Chapter 3 One Minute

"Wait."

Josephine heard her own voice crack across the marble.

Silas Thorn's blade was still planted in the floor beside Reginald's hand. Odette was sobbing into her husband's sleeve. Karl Veyron did not turn his chair around. Darian Voss did it for him, slowly, until the dark eyes were on her again.

"You have something to say to the people about to erase your family?"

"They are not my family." The dress slipped further and she hauled it up with one hand. "As of an hour ago, I am not a Titan. I have the papers."

She held them out. A man crossed the floor, took them, and carried them to the wheelchair. Karl read the first page without any expression at all.

"Severed from your father. Engagement annulled." A pause. "Efficient."

"Yes."

"And you want what, exactly?"

"To be your wife."

Someone near the wall inhaled sharply. Reginald lifted his gray face off the floor and stared at her like she had grown a second head.

"Josephine!" Odette hissed. "Have you lost your mind?"

Karl did not even glance at her. He lifted one finger, and a man at the wall stepped behind Odette. She closed her mouth so fast her teeth clicked.

"I could have any woman in this city," Karl said quietly. "Why would I take the one who walked in wearing the wrong dress?"

"Because the right woman is a risk."

His fingers stopped moving on the armrest.

Josephine kept going. In her last life, Karl Veyron had married her stepsister and died a month later. She did not know why. But a man did not take a bride with a month left to live unless something drove him to it. Whatever that need was, it was real. And she was going to stand in it.

"I don't know why you need a wife, Lord Veyron, and I won't ask. But a man like you does not take a bride on a whim. You chose a girl from a family with no ties to yours, no seat at your table, and no one you would owe." She took a breath. "I am even less entangled than Seraphina. I have no mother, I have no father as of today, and no one in this city will come knocking at your door in my name."

"Go on."

"Josephine Titan. Twenty. No hobbies worth mentioning. No history with anyone, since a fiancé in name only does not count, and I just returned him." Her pulse hammered in her ears. "I can endure hardship. I do not complain. I know acupuncture and therapeutic massage. If you need quiet, I am quiet. If you need a wife who will cooperate and never get in your way, I will."

"Acupuncture," Karl repeated.

"And massage. I trained for years. I can prove it."

"A girl who spent her youth in a storage room."

Her stomach dropped. He knew where she had slept? Then he had read more about the Titans than he let on.

"I had a lot of time and nothing else," she said evenly. "I used it."

He regarded her for a long moment, and she could not tell if it was suspicion or curiosity.

"And what do you want in return?"

"Respect. Do not manage my freedom." She lifted her chin. "And when I need help, please do not stand there and watch."

The room had gone so quiet she could hear Odette's breath hiccuping.

Karl studied her. The bangs hanging over half her face. The hollow cheeks. The thin wrists drowning in lace. Whatever he saw, for one second something crossed his face, too fast to name, and then it was gone.

"You ask a great deal," he said, "for a girl who walked in here looking like a hanger."

"I know."

"One minute." He glanced at Silas. "Hold."

Silas did not lossen his grip on Reginald's wrist, the blade stayed where it was.

"I have been using it," Josephine said. "My minute. You may stop me at any time."

"I do not want you to stop." His tone did not change. "I want you to explain something."

"What?"

"When Silas raised that blade, you did not flinch. A woman who loved her family would have begged. Even a woman who hated them would have looked away." His eyes moved to the two people on the floor, then back to her. "You looked at your father's hand as if you were waiting."

Josephine said nothing.

He rolled the chair two feet closer. The faint smell of bitter herbs reached her, and under it, something cold and clean, like snow on iron.

"I did not mean to save them, Lord Veyron," she said quietly. "I need them alive for now."

"For revenge."

She had not said that word. Not once.

His voice dropped so low that only she could hear it.

"Do you want revenge, Josephine Titan?" His eyes held hers, dark and steady and entirely without mercy. "Let me help you."

Author's Note: Karl just offered to help her burn everything down. If you want to see what she says, add this story to your library so chapter 4 finds you.