CHAPTER TWO
THE WRONG WEAPON
I served venison while Marcus watched the ruined photographs dissolve in the bucket.
No one mentioned them for the first ten minutes.
That was not forgiveness.
It was four wealthy people proving they could use cutlery while angry.
Helena tasted the wine and looked toward the windows.
“Your security line begins at the garden wall?”
“Before it,” Nathan said.
“Thermal?”
“Among other things.”
“Marcus’s driver carries a directional microphone.”
Marcus put down his fork.
“He does not.”
Helena took another sip.
“He did until I removed the battery.”
I looked at her.
“Intelligence consultancy.”
“Marriage.”
Marcus’s mouth changed.
“You searched the car?”
“I own half the car.”
Nathan almost laughed.
The tension shifted.
Not gone.
Shared.
I had expected Marcus to threaten us with photographs and Helena to soften him. Instead, she had broken his weapon in front of him and then informed us she had disabled another.
She was not protecting us.
She was forcing all four people into the same room without hidden machinery.
That was more intimate than trust.
It was controlled exposure.
“Why the network?” I asked Marcus.
“You know why.”
“I know the presentation. I want the reason you did not put in it.”
The North Atlantic data network connected financial exchanges, defense contractors, cloud regions, hospitals, ports, and government systems from London to New York. Whoever owned it would control latency, resilience, and access for half the private infrastructure moving beneath the ocean.
The public reason was return.
Powerful men always had another.
Marcus cut the venison once.
“My father built a logistics company that depended on networks owned by men who would not let him into their clubs. When the cables failed, his company failed first. I do not intend to rent access again.”
The answer did not sound rehearsed.
Helena watched him with the stillness of someone hearing a truth he rarely used.
Nathan leaned back.
“That is a better pitch than blackmail.”
“I was not pitching you.”
“You came to my table.”
“Your wife’s table.”
The correction made Nathan’s eyes sharpen.
Marcus had learned the geometry of our marriage at Blackthorn. He knew where to place a sentence so it cut both of us differently.
I liked that too.
“And you?” Helena asked me. “Why the network?”
“Because everyone who says infrastructure is neutral is lying.”
“Not enough.”
I looked at her.
She used my own demand from the castle.
More.
“Because I am tired of sitting across from men who think they can switch off the room.”
Marcus’s gaze dropped to the black notebook.
“Including me?”
“Especially you tonight.”
Nathan’s thumb moved once over my shoulder.
Under the table, Helena removed one shoe.
I noticed because she did not hide it.
She set the black heel beside her chair and extended her bare foot until her toes touched Nathan’s ankle.
He did not move.
Marcus watched my face.
I refused to give him the reaction.
Helena moved higher.
Nathan continued eating.
The muscles in his jaw changed.
I recognized the movement.
So did she.
“Your wife is testing my husband,” I said.
Marcus lifted his glass.
“Your husband is allowing it.”
“For now.”
Helena’s toes reached the inside of Nathan’s knee.
His hand left my shoulder and went beneath the table.
I did not know whether he stopped her or held her there.
The uncertainty tightened my cunt.
Marcus saw the shift in my breathing.
“Still here?” he asked.
The phrase landed wrong in his voice.
Nathan’s hand appeared above the table.
He held Helena’s ankle.
Not removing it.
Keeping it.
“Do not use that,” he told Marcus.
Marcus’s eyes stayed on mine.
“Why?”
“Because you have not earned the answer.”
The two men did not raise their voices.
They did not need to.
Helena’s foot moved beneath Nathan’s hand.
I put my own bare foot against Marcus’s thigh.
His fork stopped.
The table became balanced again.
“Better,” Helena said.
I slid my foot higher.
Marcus remained still until my toes reached the hard shape beneath his trousers.
Blackthorn had hidden his face.
The castle had not hidden his size.
My body remembered him before my mind finished measuring.
Nathan looked across the table.
He knew what I touched.
The jealousy entered him visibly.
I held his eyes.
“Still here?” I asked.
“Always.”
The word returned home.
Helena’s toes pressed between Nathan’s legs.
Marcus’s cock hardened under mine.
Four adults continued dinner while two wives touched rival husbands beneath white linen.
No staff to pretend not to hear.
No crew beyond glass.
No masks.
The danger was not discovery.
It was honesty.
Marcus put down his knife.
“You said sex depended on whether I learned how to ask.”
“Yes.”
“Victoria, do you want me to fuck you again?”
Direct.
No leverage.
No business language.
My cunt tightened.
Nathan felt the movement of my leg through the table.
Helena looked at me.
I answered the man and the room.
“Yes.”
Marcus’s breathing changed.
Nathan’s did too.
“Helena,” I said. “Do you want my husband?”
Her foot pressed harder against him.
“Yes.”
“Marcus?”
He looked at his wife.
The jealousy in him had nowhere to hide now.
“Yes,” he said.
Nathan held Helena’s ankle and looked at me.
“And you want her?”
The question was not about permission.
It was about truth arriving before action.
“Yes.”
Helena smiled.
“Four answers. One table.”
I removed my foot from Marcus and stood.
The loss made his jaw tighten.
“Not yet,” I said.
“Why?” he asked.
I collected the plates.
“Because desire is not a reward for threatening me.”
Helena put her shoe back on.
Nathan released her ankle.
The room cooled by one degree.
Marcus watched me carry the dishes toward the kitchen.
“Then what earns it?”
I looked over my shoulder.
“The right agreement.”
He smiled.
Business had returned.
This time it was honest about wanting a body at the end of the negotiation.