บททั้งหมดของ THE SONGBIRDS CAGE: บทที่ 91 - บทที่ 95

Wren’sThey hung me out like laundry the night before, and the whole summit watched me flap.Vas did it politely, which is how he did everything. He stood up at the Don's long table with a wineglass in one hand and a tablet in the other, said he was sorry, truly sorry, but he thought the families deserved to know who had been singing for them all week. Then he turned the tablet around.The footage was grainy. It showed me in a service corridor, leaning close to a man who worked for Kiryan's oldest enemy, my lips moving while his hand passed me something small.Nobody shouted, and that was the worst of it. Rooms like that don't shout when they decide you're dead. They go quiet and start counting what you're worth.I looked at Dario first, maybe because his face always tells the truth before he can stop it. He had gone pale around the mouth, and his fingers were so tight on the stem of his glass that I thought it would snap. Then I looked at Kiryan, who gave me nothing at all. He can tu

WrenNobody screamed. Two hundred people sat very still, and I understood that most of them had been in rooms like this before.Men in dark suits stood at every door. I counted eleven, and then I counted the twelfth, up on the balcony rail with his hand inside his coat, and thought the roof had never been the only one I forgot."Everyone stay where you are," Vas said pleasantly. "This is a misunderstanding, and misunderstandings are easier to fix when people stay calm."My heart was beating so hard I could feel it in my teeth. I had rehearsed this part, not the guns exactly but the moment after the mask comes off, when the man you've cornered decides what kind of animal he is. I had told myself I'd know what to do. I didn't, not yet, so I did the one thing I did know how to do and kept talking."You brought your own security into the Don's house," I said. "Into a summit held under truce. Do you understand what that means?""It means I'm careful.""It means you were planning something

KiryanI have killed men from closer than thirty feet.I want that understood. If I'd had a clear line, Vas would have been on the floor before he finished his sentence. But he had angled himself so the gun covered her, and the corridor was narrow, and Dario stood half a pace in front of me with blood running down his fingers. Anything I did put a bullet in the back of her skull, so I stood still, which is what I'm good at."One minute thirty," Vas said. "Tick, tick.""You'll die with us," Dario said hoarsely."Will I?" Vas tipped his head. "I know the door at the end of this cellar and the passage behind it. I helped build this place, Dario, and I'd be up the lane before the first brick fell.""Then why come down?" she said.She still hadn't turned. Her hands hovered over the keys and her voice was level and tired, almost curious, as if she were asking about the weather."Because I want the sequence," Vas said. "Stop playing. Type what I tell you and I'll let you all walk out.""You