And then, slowly, she smiled.
It was not a hard smile, not the particular smile she had worn earlier when she talked about watching Mia and Violet move against each other.
This one was different. This one had patience in it, and something that might, in the right light, have been called peace except that it was also, unmistakably, dangerous in the way that truly patient things are dangerous.
"I want justice," she said. "That's different. Revenge is about me. Justice is about them, about what they've actually earned." She tilted her head slightly, just a fraction.
"And I'll let them slowly destroy each other."
Max held her gaze for a long moment.
Then something in him, some last remnant of the version of this plan that had been built around confrontation, around the forward motion of men who go directly at the thing in front of them released.
Not collapsed. Released. The way a fist releases when the hand has finally decided it doesn't need to be a fist anymore.
