Total pages in book: 116
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 109878 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 549(@200wpm)___ 440(@250wpm)___ 366(@300wpm)
Tomorrow I’ll have to acknowledge that everything changed tonight—not just with the message we sent the Crow, but with how badly I wanted to finish what we started in that dressing room. The line we crossed once. The line I’ll spend the rest of my life wanting to cross again.
Just another taste like we had at the White Note.
One more lick . . .
Peter’s daughter!
One more kiss . . .
Peter’s daughter!
The way she . . .
Peter’s fucking daughter!
But that kiss she just gave me was a declaration of war against my self-control. And her invitation into her bedroom was a promise that this battle is far from over.
She’s already winning.
Chapter Twenty
Saylor
There’s something perversely therapeutic about applying winged eyeliner when you’re planning to commit your first murder. I stand in front of the vanity mirror at 6 a.m., drawing liquid black lines with the same careful attention I imagine goes into slitting throats. Today calls for armor, and mine happens to be a fitted black dress with white polka dots, victory rolls that could survive a hurricane, and red lipstick dark enough to hide bloodstains.
If I’m going to ask a man to teach me how to kill people, I’m damn well going to look like I deserve the lesson.
The walk downstairs feels different this morning. My Mary Janes click a steady rhythm against the floors, but instead of nerves, I feel something closer to anticipation. Yesterday I was a grieving daughter playing dress-up in a world I didn’t understand. Today I’m someone who kissed a killer and asked for seconds.
Blue is already at the breakfast table, wearing a burgundy velvet smoking jacket that makes him look like he stepped out of a Sherlock Holmes story. His dark hair is perfectly styled, that blue-tinted beard groomed to aristocratic polish, and he’s reading stock reports instead of his usual newspaper.
When he looks up and sees me, something alters in his face. His eyes travel from my hair down to my patent leather shoes and back up again, lingering on the way the dress hugs my waist.
“Well,” he says, setting down his papers. “Someone’s ready to take on the world.”
I slide into my chair, accepting coffee from Wren with a grateful smile. The silence stretches between Blue and me, filled with everything we’re not saying. The kiss. The promise. The way he looked at me when I asked him to let me kill them myself.
Wren pours Blue’s coffee with the careful attention of someone who’s witnessed awkward morning-afters before. “Eggs Benedict this morning, dear?”
“Perfect,” I manage.
She disappears into the kitchen, leaving Blue and me alone with our newspapers and coffee cups and the weight of last night hanging between us like expensive perfume.
“Sleep well?” Blue asks finally.
“Fine.” I take a sip of coffee, savoring the way it burns down my throat. “You?”
“Well enough.”
We eat breakfast like civilized people discussing civilized things. Blue mentions the weather forecast. I ask if Dame Gothel enjoyed herself last night. He mentions how impressed Elliott was with the floral arrangements. We discuss the band’s performance, and Blue tells me that Maya asked if I’d consider singing at the autumn art show. Surface-level conversation that skips over the fact that I spent half the night replaying that kiss, and the other half wondering what it would feel like to watch someone die by my own hand.
But underneath the polite chatter, there’s electricity. Every time Blue looks at me, I remember the way his mouth felt against mine. Every time I reach for my coffee cup, I think about his hands arranging flowers in a dead man’s chest cavity, turning murder into dinner décor.
Every time our eyes meet, I catch something that looks like guilt flickering across his features, like he’s already regretting what he’s about to teach me.
Finally, Blue sets down his napkin and checks his pocket watch. “There’s something I want to show you.”
“Oh?”
“Something you asked for last night.”
He leads me through the house to a door I haven’t noticed before, heavy and dark and tucked beneath the grand staircase. When he opens it, stone steps disappear into shadow.
“Basement,” he says, flicking on lights. “Time for that lesson you wanted.”
He pauses at the top of the stairs, his hand on the light switch. “Saylor . . . there’s no shame in changing your mind. You’re still so young, still—”
“I’m not changing my mind,” I interrupt, though something in his tone makes my stomach flutter with nerves I wasn’t expecting.
I follow him down the worn stone steps, the sound of my footsteps bouncing off the narrow walls. The air grows cooler with each step, carrying scents of earth and something metallic that makes my stomach uneasy.
At the bottom, Blue opens another door, and I step into what can only be described as a gentleman’s torture chamber.
The space is larger than I expected, with stone walls that arch overhead and wine racks lining the far wall. But it’s the center of the room that makes my breath catch.