Chapter 54

• CHARLES
• All it took was to watch her retreat once again into that bashful, weak young lady I met months prior so that me might see exactly the way in which simple it was for her to imagine. Nobody was seriously amazing. Nobody was that manipulative — particularly assuming it was the initial time. She was playing him, and it was enough for me to acknowledge she had played me as well.
• The second I saw Fidelis, I planned to kill him, yet I kept down. I advised my men and Ambrosio to advise his men to pause. I expected to watch Matilda in the demonstration. I seen it from the second she strolled in. The grin she gave, the stammering wreck she became, and the manner in which she would cringe in dread after each look and contact while never being scared. It was exactly the same things she used to do to me.