Her gaze grew even colder.

“But luckily, Lila was there,” he hurried on. “You’d better snap her up before somebody else does.”

Snap me up?

“Word’s already gotten out about Lila’s skills,” Mo continued, spreading his hands wide. “Why, today alone, I’ve had inquiries about her availability from three other Families.”

My availability? That sounded suspiciously like bodyguard talk, the sort of thing I’d heard him say on the phone when he was lining up my mom’s next job and trying to weasel a few more bucks out of her potential employer by pretending he had someone else competing for her services. I was starting to get a bad, bad feeling about what Mo was up to.

Claudia ignored him and focused on me again. “Why would you even get involved in such a fight? What were you hoping for? Some sort of reward from my Family?”

This time, I was the one who threw my hands out wide. “Yeah, because being dragged up here and interrogated is such a great reward.”

“But surely, you knew who Devon was.” She jerked her head at Mo. “Your friend certainly did, luring my son to his cheap shop in the first place.”

“Hey, now,” Mo protested. “Ain’t nothing in my shop cheap. Tacky, sure. But never, ever cheap.”

This time, we all ignored him.

Devon sighed and finally entered the conversation. “He didn’t lure me anywhere, Mom. I told you that I remembered Mo talking about his store, and I decided to check it out. That’s all.”

“That’s never all,” Claudia snapped. “Not where you are concerned.”

Devon sighed again, and something like weary resignation flickered in his eyes, but his gaze shifted away from mine before I could get a lock on exactly what the emotion was. Yeah, Devon was important, since he was the son of the head of the Sinclair Family, but it sounded like Claudia was talking about something else, something more. Seemed like I wasn’t the only one here with secrets.

“So you can see why I find this whole situation . . . suspicious,” she finished in an icy tone.

She had every right to be angry because her son had been attacked, but she was getting on my last nerve. I hadn’t asked Devon to come into the shop, and I certainly hadn’t wanted to be in the middle of the fight. But I’d been there, and I’d even done the right thing, for a change. And look where it had gotten me. Being accused by Claudia Sinclair, who thought that I had some sinister ulterior motive when I didn’t. Enough was enough.

“Listen, lady,” I snapped. “I had no idea that Devon was your son when he came into the Razzle Dazzle. Even if I had known, I still wouldn’t have cared.”

That was an outright lie, but this was the only way I could save my own neck, so I sucked down another breath and started spinning more lies.

“As far as I was concerned, he was just a guy from some rich Family, trying to get a little thrill by slumming it in the town shops for the afternoon.”

Devon’s jaw clenched, and his gaze met mine. Pinching hurt flashed in his eyes. That shouldn’t have bothered me, but it did. I hated him. I’d hated him for years, and I was determined to hate him now, along with the rest of his stupid Family.

Despite the soul-crushing guilt I’d seen choking him from the inside out.

“Given your obvious disdain for the Families, at least for this particular Family, why did you help my son?” Claudia asked, her voice even colder and sharper than before. “Why not let the men take him with them?”

I frowned. Take him with them? It had been an assassination attempt, not a kidnapping. The mystery man had definitely wanted Devon dead. I’d seen it in his eyes.

“Well?” she demanded.

“I don’t know,” I snapped again. “Okay? I don’t know. I just did it. I tend to get concerned when people pull out swords and start swinging them in my direction.”

I didn’t tell them how I’d seen that mix of cold sorrow, hard strength, and warm goodness inside Devon’s heart. How I’d been so drawn to him, despite myself. And I especially didn’t tell them how I thought it would have been a shame for that little spark of light buried so deep inside him to be snuffed out so brutally. Nobody needed to know that, not even Mo. He’d think I was going soft, and he would be right.

“So you put yourself in danger and killed two men out of the goodness of your heart?” Claudia’s voice teetered on a sneer.

I shrugged. I was tired of talking, especially when nothing I could say was going to convince her. She was going to kick me out any second now. I’d be lucky if Reginald came back with my sub before Claudia had some guards shove me and Mo out the front door. And that would be just fine with me. Because I wanted to leave here and never set eyes on her again.

And I especially never, ever wanted to see Devon Sinclair again.

Claudia studied me another moment, then got to her feet. I sighed and did the same, knowing what was coming next. No free food for me, after all.

“Well, then, Miss Merriweather,” she said. “If you are as smart with a sword as you are with your mouth, then you won’t mind a demonstration of your skills.”

A shocked realization zipped through me. This wasn’t an interrogation at all.

It was a test.

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ten minutes later, I stood in the center of a large training room, holding a sword. Thick mats stretched across this part of the floor, with several treadmills and weight machines off to one side. Swords, daggers, and knives were also lined up in neat rows on two of the walls. Metal grates hung over some of the weapons—the black blades—locking them away from greedy, grasping hands like mine.