Page 156 of Cold Mercy

Thomas calls my name through gritted teeth, but the sound makes me sick.

He was never mine. He was just a dog on a leash, running errands for his masters. And me? I was simply collateral damage, a side effect of his ambition. I wasn't a woman he loved. I was a conquest to be enslaved just so his sick, twisted ego could feel like it won.

My voice fractures.

“I ruined myself for both of you,” I whisper. “For the boy I loved and the man I trusted, and all you ever did was take.”

Noah smiles, almost lovingly, and it’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen.

“Oh, sweetheart,” he murmurs. “I’ll fix all of this. You'll understand soon.”

I shake my head, trembling violently.

“I would rather die,” I breathe, “than belong to either of you.”

The room goes silent, broken only by the sound of Thomas struggling against his restraints.

“Sophia, look at me,” his voice raw.

I won't. I stare at the floor, nausea rising in waves, feeling truly, completely alone. My eyes betray me anyway, sliding toward him for the briefest, hated second.

He doesn’t even look like Thomas anymore. I don’t recognize him. Or maybe I do. Maybe I am finally seeing the stranger who wrote that file.

His jaw hangs tight, teeth gritted so hard a nerve twitches in his cheek.

He's soaked, no, flooded, with red, the pools beneath his chair spreading across the concrete like a slow-moving tide. Each drip hitting the floor sounds like a countdown.

I force my gaze downward, but the image is burned into me.

My whole life has been spent orbiting liars, abusers, men who promised safety while sharpening the knives they’d eventually use on me. I thought I had clawed my way free. I thought I had become someone impossible to break.

No innocent victim, no trick of the light, you walked with eyes open straight into the night. You wanted the fire, you fanned every flame, the only salvation is ending the game.

CHAPTER 40

THOMAS

If I'm still conscious, that means he missed the femoral artery. Or maybe he nicked it, and the only thing keeping me alive is adrenaline and the willingness to live, for her. But the pool of red spreading beneath the chair says otherwise. I'm bleeding out fast.

My vision flickers in and out, catching only impressions of her on the ground, wrists raw, hair tangled and soaked in sweat and dirt.

We were so fucking arrogant, chasing shadows and money trails, convinced we were hunting a ghost, while he was watching us the whole time. And Sophia... God, I can’t even let myself imagine the wreckage inside her head right now. To mourn a man, to survive his loss, only to find out he’s the monster holding the gun.

She’s right there, close enough that I should be able to reach her, but the restraints bite into my wrists behind the chair, and I can’t move. She looked at those files and saw the worst version of me. My gut clenches, a sharp, sickening recoil at my past. I want to scream that the man on that tape is gone, erased by her, replaced by someone who would burn the world to keep her safe. But the evidence is right there in her hands, and the man who loves her is dying in this chair, unable to make her believe him.

I swallow blood and try to force words out, my throat shredded.

“Sophia… please… I’m sorry. I swear to you… I didn’t know back then. I didn’t—”

“Shut up!”

The scream rips out of her, a raw, agonal sound that doesn't seem to belong to the woman I know. She slams her hands against the sides of her head, her fingers clawing frantically into her scalp. She tangles her hands in her hair, gripping the roots and pulling hard, hard enough to hurt, as if she’s trying to physically drag all of this out of her skull.

“Just shut up!” she shrieks, rocking back and forth on her knees, her body curled inward like she’s trying to hold herself together before she shatters completely.

A cold terror grips my chest. She looks like she’s in physical pain, like the very air around her is hurting her. She’s unraveling right in front of me, retreating into a nightmare I can’t see, and I’m the one who sent her there.

“I don’t want to hear it!” she screams at the floor, at the walls, at nothing. “Shut up, shut up, shut up!”