Page 18 of Cold Mercy

I give him a small smile, the controlled and polite kind I perfected, then close the door behind me. By the time I reach the house, the quiet settles in the way it always does at this hour.

I slip off my shoes, set my keys into the bowl by the door, and pause there for a moment, breathing it in. The silence is always crushing me. Except tonight, it feels almost neutral. Not comforting, but bearable.

Out of habit more than curiosity, I turn toward the window beside the door. Thomas’s car is still there, idling at the gate before slowly pulling away, as if he waited to be certain I'm inside. The sight surprises me more than it should.

For all his arrogance and the way he just assumes he can dictate to me what to do, he managed something I haven't done in months: I was living for this one day, instead of existing. I went out, I even finished my meal, which was strange because it hadn't happened to me in a long time. For a moment, he even made me forget about Noah, about the endless silence waiting for me, about the suffocating…everything. And that…that infuriates me. There’s something guarded about him, something I can’t read yet, but maybe that’s normal. Most of us walk around with things we’ll never admit out loud. I’m the last person who should judge anyone for it.

CHAPTER 4

THOMAS

I kept standing in front of my board, scanning the same photos, the same names, the same lines connecting Aurora to Mercer. Nothing had moved. No fresh money trails, no new faces, no sudden mistakes. The only new element that has been added to it is a bar, which, as I found out, belongs to Moreau.

I haven't seen her since that day in Brooklyn a few weeks ago. I’ve kept my distance, burying myself in work, watching the digital ghost of her life. She’s good at what she does. Getting under people’s skin, making them feel things they shouldn’t. Mercy, pity, remorse. She almost caught me with it that day in the diner. But I’m higher than this. I know a performance when I see one. I know she uses charm like a scalpel. Her mask will slip, eventually.

Sadness doesn’t prove a damn thing. People who arrange their partner’s murder cry too. Guilt and grief aren't opposites; they simply coexist. Some people convince themselves that the end justifies the means, then spend years mourning what they sacrificed to get there.

Failure is not an option. I didn’t sign up for this to lose my edge. I promised myself I’d hunt down people like her, not stand next to them pretending we’re normal.

Today I’m meeting James to pick out suits. Groom and best man, standing in a store pretending we know anything about tailoring. Maybe he’ll say something without realizing it. Maybe I’ll catch a detail I missed before. Or it’ll be another dead end.

Either way, I’m not walking into the next Grace’s meeting empty-handed.

James is already waiting outside the tailor shop. When I reach him, he claps a hand on my shoulder like this is some casual outing. The place smells like pressed fabric and clean steam. Bright but warm lights, mirrors everywhere. For God's sake, I’ve walked into interrogation rooms that felt less revealing.

Something tightens in my chest when we pass the wedding section. It’s sharp and fast, gone almost as soon as it hits, but I feel it. I hate that I do. I’m twenty-nine, and I’ve never even been engaged. I always assumed I'd eventually have a wife and a place that felt permanent. Kids making noise, I’d pretend to complain about. It seemed inevitable at some point. Instead, I built a life of long hours and no room for attachments, a life built on too many lies stacked on top of each other. That wasn’t an accident. It was a choice.

A good choice. No kid should have me as their father, and no woman should have a husband like me.

James glances at me.

“So…how was that day with Sophia? You two looked like you survived something together.”

“Intense. But she wasn’t as hostile as I expected.”

James gives a soft laugh.

“If you knew her before everything happened, you would have really liked her,” he says. “She used to be warm. Open. But Noah was alive then, so… forget it. I’m rambling.”

Like her. That's funny.

I hold back a scoff. I don't do ‘warm and open.’ Warm and open usually means naive, and naive gets you killed in my line of work. However, I nod like a good friend.

“From what you tell me, Noah wouldn’t have let any guy get near her.”

“Oh, absolutely not. He completely adored her.”

A silence settles, providing the perfect opening. I need to push him, just a little, to see what spills out.

“James… do you think any of those accusations about Noah were ever real?”

He stops flipping through fabrics, and exhales long and slow.

“Elizabeth handled most of their books. But Noah had… some things… on private accounts. He always said it was software he sold on the side. Small stuff for companies.”

He rubs his jaw, looking conflicted.

“If you ever tell Liz this, I will die a very painful death and take you with me,” he adds. “Noah used to joke after a few drinks. He’d say, ‘Big money never comes clean.’”