Page 60 of Under Her Protection

"Can you be broken by her?”

"Not tonight."

Isabella put her glass down and reached across and put her thumb under Vivienne's chin for one count and took it away, which was a gesture she had made twice in twenty years and which Vivienne did not acknowledge out loud.

"Go home, my love."

"I am going to."

"Take the bodyguard with you."

"I am going to."

"And on Friday."

"On Friday I will tell you everything."

"Good."

Vivienne set her glass down half full, which was her habit, and rose, and smoothed a jacket that did not need smoothing, and walked out through the anteroom, and Leo fell in at her left shoulder without being asked, and Colette met them at the door with the coat, and the door of Maison Noire closed behind them at twelve thirty-six on a Thursday morning in a thin wet November.

---

The black car was at the kerb on the rue de Sévigné, engine on, Eric at the wheel, rear door open on the kerb side. Eric was Blackthorn-vetted and he had a hand on the top of the door frame and one foot on the pavement.

The pavement was three paces wide.

Vivienne took the first pace.

She took the second.

On the third, the air changed.

There was a flat crack from somewhere above them, across the street, high, and a sound off the stone of the façade two feet to Vivienne's right, which was a chip of limestone going off into the gutter, and Leo's weight hit her between the shoulder blades like a block of the building coming down on her, and Leo's arm was around her ribs and Leo's hand was at the back of her head pressing her face into the lapel of the black jacket, and Leo was moving her, not asking her to move, moving her, the three paces to the car and the one pace down into the foot well and the half pace along the seat until Vivienne was on her back on the leather and Leo was on top of her with her hand still at Vivienne's head and her other hand pulling the door shut.

"Go," Leo shouted.

Eric went.

The car took the corner onto the rue du Roi de Sicile before the door had finished clicking, and Leo's body, the full length of it, was on Vivienne's. Leo's hand left the door handle and her forearm came across the top of Vivienne's head, shielding her skull against the upholstery. Leo's other hand was already up at her own earpiece, speaking low into it in a voice Vivienne did not, in this second, hear.

Vivienne's breath was not in her lungs.

She reached for it and did not find it on the first attempt. She reached again and found half of it. She found the other half on the third. She became aware, as she did, of the hot weight of Leo on her hips and on her sternum and on her thigh, and of Leo's pulse, very fast, at the line of Leo's jaw six inches from Vivienne's face, and of nothing else.

"Direction?" Leo said into the earpiece. "Rooftop. Across the street. Single shot. No follow-up. Round impact two feet right of principal. Extraction is priority. Confirm."

A pause.

"Copy."

A pause.

"Copy. Eric, home. North approach. Beaumont on the gate. Avery, pull the cam on the rue de Sévigné side of the Maison Noire block for the last six minutes and put it on my screen by the time I am in the residence."

Leo's earpiece went silent.

Her hand, which had been at the back of Vivienne's head, moved off the leather and came to rest, palm flat, against the side of Vivienne's face. She looked down at her. Vivienne's eyes were open. Vivienne's breath was shallow. Vivienne's hand had, at some point in the last forty seconds, closed around the front of Leo's shirt and not let go.