“No. He took my life from me. He doesn’t get to keep his. If you hunt murderers, and I have a murderer to be killed, why not…” I gesture vaguely. “Collaborate on this one?”
Cassian hasn’t spoken since I started talking, but his gaze has darkened. His knuckles are white where he grips his knife, like he’s either considering my offer or holding back the urge to stab something. His jaw is tight enough to crush diamonds.
“How do you want him to die?” he finally asks.
I blink. “Are you taking commissions?” I try to joke. Of course, it doesn't land. Cassian is the human embodiment of a brick wall.
“I have my ways,” he says evenly. “You might think of us as a group, but we've all killed before.”
“Individually?” I ask.
“Yes.” He gives the slightest nod. “I like to kill my targets the way they killed theirs.”
Ah. A murdery little mirror match. How poetic.
He doesn’t need to say anything else for me to understand—it was his idea, makingthatman die exactly the way he made his victims suffer. I don’t know why he does it. Probably wouldn’t tell me even if I asked. But clearly, he’s offering the same deal to me.
But this time, something is different. He’s giving me achoice. He asked me how I wanted it done, as if, just for this moment, he’s willing to set aside his usual method—for me.
“Do you have a preference?” he asks me.
I swallow and roll my shoulders back, trying to shake off the ridiculous amount of mental energy I’ve spent fantasizing about my ex-husband’s death. I mean, it’s basically been my nightly lullaby—sometimes with extra suffering, sometimes with poetic irony, sometimes with a Final Destination level of overly complicated cause-and-effect bullshit.
But now that I’m here, standing at the precipice of actually choosing how he dies, my throat feels tight. Like my brain just realized, this is real. This isn’t just shower thoughts and imaginary monologues anymore.
“When he was killing me, I…” I start. “I felt powerless. Not in a way someone feels when they’re just overpowered physically, but in the way that breaks something inside you. Like the world was supposed to have rules, and he shattered them in front of me, and there was nothing I could do but let it happen.”
Cassian watches me carefully.
“You want him to feel the same,” he says. Again, it’s not a question, but a realization. This time, it’s a very unsettling, been-there-before kind of realization.
I let out a slow breath.
“Yes,” I admit. “I do. But he's not a simple man to break. He's cold, and ruthless, and even after killing me, he… I don't think he felt a damn thing.”
Talon rubs his jaw, while Nathaniel steeples his fingers. Cassian keeps staring at me.
“Everyone feels something,” he says finally. “Some people just don’t feel the right things at the right time.”
Something about the way he says it makes me pause. His mismatched eyes hollow out for a second, like he’s looking at something else, something not in this room. His breath stutters.
And then, just as quickly, it’s gone.
“What does he value in life?” he asks. “What would hurt the most if he lost it?”
I hesitate. Not because I don’t know the answer—I do. I know exactly what that bastard values.
It’s just that saying it out loud makes something twist deep inside me, something bitter and broken. Something that whispers, this shouldn’t still hurt like this.
I suppose, throughout my entire marriage, I wanted to be important to him. I wanted to matter more than his money, the inheritance, his picture-perfect job. I wanted to be seen. And in return, I got a masterclass in emotional neglect.
I learned not to expect anything. To be the perfect little ghost of a woman—supportive, quiet, taking up as little space as possible while making sure he had everything he needed. And in the end, even that wasn’t enough.
Because I was never what he valued.
I press my lips together, inhaling sharply through my nose.
“His reputation,” I say finally. “His control. His power over others. He likes to be seen as the perfect man—upstanding, successful, unshakable. His whole life is built around that image. It’s what he values most.”
