CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND THIRTY EIGHT – THE ENEMY’S BARGAIN

Despite herself, despite the bone-deep wariness that should have been her reflexive response, Charlotte felt the faintest stirrings of something like hope take root amid the wasteland of despair. "Sienna." It wasn't a question, merely a statement of incredulous fact. She hadn't spoken to the other woman since...well, since the unraveling began in earnest, their once-steadfast friendship sundered in the wake of Julian's association with the von Beckers and their criminal operatives. In the midst of the spiraling chaos that had consumed Charlotte's world, thoughts of Sienna had become little more than a fleeting reminiscence, overshadowed by the all-consuming need to stay one step ahead of the encroaching darkness. And yet, here she was - emerging like a spectre from the shadows with all the sinuous, feline grace that had first marked her as a force to be reckoned with in Charlotte's social orbit. An orbit that now felt like a distant, dimly-remembered dream in the harsh light of thei