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“You didn’t mean it.”

“I did.”

He stepped inside anyway, closing the door behind him with a soft click. He looked around my small apartment like he was appraising it.

“Nice place. I’ve spent enough on you to own a few hours here and there, don’t you think?”

“Get out!”

“Don’t be like that. You’re acting too good for me all of a sudden.”

I backed up a step. “Leave!”

He grabbed my wrist, like I already belonged to him. I jerked away hard.

He laughed. “Ungrateful little bitch. This your rich boyfriend’s idea? He’ll get bored. They always do.”

Something snapped inside me. “Get the fuck out of my apartment!”

He refused. Grabbed me harder. I shoved him. He shoved back. I stumbled and fell, hip hitting the floor.

I scrambled backward into the kitchen on my hands and feet. He followed, his eyes locked on me with that same cold intent. My hand closed around the first thing I touched. The heavy cast iron skillet on the stove. He lunged forward. I swung with everything I had. The impact jarred up my arm and into my shoulder. He stumbled, blinking in surprise. For a second I froze, my heart hammering in my chest. He came at me again. I swung harder this time. He collapsed to the floor with a heavy thud. The silence that followed was deafening. I stood there, chest heaving, the skillet still raised in my shaking hands.

“Ron?”

Nothing.

I knelt beside him, my legs trembling beneath me. I touched his shoulder with hesitant fingers. Then I rolled him over. Blood. A lot of it, spreading dark and sticky across the tiles of my kitchen floor. The metallic scent filled the air and turned my stomach, but I forced myself to breathe through it.

No time for weakness. Not now.

I backed into the corner of the kitchen, my hands shaking so badly that I could barely keep them still. The skillet clattered to the floor beside me. I stared at the body, at the blood. I had helped Richard dispose of a client’s body weeks ago, so I knew the basics of what came next. But I had never killed anyone myself. The reality of it settled over me like ice water. I was nervous, deeply nervous, in a way that made my thoughts race in frantic circles.

How did people make a body disappear? Acid? No, that was ridiculous and I had none. A shallow grave somewhere remote? Too risky without help. Cut him up and bag the pieces? The idea made my skin crawl, and I knew I lacked both the tools and the stomach for it right now.

I pushed myself up on unsteady legs and grabbed at his arm, trying to drag him toward the back door. He didn’t budge. He was too heavy, a dead weight that refused to move more than a few inches no matter how hard I pulled. My muscles burned and my breath came in short gasps. This wasn’t going to work. Not alone.

There was only one person who could handle this. Richard. Because somewhere deep down I already knew he could fix anything. I crawled toward the phone on the counter, my fingers slick with sweat and a trace of blood. I dialed his number. The line rang and rang. No answer. My pulse spiked higher. I hung up and immediately dialed again, gripping the phone so tightly my knuckles ached.

This time he picked up.

“Richard,” I whispered, my voice cracking with the weight of everything I had just done. “I need you.”

Twenty minutes later Richard arrived. I’d been pacing the apartment the whole time, stepping around the blood, my hands still trembling. When he walked through the door his eyes swept over the scene, then over me. He asked calm, precise questions. I answered as best I could.

He got to work without another word. He dragged the body into the bathroom, laid it in the tub, and did what needed doing. He chopped the body up, wrapped each part in garbage bags, and loaded them into one of my suitcases. While he worked he cleaned everything with bleach, the tub, the floor, the door, every surface that might have been touched. When he was finished he carried the suitcase out and disposed of it in a dumpster behind the apartment building that he said probably nobody would check for days.

After he came back we sat down at the small kitchen table, the air still thick with the smell of blood and bleach.

“Is your name on the apartment?” He asked.

“No,” I said. “I used someone else’s name and social.”

“Good girl,” he said quietly.

“How many clients have been here?” he asked.

“I don’t know,” I said. “None since you told me not to. He was the first one who wouldn’t take no for an answer.”