Page 31 of To All the Men I’ve Killed Before

I pull a mug from the cupboard and put it down carefully. ‘Feel what?’

‘Killing him.’

Ah yes.

That.

‘And?’ I say. Is this the moment when she crumbles? When she realises what she’s done? That it’s something she can’t hit ‘undo’ on. Is there a breakdown incoming?

‘I liked it,’ she says. She looks at me and there’s something I recognise in her eyes. A fire of purpose. ‘I feel like I’ve done something bad but ultimately good. Was it like that for you? Your first time?’

I think back to the first man I killed – our father.

‘Yes,’ I say quietly. ‘Yes, it was.’

She keeps looking at me, wanting me to say more.

‘It felt like … I don’t know exactly … like I was finally doing something worthwhile. After the adrenaline. And the excitement and the rage all went, I was still glad I did it. I’ve never regretted it. Not for a moment.’

She nods solemnly.

‘But that time, my first kill,’ I say. ‘It was chaotic. It was unplanned. I needed someone else to clean up my mess for me. That’s the one thing I regret. Dragging someone else into it.’

I think about Carmella’s face as she watched me obliterate my dad with that antique vase. A little bit relieved. But mostly horrified.

‘It’s so important to be more controlled,’ I say. ‘We can’t bring anyone else into this.’

‘But that was your mother,’ Antoinette says. ‘She’s not just anyone. She’d clean up any mess for you.’

‘Maybe,’ I say. ‘But she shouldn’t have to. She’s not like us.’ Not that much anyway. ‘I know what you did to Ron was self-defence. But we have to be careful. We have to keep this—’ I gesture vaguely at the space between us, ‘we have to keep this on the rails. It cannot get unhinged.’

Antoinette’s right eyebrow shoots up. ‘There’s a dead A-lister in the wine cellar,’ she says. ‘If you don’t count that as unhinged, I don’t know what to say.’ There’s a small smile on her lips, like a secret.

I pour boiling water over the bag of miscellaneous herbs I grabbed from the caddy on the side.

‘I wasn’t scared of him, you know,’ Antoinette says. ‘Ron Wilde.’

I frown. ‘You should have been. He was fucking terrifying. And twice your size. That middle-aged spread really caught up with him.’

‘I just thought he looked a bit like a sad, ageing pirate,’ she says. ‘Like Captain Hook but in need of a midlife health check and some citalopram.’

A laugh sneaks out of me. ‘That gold tooth,’ I say.

‘Those fucking tattoos.’

‘The unbuttoned shirt! Oh my God.’

We share a tiny moment of eye contact before collapsing into waves of laughter.

‘I’m not sorry,’ Antoinette says when she sobers.

‘No one is asking you to be,’ I say.

‘And I don’t want to be some annoying kid you’re stuck with.’

I wasn’t expecting this moment of raw honesty from her. I look at her, reach for her hand.

‘You’re not,’ I say. ‘You could never be that.’