“Cinci made her way to the jagged piece of concrete Langley had dropped. She picked it up, and with the look of a mathematician deep in thought she briskly made her way to her unconscious, bleeding stepfather. She took that piece of concrete and began pummeling the man's skull.”

“she had given me a piece of what made her life sane.”

“the only way Bex would miss this would be if she were unconscious. And tied up. And in a concrete bunker. In Siberia.”

“Mrs. Murdo, walkind even more briskly to keep her spirits up, was crossing Harken Square when something fell to the pavement just in front of her with a terrific thump. How extraordinary, she thought, bending to pick it up. It was sort of a bundle. She began to untie it.”

“For years, every conversation she had with a man had been colored by calculation. Would she put him off is she spoke her mind? What did he want her to say? When a man took a mistress, he purchased not just the rights to her body, but the content of her thoughts. Sir Mark wanted her as she was, not as he wished her to be. The thought made her head hurt.”

“Father looked at her and she was beautiful in the way she had been as a girl. He did not realize the pleasure he felt in having made her cry.”