Page 38 of Broken Mercy
I turn my back to walk away, feeling like hell, but knowing this is for the best.
“I’ll show them the picture I took.” She grates it out like it’s painful and I stop mid-step. “That photo I took of you in the piano. I’ll send it to Arsen.”
“You wouldn’t.” I don’t look back. I swear, if I do, I know I won’t like the look she’s giving me. And I’m afraid that if I stare into her eyes, if I let my attention drift to her mouth, if I let my mind wander to what it feels like to be close to her, I won’t be able to make the hard choices.
“I will and don’t think you can stop me.”
“Tallie—“
“I made copies. Not just the email, but saved to a private, encrypted physical storage device. More than one, actually, since I know you like to poke around where you’re not invited. I don’t care how good your hackers are. You’re not getting it, not unless I want you to.”
That makes my blood go cold. When it was in her email, that was simple enough. Even if she put it on a service like Dropbox, I could still hire someone to make it all disappear.
But a physical device? And multiple for redundancy?
That’s the sort of cleverness that’ll get me fucking killed.
I turn back to the table, struggling to maintain my composure. How the fuck did I let it come this far? When she took that photograph I should have hired someone to handle it immediately. Hell, I should’ve wrestled her to the ground and physically deleted it myself.
Instead, I was soft. I let her have the victory thinking she wouldn’t do a damn thing with it.
I misjudged her.
Big fucking time.
In some ways it’s impressive. I’m not sure most people would think that far ahead. Tallie’s clearly much more than the perfect little crime lord princess she seems. Daughter of privilege, but it didn’t dull her.
No, maybe some of her father’s sharpness rubbed off.
Which makes her fucking dangerous.
“You have no idea what you’re doing right now, Talin.” I speak as calmly and as measured as I can. “This isn’t a game. You don’t want to blackmail me.”
“You’re right, I don’t.” Her face is pale. Her chin is up. She’s trying her best to sit with a straight back and to project strength, but I see the way her fingers tremble as they nervously rub together. All these years Tallie’s been living around men like me, hell, around men much worse, but she’s never had to dirty herself. They’ve kept her clean since she’s worth more that way.
Now though? She’s climbing into the fucking mud, and I bet she doesn't like it.
“Then drop it. What I’m doing isn’t your business. It’s work, that’s all.”
“You’re lying to me. I want to know. We’re married now, Brenden, and whatever you’re doing involves me whether you like it or not.” She flattens her hands on the table in front of her palms up. “Please, we don’t have to be enemies.”
“My allies don’t hold dirt over my head.”
“You’re not giving me much of a choice.”
“There’s always a choice, Talin. You don’t like the alternatives.” I shove the chair aside. It falls over and clatters to the floor. Her eyes never leave mine, though her shoulders flinch like she wants to protect herself. “What the fuck do you want from me? Honestly, what do you want out of this? You want money? You want power? I have nothing to give you. I have nothing left.”
It hurts, admitting this out loud, but we both know it’s true. I’m not exactly a high-value person in the family anymore. My father was happy to toss me aside and Arsen only wanted me for the potential value of my thieving skills, assuming he can twist me to his own benefit. Tallie’s a soft chain around my ankle and nothing else.
But she stays straight and fierce. “I want out.”
The way she says it makes me pause. Some of my anger ebbs. “You want… out? What does that mean?”
“All this. The life. This world. Our sham of a marriage.I want out.”
She snarls it with the conviction of a true believer.
Well, fuck.
