Read Silver on the Road (The Devil's West Book 1) for Free Online

be honest. This was what she wanted, what she had been bought and trained for. “Power, maybe.” You could not have the first without the second; she knew that. “To be part of what you do. To help . . .” Her mouth was so dry, but she managed to get the words out. “To be part of all this.”
    “And you think to find that here, in this House? To be my faithful right hand in all doings?” He smiled, and it was both sweet and cold. “You want Marie’s job?”
    “I . . . Maybe? Someday, yes.” Izzy licked her lips nervously. This wasn’t going the way she’d thought it would. In her imagining, the boss had laughed and told her he’d been waiting for her to say that,and Marie welcomed her, saying her help would be priceless, and . . .
    In daylight, she saw how foolish that had been. The devil was honest, but he gave nothing away, and Marie had no reason to share, no need of help.
    “Or something else,” she said. “Some way I can help . . .”
    “Help what?” He was still watching her, still with that smile. It should have made her angry or uneasy, but instead, her nerves steadied. She was a free woman come to make a Bargain. She knew that look, knew him , as much as any soul might. Izzy waited, and watched him in return, the way she had watched the woman in black the last night, the way she’d watched so many other people come and go over the years. She had lived her entire life in the devil’s house, and she had no fear of him. He had taught her that, as well.
    “Help you do what you’ve been training me to do all these years,” she said finally. “To see what people are, what they want. What they need. And how to give it to them.”
    She was right; she knew she was. She had to be right.
    He leaned back, his left index finger tapping thoughtfully at his lips, his gaze unblinking as ever as they regarded her, looking bone-deep in that way he had.
    “Marie runs this house,” he said. “She is my steady right hand and will continue to be so for many more years.”
    Izzy refused to let her shoulders slump, but inwardly, all of her hopes and courage crumbled. If he had no need of her, then what?
    The boss sighed, then brought both of his hands up in front of him and held them up, turning them back and forth as though to show he held nothing in his palm, nothing up his sleeve. He had strong hands, long-fingered and supple, and his right hand was unadorned, while his left bore a silver-and-black signet ring on his index finger. She had never seen that ring before—but a similar one, with a clear stone, encircled Maria’s right thumb.
    “We each have two hands, of equal strength and dexterity. Each with things it does well, better than the other. All this time, you’veseen the day-to-day business, the gathering-in and the granting, the bargaining and the dealing, the work of my right hand.” His voice changed again, slipping to a soft growl she had never heard before. “Did you never think beyond that, Isobel? Did you never wonder what the other hand held?”
    “I . . . No.” She never had.
    “Most don’t. I prefer it that way.” He let his hands fall, resting them palm-down on the desk, graceful even in stillness. The growl was gone, but his voice remained sharp. “The States see us as some empty wilderness to be claimed and tamed, while Spain and their holdings call us evil, a cluster of heathens and sinners in need of cleansing—by sword and fire, if they had their way. Both sides press on us, coveting us. Those who leave their homes and come here, who cross into our borders in search of something, even if they never make their way to Flood, they see more clearly what the Territory means, but even so, they see only the one side . . . until they need the other. Then they grab onto it, with desperate strength.
    “The right hand gathers and gives, visible to all. But the left hand, Isobel, the manu sinistra ? It moves in shadows, unseen, unheard . . . until I deem it time