let them fear her

Vera Vincelli

"I expect you have questions."

Vera doesn't offer Erik pleasantries, nor greeting. She does not launch into an explanation as to why exactly she has shown up in the Ashford's drawing room, lounging in an armchair like it was placed for her alone to sit in it, waiting for her new right hand to grace her with her presence. She doesn't offer, because it doesn't matter, and she has always had a particular skill for ignoring the things that don't matter.

And so she doesn't address it, instead patiently waiting for Erik to take a seat, and join her in conversation.

On the surface, Erik's appointment to consigliere is innocuous enough. Like she is expected to follow in the footsteps of her own father, she has put him in place to follow in his own's, a move that secures the future and honours the past in equal measure. Underneath that, though, there is a tactical streak to her choice. His new role means she can keep him close, keep him pacified, mitigate the risk that he represents to her family by positioning herself as his closest ally. When she had told Salvatore of her plans, he had only stared at her for a long moment. Then he had laughed, and proclaimed it to be brilliance.

She does not know if Erik will feel the same. That makes her a little nervous, an unfamiliar and unwelcome feeling.

"Well?" her eyebrows raise, challenging him silently, in a way that only exists between two people who have known one another for as long as it is possible to know one another. "Ask them, then. You likely won't get another chance to."