason it works is that nobody knows he is breathing."

[Truthfulness: 100%.]

My mouth is dry.

In the first life, I lived under this roof for three years and never once guessed. I sat in the guest room, a woman nobody told anything, while a man downstairs was hiding the biggest secret in the city. The contract wasn't about debt. It wasn't about paperwork.

"Why am I being told this?" I ask.

"Because you were listening at the door. Because Sophia is going to talk." He finally turns. "And because tomorrow he intends to meet you, and I would rather you walk in knowing what you are walking into."

"You said he asked for the wife."

"He asked for you by name."

A chill runs down my arms.

"My name," I repeat. "He's never heard my name."

"He signed the contract with it." Luca's eyes narrow slightly. "He chose you, Elena. Out of eleven candidates. I argued against it. He would not tell me why."

The system lights up, soft and clean this time, with no punishment in it.

[Hidden objective progress: Reason for the contract.]

[Partial answer unlocked: Target's grandfather selected the Host personally.]

[New question generated: Why?]

I have more questions than I know what to do with. The one that comes out is the smallest.

"Do you want me to be afraid of him?"

Luca almost smiles. It is a tired thing, and it vanishes.

"I want you to be careful. He is the only man alive who has ever frightened me."

The admission hangs between us. I think, absurdly, that this is the most honest sentence he has ever said to me. I did not have to pull it out of him. He just gave it.

I should be calculating. I should be counting points, thinking about how to use this. I came back to make him kneel.

Instead I hear myself say, "You are tired."

"Yes."

"You haven't slept."

"I have not slept properly in three years." He says it like it's weather. "Go to bed, Elena."

"Where will you go?"

"The couch."

I watch him cross toward the door, and I feel something I do not want to feel. The system has been flooding me with heat all night, and it has been easy to blame everything on it. But there is no heat now. Nothing is pushing me. This is just me, watching a man who let me die walk away looking like he carries the whole house on his back.

I hate it. I hate that it is possible for me to feel anything but hate.

"Luca."

He stops with his hand on the door.

"I'm not going to tell Sophia," I say. "Or anyone. About your grandfather."

He does not turn around for a moment. When he does, his face is unreadable.

"Why?"

"Because I want the rest of the answer." I lift my chin. "You said I'd have to earn it. I'm starting."

This time he does smile. Just a short, real one, gone almost before it arrives. It changes his whole face, and I look away first.

[Target affection: +1.]

[Reward issued: 1,000 points.]

[Total: 3,150 points.]

[Notice: Host has passed the first mission threshold early.]

"Good night, Elena."

"Good night."

The door closes. I sit down on the edge of the bed, and the room feels very big. I breathe out and the shake in my hands finally comes. I let it.

The system waits until it is gone before it speaks again.

[Mission 'Seduce Luca Vescari before sunrise': Reclassified as complete. Method accepted.]

[New primary mission unlocked.]

[Mission: Survive until the Dragon Moon.]

[Time remaining: 90 days.]

I read it twice.

Dragon Moon. I have never heard those words. In three years of living here, nobody said them.

I open the shop window to see if the system will explain, and it does not. But another notice slides across the glass first, one I have never seen, red-bordered and pulsing.

[WARNING.]

[A second System signature has been detected inside the Vescari estate.]

[Distance: 40 meters.]

[Location: East Vault.]

My blood goes cold.

There is a knock at the door. Three slow taps. Not Luca's. Not Sophia's.

A man's voice, old and dry and amused, comes through the wood.

"Forgive the hour, little wife. I heard you have come back from the dead."