The fluorescent sign in the window was buzzing, and it was annoying the hell out of me.

I wanted a new one, but it wasn’t like they came cheap.

I’d be happy with something simple and sedate, but simple and sedate didn’t fit in with the family lifestyle.

I guess it didn’t fit in my persona at the moment either.

After all, the Mysterious Sirene, psychic extraordinaire, didn’t look like a simple, sedate person.

That was me, some of the time. The Mysterious Sirene. Or just Sirene. That was what my clients called me.

The man in front of me wanted to know if his wife was cheating on him with his best friend. We’d been talking for two weeks, and during that time, I’d done my homework. I was hoping I could tell the poor guy no. Mitch Franklin was a nice enough guy, and he tipped well. I told him that I charged on a sliding scale basis – that wasn’t always the case – but judging by his Italian leather loafers and the BMW he arrived in, he could afford to pay a little more than the single mom I talked to before he showed up at my door.

I was a con artist, but I tried to be fair.

Taking his hands in mine, I stared at his calloused, work-roughened palms and gripped them, making a show of studying them instead of looking into his eyes.

I always felt bad if I looked into their eyes too long anyway.

I didn’t need to do it for the job, so I avoided it whenever possible.

“I’m not getting a good feeling about your Kayla, Mitch.” Heaving out a dramatic sigh, I asked if he’d remembered to bring something of hers. It was typical, just part of the act. Not that the clients knew it, but it made them feel like what was going on was really authentic. And what’s more, I was about to tell him the truth. His wife was cheating on him. I had pictures.

He pulled a scarf out of the pocket of his suit coat, and I accepted it, trying not to rub it with my fingers. It was real silk. Greed shot through me, but I shoved it down. I was getting ready to break this guy’s heart. I didn’t need to be salivating over his cheating wife’s accessories.

Taking the scarf, I pushed it into the copper bowl in the middle of my table and held my hands over it.

If I really wanted to be showy, I could have set it on fire. But why ruin such a pretty thing?

Closing my eyes, I breathed in deep and slow.

The stupid fluorescent sign buzzed, a nuisance among nuisances.

Opening my eyes, I looked at him and gave him a sad smile. “I’m really sorry, but Kayla is cheating on you. The man…” I let my lashes drift lower as I called up a memory of the man I’d seen leaving her house. They’d stood on the porch, kissing for several minutes, so there was no mistaking the visit for a friendly one. Not that I would have. I’d trespassed and crept around until I found a window where I could see them. And had I ever seen them. “He has blond hair, cut very short. Tanned. He looks…does your friend like to go to the gym a lot? He has that look about him.”

“That’s Bryan,” Mitch bit off. He shoved up from the table and started to pace.

That always made me nervous, but I remained where I was, refusing to fidget or let him see how uneasy his anger made me.

I knew it wasn’t directed at me and that was the important thing. But I felt better once he slumped back into the chair across from me.

“Why?” he asked wearily. “Why are they doing this?”

“I’m sorry,” I told him gently. My father would pop a gasket if he heard, but I wasn’t going to string this guy along anymore. “But that’s not something I can answer with a simple reading.” Faking a weak laugh, I added, “And unless your wife wants to come talk to me…”

“Yeah, right. She laughs because I think there’s a possibility Big Foot might be real.”

He snorted as he reached into his coat pocket. I didn’t move as he laid an extra hundred down. He’d already paid me three hundred for this reading, bringing the grand total up to nine hundred. The previous tips had all been fifties. We were going to pretend this one was too.

I reached into the bowl and pulled out the scarf, casually flicking it so that it fell to hide the money. “Here’s her scarf,” I said as he rose.

He glanced down, his face folding in distaste. “If you like it, you can keep it. I didn’t buy it…and it’s not really something she’d buy for herself.”

I arched my brows at his retreating back, but I couldn’t help but admire the underhanded blow he’d delivered, one his wife might never know about. It was a scarf her lover might have given her. And her husband had just given it to a con artist.

“Thank you for coming to see me, Mr. Franklin. I’m sorry this couldn’t have gone differently,” I said as he slid out the door.

He didn’t bother to answer, but I wasn’t surprised.

As the headache threatened to grow to massive proportions, I slid my hand under the scarf and grabbed the hundred. I’d swipe it out for a fifty before I paid my father. The money, in turn, would go to Vano, and he’d come by at the end of the week with our percentage.

Asshole.

I made more money than most of the people in the clan. I knew it because I’d heard people talking about it, some with pride, others with rancor, but I knew I did good for this clan.

And my family got a fucking thirty percent.

Dad only gave me fifteen percent of that.

On a given day, I could make anywhere from seven hundred to a thousand bucks, and I got next to nothing from it.

It was like I was living two or three hundred years in the past.

I hated it.

Irritated now, and with my headache even worse, I got up and hit the switch for the sign.

That simple act removed some of the garishness from the room.

If one ignored little things like the copper bowl in the middle of the coffee table, all the crystals that littered the bookshelves and other mystical looking items, the room looked…almost normal. Which was how I preferred it. If Papa had his way, there would be a grand old wooden table in the middle of the room, complete with a crystal ball, but I’d put my foot down on that.

If it was my con, then it was my show.

He’d caved.

Thankfully.

I didn’t have anybody scheduled for another hour, so I was going to take lunch. It wasn’t the best time for it. Noon sometimes brought in our best walk-in business, but I wasn’t in the mood to try and tell the next blue-eyed blonde that her prince was out there waiting for her, all she had to do was be patient.

Once in the back of the house, I stripped off all the bracelets I wore as Sirene. I slid the skirt off and folded it, tucking it on the shelf I used to hold most of my get-up for when I was on, then padded down the hall in in a long tank, leggings, and sandals, feeling more like Suria now.

I couldn’t completely strip off everything since I had to go back out there after I ate, but at least I felt a little more like me.

“Hey, Suri!”

My little sister, Joelle, stood at the stove, stirring something in a skillet. “That smells good. Whatever it is, I’ll have a double.”

She grinned at me and nodded to the table. “I already scooped you out some. Figured you’d be hungry. You didn’t eat breakfast.”

Happily, I slid into the seat and started to eat.

It was just me and Joelle right now. My father and aunt were off somewhere close by – most of the family lived in the general area – and if either of them had planned to go anywhere that would take them away long, I would have been notified and told to behave, as always.

My cousin was out working her job, one similar to mine, but a little farther away.

Trice and I had plans to go out soon. Hopefully, nothing interfered with it – like her mother or my father.

The family didn’t like when us Gypsy girls mingled with the gadje – non-Romany. But I personally felt more and more constrained by the family and looked forward to any chance to get away from them, even if just for a few hours.

“You and Trice still going out?” Joelle asked in an eerie echo of my thoughts.

“Yes.” Smiling at her over a spoonful of whatever spicy pasta and chicken concoction I was eating, I said, “I’m just hoping it doesn’t get screwed up like last time.”

She made a face, and I could see the sympathy in her eyes. “I can’t wait until I’m old enough to go with you,” she confessed. “The only time I get out of here is when Papa decides to let me go shopping.”

“I know.” I felt guilty then. At least I was old enough to drink. At least Papa knew that if he tried to lock me down too tight, I’d just fly away. The only thing that kept me here was my sister and cousin, and he knew it. He wanted the money I brought in too much to risk it, so I had more freedom than a lot of women in my situation could.

But it wasn’t enough.

“Listen to us,” Joelle said, laughing. The sound was low and more than a little bitter. “Don’t we sound grim?”

“We don’t sound grim,” I told her firmly. “We sound like women who know what we want in life.”

And it wasn’t this.

But achieving it wasn’t as easy as all that.

I couldn’t say we lived in a cage.

I couldn’t exactly say we didn’t, either.

Pasting a smile on my face, I tapped the empty space at the cracked Formica table. “Come on, sweetie. Come sit next to me. We’ll talk.”