My whole body relaxes as my pitbull, King, trots into the kitchen like he owns the place, ears perked, tongue lolling out of the side of his mouth. He spots me on the counter stool and launches himself forward with his usual unearned confidence, two front paws landing heavily in my lap.
"Hey, buddy," I grin, cupping his squishy face in both hands and pressing a kiss between his eyes. "Aww, I missed you, handsome boy!"
He licks my chin once and then settles at my feet like a warm, oversized shadow, his head resting on my bare toes.
"You know there's no DNA at that crime scene," Aleksandr's voice rings through the room low, controlled, almost bored. "I was messy, not an idiot."
Nadia eyes him over her cup. "Thank god for small miracles."
My eyes dart up to Aleksandr, and his grey eyes are already on me. He's ditched the suit entirely now—wearing a fitted black henley that clings just enough to hint at the sharp lines of his torso, the top two buttons undone like an afterthought. His dark joggers hang low on his hips, soft-looking but tailored enough to still be dangerous. His black hair is damp, curling slightly at the ends like he's just stepped out of the shower or, more likely, washed something off—hopefully just blood.
"Thank you for getting King," I whisper.
He nods once and moves to the counter with the precision of a soldier and grabs the last empty mug and moves towards the kettle on the stove, because Aleksandr doesn't drink coffee at all.
Gwen moves away from Nik, and leans across the counter as she speaks. "So, if there's no evidence… You got rid of your clothes, pulled off Officer Lyon's fingernails, and you don't have any fingerprints?—"
"I'm sorry—what?" I cut in, coughing on nothing, nearly spilling the coffee Nadia just handed me. "You don't have any fingerprints?"
Aleksandr doesn't even flinch. He turns on the faucet, letting it run cold before filling the kettle, and placing it on the stove. "My father burned them off."
My eyes practically bulge out of my head as I whip my gaze around the room, waiting—begging—for someone to react. To flinch. To saywhat the actual helllike a normal human being.
But no. Everyone looks terrifyingly calm. Nik just takes another sip of his coffee. Nadia's scrolling through something on her phone like Aleksandr didn't just casually admit his father burned off his fingerprints. Gwen is focused, eyebrows slightly raised in mild interest, but that's it.
When did this even happen? I met Aleksandr when he was ten and I was eight. He taught me how to throw my first punch and called me "book goblin" every time I showed up with my tote bag full of paperbacks. There was never a time he had bandaged fingers. No burns. No missing skin. Nothing.
So either it happened before he was ten—which is deeply horrifying—or he hid it well enough that I didn't even notice.
I'm still stuck on the image—on the sheer violence of that idea—when Gwen clears her throat.
"Lily is the only loose end," she says quietly.
Every head turns to me.
Oh.
Oh God.
Loose end. That's not just a term. That's a problem. That's a target.
I feel the blood drain from my face so fast it's like someone pulled the plug. My coffee sloshes in my mug as my hands tremble, and I press it down to the counter before I drop it entirely.
They're going to kill me.
Of course they're going to kill me. I know too much. I saw too much. This was always how it was going to end—me in a borrowed chair, in a borrowed house, surrounded by beautiful, terrifying people who drink espresso and talk about corpse disposal like it's brunch planning.
This is it. This is how I die.
Not in some big dramatic moment. Not in a car crash or at the hands of a masked stranger. No. I'm going to die in jeans, with coffee in my system and my dog under the table, because I am the loose end.
I squeeze my eyes shut for a second and force a breath into my lungs, but the room's already starting to feel too bright, too loud, like my own panic is pressing up against the inside of my skull.
King shifts at my feet and lets out a low, concerned whine.
Same, buddy. Same.
"So…by loose end you mean you're going to kill me, right?" I squeak, looking down at the chipped pink paint on my fingernails. "I mean, I get it. You've all done so much for me,and I really appreciate it, so… yeah. I can unloose my end. Or maybe it's faster if someone else does it? Or like—I don't know—I'm totally fine disappearing off the face of the planet. A remote island, unlimited books, piña coladas, maybe Thai food because you know how much I love Thai, and?—"
