“What, you thought you’d never get caught?” I scoffed, bitterlaughter scraping my throat. Just how fucking arrogant was he?
“No one else would have caught me except you.”
The words hit like a slap. Fury exploded behind my ribs, hot and acidic. “Don’t you fucking flatter me right now.”
He had the audacity to look hurt. Actually hurt, like I’d wounded him somehow with my rejection of his twisted compliment.
How could he just stand there, looking at me like that? Like none of the last few hours happened.
“Are you going to kill me now?” The question came out flat, matter-of-fact. I was almost curious to hear the answer, in that distant way you might wonder about the weather. I wasn’t sure which god I’d pissed off to end up in a situation like this, but I wasn’t feeling optimistic about my odds.
“Of course not.” Tom recoiled as if the thought were absurd, as if keeping me tied up in his basement was completely reasonable but killing me was somehow beyond the pale.
“Excuse me for looking at the circumstances and coming to that conclusion. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
What other option was there, really? The logic was simple. He was going to kill me. Maybe not right at this moment, maybe not today, but soon. He just hadn’t figured out how to do it yet. Hadn’t worked out the logistics.
I was a detective. He couldn’t just make me disappear without raising questions. Most people would suspect foul play. And everyone knew that Tom and I were involved, which only complicated things further.
This whole situation was insane. Beyond anything I’d dealt with before. I kept waiting for it to fully sink in, for reality to crash down and drown me. But it stayed at a distance, hazyand surreal, like I was watching it happen to someone else.
Tom came closer and set the plate down, sliding it across the concrete floor toward me.
“Shay—”
“Don’t.” I bit the word off. “Don’t say my name like that. Like you have any right to it.”
He fell silent.
I pulled against the cuffs, testing them. They held firm, unyielding. The metal dug deeper into my already raw wrists, and I felt something warm trickle down my palm. I didn’t care.
“I just—” I stopped, swallowing past the razor blades in my throat. “I don’t know how I never saw it before.”
But that wasn’t entirely true, was it?
I’d always known there was something off about him. Something not quite right beneath the surface. But I hadn’t trusted it. I’d told myself I was being paranoid, that I was imagining things. Tommy was such a nice guy. An absolute sweetheart. Helpful and considerate and kind.
Fucking Naomi. She was the one who’d been pushing me toward him in the first place, insisting we were perfect for each other.
I couldn’t wait to see how she’d react when she found out her matchmaking had set me up with a serial killer.
If I ever had the chance to tell her, of course.
The thought sent a fresh spike of fury through me. I looked at Tom again, trying to reconcile this person with the man who’d cooked me dinner, who’d been kissing me in his kitchen only a few short hours ago. That sweet and gentle man was nowhere to be found.
“I knew you were bad news,” I said, the words coming out harsh and ugly. “From the moment I saw you, I knew.”
Maybe I had always known, on some deep, instinctual level. Maybe I’d just chosen to ignore it.
Tom didn’t respond. He just watched me with those calm, unreadable eyes—the same eyes that had looked at me with what I’d once mistaken for love.
I grabbed the plate he’d set down and hurled it at him with all the strength I could muster.
It sailed through the air and shattered against the wall beside his head. Food splattered across the concrete—some kind of sandwich, it looked like. How thoughtful. How fucking considerate of him to think about my nutritional needs at this moment.
“Fuck you!” The words ripped out of me, ragged and vicious. “Fuck you, Tom!”
He didn’t move. Didn’t even flinch. He just stood there while I screamed at him, while the anger poured out of me in waves that seemed to have no end.
