Page 11 of Lady and the Hitman

I knew I should write about Redmond. I’d built a career on calling men like him out. Exposing rot in institutions that wore crosses and called it virtue. But the outrage didn’t come—not the way it usually did. There was no fire, no rush of righteous fury. Just a strange kind of silence.

The truth was, this kind of thing didn’t shock me anymore. A man with power dying violently? It wasn’t even unique. The world would churn out another scandal soon enough. The headlines would shift. The algorithms would forget. And whatever I wrote today would be drowned in tomorrow’s noise.

So no, I wouldn’t write about Redmond. Not right now.

Maybe not at all.

Because something about the whole thing felt like atrap—like picking it apart would only draw me deeper into a story I didn’t really want to tell.

At 9:34 a.m., I closed my laptop, packed my things, and rode home before lunch.

Not because I believed anything was going to happen.

But because part of me knew it might.

And because some treacherous, buried part of me was already hoping for the knock.

4

By late afternoon, the heat had turned heavy, like the sky was pressing its full weight against the Earth and daring you to move.

Charleston in the summer didn’t forgive. It clung. It smothered. It made you remember you had a body, whether you wanted to or not.

I walked barefoot across the cool hardwood floors of my townhouse, half-dressed in an old tank top and a pair of black cotton underwear. The windows were open, letting in the sound of cicadas screaming like the end times. My long brown hair was damp from the shower and curling wildly at the edges, refusing to be tamed.

I hadn’t written a single word all day.

My laptop sat closed on the kitchen table, the cursor in my head blinking louder than the one on the screen. I’d tried—twice—to open a new document, but the only thing I could think about was the possibility of a knock. The sheer, erotic weight of it.

Three days.

Mina said hers came after three days.

The memory made me press my thighs together on instinct.

Outside, a car rolled past slowly. I froze by the kitchen counter, hand still wrapped around the cold stem of a wine glass I hadn’t touched. My breath caught, irrational and breathless.

No knock. Just tires. Just nerves.

God, I was losing it.

I wandered back into the living room, still warm from where the sun had baked the furniture all day. A patch of light lingered on the arm of the couch. My phone buzzed on the coffee table.

Mom.

I exhaled, steadying myself before answering. “Hey.”

“Hi, honey.” Her voice was soft, but curious in that gentle way mothers always seemed to have. “You sound … different.”

I’d only said one word.

“Different how?”

She paused. “I don’t know. Lighter. Or tired.”

“I’m fine.”

“You sleeping?”