Page 53 of Cold Mercy

Ward slips out of my grip effortlessly and follows him. At the door, Sterling looks back and blows me a mocking kiss.

“See you in hell, Thomas.”

The second the door shuts, her body gives out. I drop beside her, hands already on the restraints, fingers clumsy and shaking as I tear at the knots binding her wrists. The moment she’s free, she folds in on herself, trembling, furious breath crashing out of her. My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it’s trying to break through my ribs. I steady her with one arm, scanning her face, the split brow, the blood. She looks up at me through tears, fury, betrayal, devastation.

“Sophia—” I start, reaching for her cheek.

She slaps my hand away.

“How the fuck are you always here when everything goes to shit?” she screams.

“You talk to him like you know him,” she hisses, her voice shaking. “He knew your name. He knew you!” She looks up at me through tears.

I raise my hands, palms open.

“Sophia, please. It's not like that. Years ago, he found out about my investigation the same way he just found out about yours, and we met face-to-face.”

I'm searching for any sign in her eyes that says she accepts the half-truth I've just handed her. Right now the only thing that matters to me is for her to trust me. Not for my own sake, but it's the only way I can stay close enough to ensure she's safe.

She doesn’t hear me or refuses to.

“Get out. Get the fuck out of my house. I don’t want you here.”

No, no fucking chance in bloody hell.

“Sophia—” I try, reaching for her again.

“Get. Out.”

She gets up, wiping her face with shaking hands, and walks straight to the envelope Sterling left behind. I know that look on her face; she's seconds away from detonating. Just as I think it, she rips the envelope open, and papers spill across the table. The evidence scatters across the table. Transaction logs, burner phone records, and photos of Noah with a woman who isn't her. It's all there. Everything she spent two years chasing, everything she prayed wasn't true. Her hands tremble so violently she has to clutch the edge of the table to stay upright.

“Sophia, stop. Just sit. Talk to me—”

“Talk?” she hisses. “You want to talk? Tell me how you suspected him all along? Tell me how I was looking for a ghost while you sat there knowing better? Go on. You have fucking permission.”

I step toward her. “Sophia, stop. Just sit, we can figure this out.”

She spins on me, eyes wild.

“Figure what out? That I was wrong? That I wasted two years mourning a criminal and a fucking cheater?”

She throws the papers at my chest.

“This is what you wanted, isn’t it? You stood there in the kitchen that morning and told me I was wasting my life on a liar.”

“I didn’t want this—”

“Yes, you did!” she screams, stepping into me, shoving my chest. “You wanted to be right! You wanted him to be the villain so you could win!”

My chest cracks open.

“No,” I say, voice rough. “I never wanted you to be hurt.”

“Liar!” she spits out the word. “You’re happy now, aren’t you? Happy that I finally got what I deserved?

Am I happy?

I look at her, shattered, world collapsing around her because the man she loved was a fucking lie, and I feel my own heart crack right down the middle. There is no victory here. There is only her pain, and it’s bleeding into me.