“Look, I’m just saying, if I hadn’t seen him break into your house and come over, your eyeballs would have been spooned across the bathroom by now.”
“What do you mean ‘seen him’?” Tom fires back.
“We were just keeping an eye on you. We wanted to get to know you properly?” Sam says calmly.
“What? Like cameras?”
Sam dodges the question. “You know he won’t hurt you again, right? You know he’s gone for good.”
Tom stays quiet, but again the pressure on his neck eases for a second.
“He came around earlier, just before you did. Worst possible timing. He had your laptop, some incriminating videos, said he was going to the police unless we gave him money,” Sam admits.
“I don’t believe you,” Tom says, but Sam knows he does.
“It’s true,” Pete adds. “But we silenced him.”
“You’re lying…” Tom breathes.
But he isn’t lying.
Daniel thought he was walking into a negotiation.
That was his first mistake.
He turned up waving Tom’s laptop like a golden ticket, convinced a few video files made him king of the room. Then produced the gun, which was his next mistake. He said words likeleverageandsettlementandwe can do this quietly, as if he hadn’t already crossed a line you don’t come back from. Pete let him talk—Pete’s good at that, letting people think they’re steering the ship right up until they realise they’re already in the water.
By the time Daniel figured out he wasn’t the one holding power, it was too late.
Another obstacle removed.
Cleanly. Efficiently. Permanently.
And also left them with a gun, which has proved useful up to this point.
“He’s out of your life for good now,” Sam says. “Because of us.”
“We did it for you. Because we care for you,” Pete says. The way he can flip on those puppy-dog eyes on demand is a true gift, Sam thinks.
Sam’s heart thuds a steady, practical tempo — think, don’t panic — and he measures distances in steps, plots trajectories for improvised weapons, imagines the arc of a chair hurled as a barrier. There’s a phone on the coffee table, but it’s face-down and locked.
He breathes, slow and shallow, and decides: movement first; distraction second; then the vase.
He just needs Tom to move about ten steps over.
“His body’s in the garage. I can show you,” Sam says.
Then Sam feels it.
A pen in his pocket—cheap, black plastic—he put it there earlier. Now it feels like a weapon. He slides his fingers against the barrel, feeling its small coolness, and the motion is mechanical, rehearsed.
Change of plan.
“No, I don’t want to see it,” Tom says. “I just want to leave.”
That’s not going to happen, Sam thinks.
“And I’m going out the front door, right now,” Tom says, trying to stay calm, but Sam can feel the vibrations of his shaking hand through the blade.
