Page 67 of To All the Guys I Killed Before

He just cannot stop lawyering, can he?

I turn slowly. “What, like a quid pro quo?”

“C’mon.” He tries to smile, but the movement pulls at the gash on his chin, and he winces. “You know how well I respond to incentives.”

Instead of rolling my eyes, I play along and pretend to think about it. “What did you have in mind?”

“Let’s say you take the restraints off.” He offers it like it’s the most brilliant suggestion in the world, but when I continue to stare at him flatly, he quickly adds, “Just one arm. Not even my dominant one, my left one.”

“Hmm.” I cock my hip and examine the arm in question. “I suppose it would make you more comfortable.”

“Yes!” More nodding. More smiling, which sends a fresh rivulet of blood down his neck. “And we both know comfortable people are more talkative.”

“That’s a great argument, counselor.” I nod and walk briskly over to him, setting my hand on his left wrist and sliding my knife over the first zip tie.

“Thank you,” he says earnestly. “I swear, I’ll⁠—”

With a quick motion, I reposition the blade so it’s over his pinkie finger, and with a hard downward thrust, I push it through skin, muscle, and bone, not stopping until metal hits metal and his finger’s on the floor.

“Comfortable now?” I ask as his screams fill the room. “I’ll be back when you’re ready to talk.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Hugo

Months of footage. Months and months.

I’ve scrubbed, backed up, zoomed in. I’ve leaned so close my nose touched the monitor. I’ve seen every angle of Rue’s neck there is to see. My head’s throbbing, but Pell’s driveway footage confirms it: she’s never been caught on camera in a necklace.

I power down the monitor and shuffle from my office to my bedroom, tapping the app on my phone that sends music pouring through the wireless speakers embedded in the walls throughout my half of the duplex. Then I collapse onto the mattress and drag a pillow over my face. The pillow’s to block out the light currently threatening to melt my eyeballs, and the music’s to drown out the confusion in my brain.

Hopefully by the time I wake up, my subconscious will have coughed up a logical explanation for the necklace puzzle, or it’ll have convinced my conscious mind to let it go.

I’m still wondering which option is preferable when I finally surrender to my exhaustion and sink into sleep.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Rue

“Do you need a cigarette?” Fi says in place of hello. “Because I need a cigarette.”

“Neither of us smokes.” I drop into the chair in front of the bank of monitors, stripping off my gloves with a sigh and popping my AirPods into my ears.

“I might need to start,” she says. “I love you more than anyone in the world, but I’m a little terrified of you right now.”

My eyes fall to the screen on the bottom right, the only one that doesn’t show my ex screaming and thrashing in real time. It’s paused on a different video, the one from when we were still together.

We’d had such a nice day. He’d suggested we go to the farmers market. He’d suggested it. He fed me samples of local honey and carried the bag when I insisted we buy freshly baked bread to go along with it. We held hands and walked along the lakefront. When I’d complained that the wind was blowing my hair in my eyes, he laughingly tied it back with the red ribbon from the honey jar.

I know the video’s from that day because the red ribbon’s still in my hair as I’m kneeling between his legs, naked and blissed out from the afternoon.

“He deserves it,” I say sharply.

“Oh, totally. I’m just enjoying the show.” She laughs darkly. “Hell, I’m taking notes. There’s stuff I could steal.”

“Steal for what?” I flex my fingers, keeping them limber for what’s to come. “If an ex ever does this to you, it’ll be my pleasure to put him in the Chamber and make him pay for it.”

She sniffs. “I’ll collect my own debts, thank you very much. Also, your neighbor has appalling taste in music.”