Chapter 39 Accidentally Good At Murder
Accidentally Good At Murder
Tess to Kai: I want to tell you what happened but I’m scared you’ll see me differently. [unsent]
Tess
Something wet hits my face.
I open my eyes.
Nikolai falls to his knees, blood coming from a bullet wound in his leg.
He howls, an animalistic scream, but it’s quickly replaced by a vicious snarl. His face hardens—he’s not finished yet.
The gun slips from his grip as he staggers. He lunges for it—I lunge for him.
Carina sprints to my side.
I propel upright from my crouched position. My hand slots over the handle of the knife in Carina’s outstretched hand. The blade sinks into his shoulder. He lets out a strangled cry, jerking back.
A shadow falls over us.
“Need a hand?” The voice is calm, almost too calm. I glance up, my stomach twisting at the sight of Nate. He stands over the carnage, a spectator to a slaughter, grinning like he’s enjoying the show. His eyes gleam with something that makes my skin crawl.
He’s looking at all the blood like it’s an award-winning, show-stopping masterpiece.
“Nah, I’ve got it,” I say, waving a hand dismissively. This is my mess.
Nikolai clutches his shoulder where the blade dug into his flesh. He lunges. I pivot, sending him sprawling.
I drive the knife into his back.
Once.
Twice.
His body jerks under me, blood spilling across the floor like a river of red.
I don’t stop.
I can’t.
He deserves this—deserves worse. The blade sinks in again, and only when his body goes still do I stop, my breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps.
Movement catches my eye.
A few feet away, Enzo helps someone up.
Kai.
Time seems to stretch, the blood-stained world narrowing down to just him.
Then my legs move on instinct, and I’m running.
I collide into him with a force that steals the breath from my lungs, and if it weren’t for Enzo’s hand on his shoulder, we’d have hit the ground hard. My heart is racing, and my hands are trembling as I cling to him, my face pressed against his chest.
Kai grunts, wincing in pain, as I wrap myself around him, tears falling from my eyes onto my blood-soaked cheeks. “You’re here.”
His arms around me ground me, his chest rumbling against me as he speaks. “Who do you think shot him, Hurricane?”
I pull back just enough to look at his face, keeping my arms locked around his waist. “You’re a terrible shot.”
He laughs, dragging me back into him. “Not all of us are accidently good at murder,” he grumbles, kissing the top of my head. “At least I hit him.”
“Good point.”
“Alright, lovebirds,” Nate calls. “What’s the plan for the body?”
Kai and I exchange a look.
“Pigs?” I ask.
Kai’s lips twitch.
Enzo scoffs. “You two are worse than the actual mafia.”
“You’re literally the mafia, big brother,” I reply, eyebrow raised, unable to stop the sarcastic grin pulling at my lips.
“Exactly!” He throws up a hand. “You’re more psychotic than—wait. Did you just call me your brother?”
A flicker of something unreadable passes over his face. Like it’s only just sinking in.
“I did.”
Enzo’s eyes widen, a flicker of disbelief crossing his face. It’s as if the words take a moment to settle. Then, without warning, he pulls me into a tight embrace, his arms strong around me like he’s trying to convince himself I’m really here, really his sister.
“Fucking hell,” he mutters, his voice rough. “I have a sister.”
I squeeze him back. “Has it only just sunk in?”
“No? Yes? I don’t know,” he mumbles.
His grip on me just tightens, like he doesn’t want to let go.
“Um,” I tap his shoulder, “bit tight.”
He jolts back like I just shot him.
“Fuck.”
I shiver, adrenaline wearing off. Kai shrugs out of his hoodie and helps me get it over my head. It comes to my upper thigh, just enough to cover me.
Enzo’s expression hardens as he steps back. “Alright. We’re not feeding the body to pigs. Kai and I have enough on the Ivanov’s to blackmail them for the next century. We’ll dump the body at their compound with a message—make sure they never come after us again.”
I shrug. “Fine by me.”
He’s not done. “Then we’re all going home, cleaning up, and pretending this night never happened.”
I glance down at my blood-splattered skin. “You think we can just forget all this?”
Enzo smirks. “No. But we can at least get some damn sleep before dealing with the fallout.”
Nate sighs dramatically. “You’re no fun, Enzo. I was looking forward to an impromptu body disposal adventure. I’ve already got my playlist ready.”
Carina elbows him. “Not everything has to be a horror movie, Nate.”
“Speak for yourself.”
Enzo’s private jet is packed full.
I hate how unsettled it makes me feel.
How I flinch at sudden movements.
Kai sits next to me. Neither of us have spoken.
“What happened, Tess?” Kai whispers once the silence between us becomes awkward.
The memories I’d buried deep under the rush of adrenaline crash over me, and a sob breaks free—loud, raw. It shudders through my entire body, filling the silence of the cabin. The eyes of the others are on me, but I don’t care. I don’t have the strength to hide it anymore.
I let the tears fall, hot and unstoppable.
I cry for the version of myself that died on that cold, wet ground, that broken girl who couldn’t escape the hell she was in. My chest aches, as if every sob is tearing open a wound I thought had closed.
Shakes wrack my body.
A deep sense of despair and numbness settle over me all at once.
A hand on my knee has me flinching until I see Carina’s concerned face in front of me.
She only has to take one look at me before she’s nodding then pulling me into her arms.
Carina’s hand gently strokes through my tangled hair, her touch warm and steady. She doesn’t say anything at first—just lets me cry, offering the kind of quiet comfort that feels like a lifeline.
“Come on,” she whispers, “we’re going to get you showered, then me and you can talk.” She pulls back, just enough to observe my expression. “Okay?”
I nod, letting her pull me from my seat and towards the bedroom at the back of the plane where there’s a private bathroom.
We don’t speak. She just helps me out of my clothes, turns on the shower, then manoeuvres me under the spray.
Only once I’ve scrubbed every part of my body, as if that alone can remove his touch from me, do I step out into the towel waiting for me.
Carina guides me to the bed, and the two of us get under the covers, huddling together.
She doesn’t force me to speak.
But I find myself opening up anyway.
“His friends watched,” I whisper, choking back the pain. I don’t need to tell her anything more. She knows what it means.
“I wanted to die out there. I thought the pain would end, that I could just escape the weight of everything. The thought of not having to feel anymore... It was tempting. But now? Now that I’m still here, I don’t know what to feel. Relief? Regret? Or something between?”
She nods knowingly. Which she does. If anyone would understand me, it’s her.
“I’ve been where you are, Tess,” Carina says, her voice soft but steady. “That emptiness, like the weight of the world is too much to carry. Like you’ll never see the light again. I won’t lie—there were days I thought it would never end. But it does. It gets better. I promise.”
Tears flow down my cheeks and I swipe at them angrily, pissed at how much I’ve cried recently.
“What do I tell Kai?”
“Whatever you’re comfortable with. Everything, or nothing, it’s your story, Tess.”
I nod, slowly, as the weight of Carina’s words settles in. It doesn’t make everything better, but it makes me feel just a little less alone. A little less broken. Like maybe there’s a way forward from here.
Kai
We arrive back in New York and Enzo gets behind the wheel of his Lamborghini, the rest of us piling in after him. I sit in the passenger seat, needing the space to stretch my leg.
Tess sits behind me. There’s an emptiness in the space between us.
I stretch my hand back, palm open, needing to feel her.
Her hesitation lasts a heartbeat before her fingers slip into mine, squeezing as if to anchor both of us to this moment.
The silence in the car deepens, but at least she’s here. At least she’s not slipping away.
There’s a pain in her eyes, one that’s hard to ignore. She hasn’t told me what happened with Nikolai. But I know it must have been bad.
His body is in the boot, and now we’re heading to the Ivanov’s compound on the edge of the city to return it. Like Enzo, Nikolai is—was—their leader’s son, so this is risky, and could be a suicide mission, but we’re hopeful the evidence we have against them will hold up.
It’s quiet in the car, everyone lost in their own thoughts until Nate says, “Put some tunes on.”
His eyes meet mine in the mirror before they flicker to Tess, his intent clear.
This is what Nate’s good at.
Making you forget your problems.
Enzo rolls his eyes but passes the aux back to Nate.
A minute later Taylor Swift starts blaring from the speakers. My best friend has the weirdest taste in music.
Tess stays silent at first, lost in her thoughts, but then I hear her hum, low at first, before she starts singing along with Nate.
Her voice is shaky but defiant, the two of them sounding more like cats in the throes of a dying gasp than anything musical.
Carina joins in, and despite how ridiculous it is, it pulls something light out of me.
A smile tugs at the corner of my lips before I can stop it.
Enzo, though—he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else.
The singing stops when the car slows as we approach a large mansion with heavily guarded gates. Enzo rolls down the window and murmurs something to the guards.
The gates slowly open and Enzo begins driving again, the tires crunching over the stone driveway. At the end of the drive, we park next to a large central fountain. We all get out, despite Enzo’s insistence that the rest of us should wait inside.