“So you haven’t abandoned the plan, then?” Cynthia said.

“Of course not,” Philip barked. “Just because I feel a little pity for the bastard doesn’t mean I’m backing out.”

Cynthia sidled up to him and put her arms around his neck. Philip couldn’t help putting his own arms around her waist, almost instinctively. He was smart enough to know it was Pavlovian at this point, but he still responded. She was wearing the black wig, eyes lined with kohl; she was doing Musidora from Les Vampires, Philip realized with a pang, using his obsession with silent films to wrap him more tightly around her ring finger.

It’d be hard to kill her when the time came.

“I knew I could depend on you,” she hissed into his ear, letting her lower lip brush his earlobe as she spoke. He blushed: there was no way she didn’t feel his partial erection, and she started grinding her pelvis into him as she spoke. “Oh, we’re going to be so rich, darling.”

He knew he was being played. But it wasn’t over yet. It wasn’t nearly over at all.