Unseen

Chapter 5

It was past sunrise by the time the car pulled up out front. But the light was still the thick syrupy light of early morning. The man Yvette had sent for Violet opened the back door, and Violet walked out. He held out a hand to Violet, and she took it. She didn't fight.

Maybe Yvette hadn't needed to worry so much about touching Violet. She was an assassin, but she was a tame one.

A tame one who had escaped.

Yvette watched from the fourth-story window as the man led Violet to the front door. Then she retreated to the top of the staircase, ready to greet Violet.

This morning was further proof that her people knew what they were doing. Reynold's contact had warned that the assassin would have a tracker embedded in her flesh. Yvette had gone through her father's personnel files until she could find someone capable of reprogramming it. It had cost her a hefty chunk of change, but now she knew the cost had paid off. The reprogrammed tracker had worked—and PERI wouldn't be using it to find Violet any time soon.

Besides, Violet could more than make up the cost with the inefficiencies she planned to eliminate. As long as she held onto her father's empire long enough to do it.

Footsteps sounded on the stairs a few minutes later. The man who had retrieved Violet came first, clutching Violet's hand in his no-nonsense grip. Violet followed a step or two behind, head hung, expression cowed.

Yvette wished she could trust that look of defeat.

"You can go," Yvette told the man. "Make sure the guards I ordered are in place." She wasn't leaving the garden unwatched again. Or the stairs. Or the lawn outside any of the fourth-story windows.

The man nodded and retreated.

Violet stared at her feet. She clasped her hands behind her back. She looked like a child from a strict school, waiting for a reprimand.

Or like a kicked puppy.

Yvette told herself not to feel guilty. If Violet was a kicked puppy, Yvette wasn't the one who had kicked her.

"Where were you going?" Yvette asked.

"Home," Violet answered without looking up.

"So you could go back to being a prisoner?"

Violet didn't answer. A shiver started in the woman's fingertips, traveled up her arms, and quivered through her entire body. She flickered out of existence, then came back again.

"Don't look at me like I'm going to beat you," said Yvette. "Or send you to bed without your supper."

Violet's gray eyes came up at that, to meet hers for a split second before darting away again. She was hungry, was she? Maybe Yvette could use that.

Use it to make Violet feel more comfortable, she meant. She wanted Violet to be comfortable. Yes, she needed what the woman could do, but that didn't mean she had to treat her as inhumanely as her creators had.

"But we will need to establish some ground rules," said Yvette. "For your own safety."

Violet looked up through her lashes. Those piercing gray eyes seemed to cut through Yvette's forced smile to the truth.

So the woman, despite her quivering panic, had figured out this was about more than rescue.

Well, she would have to be smart, wouldn't she? Otherwise, she wouldn't make a very good assassin.

Yvette had made a mistake, equating Violet's fear with a lack of understanding. It was similar to the mistake Stanbury had made with her, when he had mistaken her for the decoration her father liked to make of her.