His brain, slow and filled with cheap wine, could not understand why the victim was speaking like the attacker.
Camilla did not answer him with words. She answered him with action.
She stood perfectly still, her eyes locked onto his face. Very slowly, without breaking eye contact, she bent her knees slightly. She reached down toward her right leg. She slipped her hand inside the top of her dark leather boot.
When she brought her hand back up, the dim yellow light of the lamp caught the shiny, sharp edge of a metal blade.
Camilla brought out a sharp kitchen knife. She had stolen it from the Benson mansion kitchens before she left. It was not a fancy sword or a decorative dagger.
She held the wooden handle loosely in her fingers. She swung the knife playfully back and forth in the air. The metal cut through the stale air of the room.
She tilted her head to the side, looking at the large man with a dark, calculating smile.
