Page 86 of Outcast’s Vow

I speed through the city back to our penthouse, my motorcycle roaring as I tear through SoHo. I don’t give a fuck about traffic lights. I’m a good enough rider to not even flinch at the speeds I’m racing at. I need to get home.

I need to talk to my wife.

I burst through the penthouse door, my leather jacket still zipped up, my gloves in my hand, my hair swept to the side.

Sylvie is home. She’s sitting at the kitchen table, university textbooks scattered and open around her. She’s studying.

Not anymore. Not until she answers my questions.

“What have you done?” I ask her in an aggressive howl as I step in.

If she’s shocked by my sudden entrance, my wife doesn’t even flinch. She merely looks up from her textbooks and smiles at me in that poised way of hers.

Sylvie knows what she’s done, and she wants to sink the knife in deeper.

“You mean when I ran into Eleanor Whitmore this morning?” she asks me with all the fake innocence in the world.

“Yes,” I reply. “You know exactly what I mean. What did you do, woman?”

My wife shrugs.

“Oh, she and I had a nice little chat. That’s all.”

“That’s all?”

Sylvie points a pen at me.

“In fact, your government business was raised, coincidentally.”

“Yeah, it probably was,” I say. “Especially seeing as the senator has, just moments ago, passed it through the committee with no issue.”

“Great news. Well done. I bet you’re thrilled.”

“So... you spoke to his wife?”

The smile doesn’t leave Sylvie’s face.

“Wives hold a lot of silent power, Baptiste. More than most men realize.”

I just stand there, finally processing what’s happened. And I can’t believe it. Months of strategy on my end. Weeks of frantic phone calls. Millions poured in by lobbyists. And my wife simply strolls into an art gallery and fixes it without smudging her makeup?

That’s all it takes?

“And she agreed to talk to her husband? One single phone call, and he pulled his resistance?”

Sylvie shrugs.

“It appears so.”

“Why would you go out of your way to do something like that?” I ask.

Sylvie frowns. This is the first genuine expression she’s shown since I stormed in here.

“You underestimated me,” she replies coldly.

“Underestimated you?”

“You think I married you to sit on a shelf in your trophy cabinet?”