Belief won’t save him.
The kill-zone shrinks with each step, the hum of the shower steady behind the walls—marking time, opportunity, and the beginning of his end.
Julian Lemaire doesn’t know he’s already sharing the room with the man who came here to finish him.
I move closer, the air tightening with each step, the blade balanced in my grip. A snore rattles in and out.
The knife touches his throat in a single, deliberate motion. Not a slice. No pressure. A whisper of cold steel settling over his pulse.
His eyes snap open. Confusion hits first, and fear follows.
“Don’t move.”
His breathing kicks up. His body is frozen, muscles coiled beneath skin perfected with touch-ups and Botox injections.
I bet this is a situation he never imagined himself in.
“We’re going to talk about Laurette Devereux.”
Recognition flares, then irritation. Smug arrogance slithers back over his expression.
“So you’re here about her,” he says, amusement tainting the edges of the words. “Let me guess. She cried to you about our little conversation. Did she also tell you I intend to kill her if she keeps pushing?”
He thinks power still lives in his voice, and his threats still mean something.
Julian’s smirk sharpens, confidence blooming in the face of his own delusion. “Whatever she’s paying you, I’ll double it. Triple. Name your price.”
A low laugh slips from my chest.
“Unfortunately for you, this isn’t about money.”
That stops him, a real pause, a flicker of unease beneath the arrogance. His eyes narrow, recalibrating, and searching for leverage.
He finds none.
He swallows once. “Let me ask you something. What would you do if someone was trying to ruin your child’s life?”
The attempt at moral ground would be laughable if it weren’t so pathetic.
I lean in, blade steady. “The first thing I’d do is teach my son not to drug women and rape them.”
His smirk fractures.
The facade slips for the first time, just enough to glimpse the coward beneath the charm.
He exhales, trying to deflect, to bargain, to survive. “Fine. I won’t touch the bitch. You have my word.”
I tilt the blade enough for him to feel the increased pressure.
“Too late. You already made the threat. Doubled down on it through her father. You don’t get to walk it back now.”
His jaw tightens. “You can’t just?—”
“Oh, but I can.”
The words cut cleaner than steel.
His pulse jumps beneath the knife when he finally understands what this is.
