Page 169 of Maddening Fixation

The name hit me like another blow.

I froze.

Raven.

My beautiful cat.

My sweet girl.

She hadn’t been sick.

She hadn’t even seemed tired.

I’d held her yesterday morning before rushing to the wedding, scratching beneath her chin while she purred against my hand as though begging me not to leave.

She always waited for me.

I’d even planned to ask Romeo if I could bring her to the bungalow once everything settled.

The thought that she was gone...

So suddenly...

So senselessly...

Didn’t seem possible.

I tightened my grip around the phone.

“And do you know who killed her?”

Yarina’s voice came through the speaker, low and eerily pleased.

My breath caught. “...What?”

“I did.”

There wasn’t a flicker of hesitation in her voice.

“I killed her.” A small, satisfied laugh drifted through the phone. “And there’s absolutely nothing you can do about it.”

My heartbeat faltered.

Her next words landed with deliberate cruelty.

“Consider it the first of many things you’re going to lose for marrying my man.”

The world tilted.

My fingers went numb, and the phone nearly slipped from my grasp.

A crushing weight settled over my chest, squeezing until it became difficult to breathe.

My knees gave out beneath me.

I slid helplessly down the bedroom wall until I was sitting on the cold floor, clutching the phone with trembling hands as tears spilled silently down my face.

No...