On May 1st the following year she slipped the brass locket from beneath her collar and opened it. Inside was a faded photo she rarely looked at: a younger woman, laughing with a boy whose missing front tooth made the world seem less serious. Octavia traced the crease in the picture and let herself feel something she very rarely allowed—softness toward a past that had been simpler, not kinder.
Silas’s eyes narrowed. "You have them. Your father’s old allies—they listen to you. I need them to sign off on the merger by morning, or the whole deal collapses. You promised me you’d handle it." Vixen - Octavia Red - Double Edged Sword -05.01...
She lifted it, testing the weight. "Do you know why I like this piece, Silas?" On May 1st the following year she slipped
Still, she remained what she had always been—a paradox. People continued to call her Vixen: dangerous and necessary, siren and surgeon. She accepted the name because it fit the life she’d chosen: to cut when necessary and to attempt, afterwards, to stitch. She had learned to live with the knowledge that even righteous edges draw blood. Silas’s eyes narrowed
Silas stopped. He was a man built of sharp angles and sharper ambitions, a hedge fund shark who was used to biting first. He set his crystal tumbler down on the marble coaster with a heavy clack .