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Three seconds to cross the room.
Three heartbeats to tell me I'm wrong.
Three chances to choose differently.
Nothing.
I look over my shoulder.
He stands beside the coffin with his shirt crooked, jeans barely fastened, and regret written across every hard line of him.
He looks miserable.
He looks scared.
He looks exactly like he warned me he was.
This time I believe him.
“Good night, Bitter Adams.”
Then I walk out.
Mercy takes one look at my face and goes still.
“Oh, sugar.”
That almost breaks me.
I hold up one hand. “Please don’t.”
Her mouth closes.
Behind me, the workshop door opens.
I do not turn around.
Trixie walks past us first. Her eyes are furious and wet.
Mercy looks from her to me, then toward the workshop.
Understanding arrives.
“Oh,” Mercy says.
One syllable.
Murder lives inside it.
“Don't kill him.”
“I’m considering maiming.”
“He isn’t worth prison.”
“Debatable.”
A laugh tries to come out of me. It turns into something dangerously close to a sob, and I swallow it.
