Page 64 of Cold Mercy

He replies within seconds, like he had the phone in his hand waiting.

Glad you liked it. And I’d love to see your childhood pictures too, we can trade.

Have a pleasant day, princess.

My cheeks burn. I toss the note onto the bed and sink back into the pillows, the phone warm in my hand, the ridiculous childhood photo still making me smile like an idiot. I hate that it works. I hate that a stupid story about broken roller-skates and a grimacing little Thomas can crack something open in my chest that has been locked, and yet it does. Even though I know everything isn't fine, the ache in my lungs loosens slightly.

Not because I suddenly trust him, I don’t. But because this tiny, stupid gesture feels real in a way nothing else has about him lately.

Open the chest, let him in, see how the games truly begin. A grimace and a boyish charm. He only means to do you harm.

CHAPTER 12

THOMAS

I am clinically insane. That has to be the only logical explanation.

I genuinely thought my fixation on her was just about the chase, a reckless thrill born from a target who refused to break. I told myself I just wanted to own her, to be the one who finally dismantled that fortress she calls a heart and claim the ruins as my own. It was a simple, predatory objective. Something dangerous, irritating, and weirdly addictive.

But the moment I saw her in that club, wrapped in that short, impossible dress with some stranger’s hands resting on her thigh like he had any right to touch what was mine, something in me snapped clean in half. I’ve never been jealous a day in my life, not for any woman I was ever with, but for her, I was ready to burn that entire club to the ground.

And now I’m sitting in a parked car at five in the morning, staring at a phone screen and waiting for a text like a pathetic teenager. It gets worse. I find myself writing her little fucking notes every morning with stupid ‘facts’ about myself. I am not a romantic. The words ‘Thomas Collins’ and ‘romantic’ don't even belong in the same sentence. Yet I gave her the only childhood photo I own, like some lovesick Romeo, hoping it would make her smile.

This isn't about possession anymore, and I fucking hate it. She's digging something out of me I didn't know was there, a softer, weaker part of myself I've spent my entire life burying. She is not just a target I want to own; she is becoming a feeling I can't control.

✽✽✽

The boxes of Sophia’s research were stacked on the back seat of my car. Before bringing them here, I went through every page, every note, every photo she’d collected over two years. Anything that could harm her or paint her in the wrong light, I tucked away inside my drawer.

I'm not sabotaging the investigation. I'm curating it. Grace is getting everything she needs to close her case. I'm just keeping the pages that don't fit the story I'm telling.

Grace steps out of the building and heads toward my car with a faint smile.

“What’s going on with my best detective today?” she asks as she climbs into the passenger seat.

I gesture to the stack of boxes in the back.

“I’ve got your early Christmas present.”

She glances behind her, confused.

“What is this? Trash? Or did you go to a garage sale?”

Her attempt at humor irritates me more than it should.

“Very funny. No, Grace. This is everything Moreau collected on Aurora in the past two years. Contacts, photos, people neither of us even knew existed. I’m giving it all to you.”

Her eyes light up like someone just handed her a divine revelation.

“Thomas…all of this? I can’t believe it. How did you get it? Did you steal it? How did she not see–”

Her voice grates on my nerves.

“Grace, stop for a second. There’s more.”

She straightens, sensing the shift in my tone.

“What is it?”