His name on mine.
And nothing between us at all.
Except the love we finally get to live.
* Christ,so good.
* “Yes, my love.”
The houses here all match. White fences. Clean windows. Lawns so symmetrical they look AI-generated. But Corrine’s is a step above creepy-perfect. Her mailbox is so polished it probably has a skincare routine.
Jaxon leans over to whisper as we sneak through the lawns to her house. “Who even lives like this? Her lawn has stripes. Is she okay?”
“Focus, Jax.”
He grunts, pulling his black-hoodie tighter. “This is breaking and entering. You know that, right? I'm rich. I can’t go to prison. They’d put me in minimum security with no tech. I'd have to play board games with dentists who didn’t pay their taxes.”
“And yet you still got in my car when I told you to wear something dark,” I mutter, grabbing the small-black device he’d been fidgeting with since we left my apartment. “Tell me how this thing works.”
“Excuse you.” He snatches it back with an offended gasp. “One of us is the world’s youngest tech genius and the other can run a mile in six-inch stilettos. Watch and weep.”
He crouches by the keypad near Corrine’s front door, squinting at it with the concentration of a bomb-defusal scene in an action movie. The device clicks softly, then emits a quiet series of beeps—three short chimes.
Jaxon grins like he just hacked the Pentagon. “Boom. I’m amazing. The alarm’s down. Door’s unlocked. And by the way...” He steps back with a dramatic bow. “Security feed has been recording on a loop for the last hour.”
I don’t waste time and push the door open like I own the place.
The air inside smells faintly of pine cleaner and smugness. It’s cold—crisp in a way that screams no one lives here full-time. Too curated. Too untouched. Every pillow fluffed. Every picture frame perfectly aligned. It’s the kind of place that looks staged, like a model home frozen in time.
Jaxon steps in behind me. “How long do we have?” he whispers, eyes darting from room to room like he expects the walls to sprout hidden security cameras.
“You know you don’t have to whisper, right?” I roll my eyes and head straight for the kitchen. “I told Frankie to keep her at the office as long as she could. No promises.”
“Great,” he mutters. “Love a vague ticking clock. That always ends well.”
Corrine is hiding something. I absolutely know it. She’s been in everything too much, but at the same time in nothing. Too invisible for it to be a coincidence.
And we’re going to find out what it is—tonight.
“This woman alphabetized her vitamins.” Jax is staring into a cabinet, hands on his hips before he reaches in.
There is nothing here, so I head upstairs.
Jaxon follows reluctantly, like a man being led to his own murder. “You know, when I said I was bored and wanted something to get into tonight, I meant like... Vegas. Or something fun like hacking the White House again and changing the President’s email. Not felony trespassing in a Stepford-wife’s murder castle.”
The number of times I’ve rolled my eyes while we’ve been in this house should be a new world record.
“You were the one who begged me to let you in on the action,” I remind him, walking into her bedroom. “This is the action.”
“This is how white women die in true-crime podcasts.”
“Then don’t get caught.”
Corrine’s bedroom is just as unsettling as the rest of the house. Not a single wrinkle in the sheets. Closet doors shut. Everything staged like it’s waiting for a real person to move in.
I open the closet and immediately regret not bringing gloves. Not because I’m worried about fingerprints—Corrine’s too busy manipulating lives to dust for those—but because everything in here is pristine. Like museum-exhibit pristine. Her shoes are lined up like soldiers. Color-coded. Heel height descending from left to right.
This woman orgasms off control. “She is a fucking psychopath.”
