Page 3 of Cruel Pawn (Cruel Duet #1)

Priya

E verything was going according to plan. It was easy to con Arden. Practically child’s play. So why was I irritated?

I stood in my attic, already dressed in my outfit for the date we’d set up later this afternoon and scowled at the wall.

Silvio called me a cliché, but I couldn’t help my love of murder boards.

There was something so satisfying about seeing the information organised and connected.

The wall was pinned with photos and documents and screenshots of scant bits and pieces I’d managed to track down about Arden McFadyen, red string creating a network between them.

I knew more about his family now, but very little about the man himself.

Meeting Arden had proven every theory I’d begun to make wildly inaccurate.

He was like an overeager puppy—trusting and soft-hearted and kind.

Vulnerable to a pretty face and a sob story.

It didn’t fit the man who hid so much of his life.

A man like him would plaster every last detail of himself on social media.

But even running an image search with the photo I’d discreetly taken in Weasel Bean, I’d found little.

He was the owner and CEO of PamPurr, a spa subscription box for spoiled cats.

It was over-consumerism at its finest, but I killed people for a living so who was I to judge owners who wanted to buy their pets paw balm and luxury shampoo and genuine rose quartz rollers?

For what, you ask? Massaging their tiny, furry faces.

It was ridiculous. And yet another piece of the puzzle that was Arden.

I’d managed to find an old social media account full of gloomy selfies, overdramatic song lyrics, and so much teen angst I could choke on it.

From that I’d learned his home life and childhood hadn’t been perfect, and I could connect that to him going to live with the Marshalls at thirteen but that was all I had.

A hint at a shitty childhood, a luxury pet company, and the fact he drank coffee with enough sweet syrups to rot his teeth with a single cup.

Who the fuck was Arden McFadyen?

Mafia-adjacent, and yet squeaky clean. No criminal record. One singular parking ticket. A passing mention of him graduating college in an old newsletter, with a grainy photo as proof. And fuck all else.

Was he so private because he was deeply involved in the Marshalls’ bloody, criminal business? Or because he had something else to hide? Only rebels and clinically insane people and serial killers didn’t have an online presence.

“At some point, you need to admit that you’re obsessing over this guy because he might be like you,” Silvio said, his tinny voice making me jump hard. Shit, I forgot I had him on speakerphone.

“I don’t think he’s like me,” I scoffed. No one was like me.

“And yet the fact he’s not chronically online like most of us is a thorn in your psychotic side. Why? Because it’s abnormal, and you wonder if he’s the same brand of abnormal as you.”

I rolled my eyes this time, my stare always returning to the photo I had pinned in the middle of the wall, taken from PamPurr’s website.

Arden was dressed in another sleek shirt, this one a charcoal grey, and he had the top two buttons unfastened, showing the smooth, pale column of his throat. Annoyingly appealing.

“It’s not just that,” I muttered, scowling at my phone like my friend could see me. “It’s—him. He’s smiley and nice and loves cats and waved off me spilling coffee on him even though he should be a rich jerk.”

“Hm.”

“And someone put a hit on him!” I said emphatically, gesturing at the wall. I made a new one with every job. There were usually a lot more connections.

“So, you like him because he’s… nice?”

“I do not like him,” I snarled, stalking over to where I’d rested my phone on the arm of the deep plum wing-back chair.

I usually sat in it and contemplated the best way to get the job done, with minimal mess and no way to track it back to me.

This time I’d sat it in and glared at the sparse wall.

Maybe I needed to worm my way into the lives of people I did know about—the Marshall sons, their twin sisters, or maybe Damien’s new wife Vasilisa.

Surely a young woman newly married into such an overwhelming family would like a friend?

I nodded at the wall as if we’d had a deep conversation, and slammed my thumb into the end call button, silencing Silvio as he poised to launch into a, it’s normal to have feelings lecture.

Normal for other people, sure, but I’d been raised to strive for perfection in exams, in piano, in gymnastics, and I wasn’t about to strive for less as a contract killer. Perfect killers didn’t have feelings.

Perfect killers didn’t have pets either, but I’d spent the whole damn day orchestrating a cat, researching all their quirks, finding the right one—an ageing ginger cat in a local shelter, who’d been unwanted for months because he had so many ailments.

His name on the website said Mr. Marmalade, but for the purposes of this con, he’d be a suitable Mango.

He didn’t need surgery, but that was nothing a well-placed bribe to a vet and struggling mother of two wouldn’t fix.

I wasn’t going to force the poor cat to get surgery—I wasn’t that much of a monster. But Arden didn’t need to see a scalpel meet fur to buy my ploy, and I’d already had Mango dropped off at Briar Bridge Veterinary Practice. Just in case I needed solid proof for my alibi.

So, the con was on, and I’d prepped everything I could. It was time to put stage two in place.

I dropped into the leather chair because it was tempting to pace, and opened my phonebook. Huh. There was no Arden under A. My brow furrowed. I had so few contacts that it wasn’t hard to find him. Silvio, Grandfather, and—

“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” I hissed, staring at the unfamiliar contact. He’d added himself to my contacts as Future Husband. With a pink, beating heart emoji.

“Well,” I muttered, “we’ve solved the question of which of the three he is. Clinically fucking insane.”

But I rearranged my face into something shy and pleasant, and hit call anyway.

Five minutes later, we had a date set up.