The world flips upside down.Sound goes thin.My ribs cinch; my heart throws a wrong beat that feels like drowning in place.Heat climbs under my skin, mean and fast.She struck a match inside my chest and held it there.The edges of the counter blur.The hum of the refrigerator turns into a siren.
I put my knife on the counter—flat, deliberate—blade facing away from her, hilt away from me.My fingers itch to keep it.I slide the steel past my reach until it kisses the tile grout and stops.Then I lift my hands, palms empty, because the part of me that solves problems only knows one way, and it’s already lining up answers: open her throat, quiet the room, remove the threat; pop the pulse under her jaw, spill the blood; split the sternum and take the heart out with my bare fucking hands so it can’t ever lie to me again.
Pictures of her flicker.There’s a million ways, and she’d never see me coming.The kitchen-tile version: hair fanned like spilled ink, lips gone the wrong kind of blue, my ring loose on a cooling finger.The staircase version: cheek pressed to wood, one heel missing, phone face-down still lined up perfect with a grout line.The bath version: water quiet, lashes stuck together, strawberry soap still on her skin.TheMirageversion: curtain half-open, sequins spilled, those clever hands finally still.The bed version: red sheets pulled neat, her side cold.Each frame lands like a hammer.Bile climbs.My vision crisps at the edges.Something in my chest tries to escape, like my heart wants to crawl out and go look for hers on its own.The world is the true machine, and it eats what you love.It’s inevitable for men like me.
I lock my knees.Count the veins in my forearms instead of the ones in her neck.Breathe through my teeth until the taste of metal fades.The knife stays where I left it, cold and obedient, and I stay where I am, because if I move before I’m sure, I’ll do something I can never take back.
Not her.
Never her.
But it mayhaveto be her.
I told Adrian I wouldn’t ruin us.How in the fuck did I fall in love with someone who is clearly willing to do anything to make me weak, to blindside me, to weasel in and have me destroy everything I’ve built, everything I’ve ever cared about, all in the name of what?Love?
I hear the click of my own teeth before I speak.“Who put that in your mouth?”My voice is quiet enough to be dangerous.“Adrian?Evie?Caleb?Was it Blake?Did a fucking badge tell you what would break me?”It had to have been Blake.My brothers would never betray me and Blake could know about those kills, even if she doesn’t have the evidence to prove I did it.
“No one told me,” she says.“I’m telling you what I feel.What I see.”
“You don’t get to use her name like that.”The air goes tight.“You don’t get to put London on the table like a chip.Ever.”I don’t give a fuck about the kills.If I go down for what I did, I’ll hate it, but I can live with it.What I can’t live with is my wife dangling the possibility of London on some spiritual bullshit to what…what is she trying to gain?
“I’m not bargaining,” she says, softer.“I’m being honest.”
“Honest would be proof.”I hear myself and hate the sound.Cold.Exact.“Honest would be more than words and some made up fucking story about ghosts.”
She flinches but holds my gaze.“You gave me your truths.I was only trying to give you mine.”
Pulse.Pupils.Micro-pauses.If she’s a fucking con, she’s the best one I’ve ever seen.How did we not clock her for what she is?She’s been around the best, Kostya, Evie, all the bastards I play poker with can outcon the best and no one suspected her.
If she’s losing her mind, that’s another story.I’ll carry her to every appointment.I’ll take care of her, figure out how to help her.But if she’s bait, I’ll kill her and burn this fucking city to the ground.I think the words but the golfball in my throat makes me question if I could do it.I look at my knife.Melinda doesn’t move.Could I end her life?Could Sava?Dominic or Kostya?I love her.They all love her.How the fuck did I let this happen?
“You say London to me one more time without something I can put my hands on,” I say, “and I will tear this city up by the roots until there’s nothing left to hide behind.”
“That’s not what I?—”
“Don’t ever say her name again, Melinda.”My jaw clicks.“I gave you everything.I’d give you anything.Answer any question.Kill for you.Die for you.I don’t know how to fathom breathing without you.You had all of me without using London.I don’t know what you’re after, but I would’ve given it without all this… whatever the fuck this is.”I can’t accuse her out loud.I tell myself I have to have proof but in reality the accusation is one she’ll never forgive me for if I’m wrong.Worse, if I’m right there’s only one thing left to do and for the first time since I made my first cut through flesh I question if I have the balls to do it.
Silence.
I feel the old night in my bones.The one that made me.And I feel this newer night, this possible future that will eat me alive if it manifests.She is standing in both.The boy she could’ve saved.Did save for a while.The man, the Machine, will only ever break her.
I step back because if I don’t, I’ll say something unforgivable, do something irreversible, or I’ll believe her.I can’t allow myself any of those right now.
“Logan.”I don’t raise my voice.He appears in the doorway anyway.“She doesn’t leave this house.No one comes in, no one goes out.”
“Yes, sir.”
I look at her once, and it feels like looking at the sun.I’m moving before the part of me that wants to kneel can argue.Hallway.Stairs.The door takes the hit my fist wants, my knuckles cracked and bleeding.Outside air knives my lungs.My Harley answers on the first kick, loud enough to drown the thing in me that wants to believe her, that begs to believe London is alive somewhere.
At the end of the driveway I call Adrian.
“Cassius,” he says after half a ring.
“You and Mavik need to trace that Detective’s movements.Everything.All the way back to the night Melinda texted me, probably even before that.Check every camera.Find out if they ever spoke besides the one time she told me about.And track Melinda back too.Who was she talking to prior to texting me?Was there ever time for her to meet someone when me or Atlas didn’t have eyes on her?”
“What the hell happened Cassius?”
“That’s a story for when I get to your house, just check the damn feeds.”
