Page 179 of Love Me in the Dark

I spent a long time devising the poison. Tasteless, odorless. Untraceable. Death cap mushrooms are a marvel, my favorite weapon when I’m not working with guns or knives.

But poisons take time. The right approach, the right formula, the right administration. And then they require time to work. Get one thing wrong, rush a step, and it all crumbles.

Patience, they say, is a virtue. And I play that game like a prodigy.

Stone-cold. A killer. These are me. I’m also rich as fuck. So rich my past can’t touch me. That long and scarred path that stretches as far back as I can remember might not have ever been paved with gold, but tools? Things that have enabled me to become who I am?Thisversion of Mercer Vale?

Fuck yes.

Logan Cooke begins to sweat. There’s a flicker of light in his eyes, a sign of things not quite right. But nobody notices.

And no one will.

The people surrounding me are off their tits and balls on coke and drunk on thirty-dollar artisanal cocktails. Not one of them is going to notice until Cooke hits the floor.

I lean against the wall in the shadowy corner of Seven7Seven, a trendy faux secret spot in Tribeca complete with an entry password and a non-descript flight of stairs. They lead to the graffitied door, which opens into a long, tall, black velvet-lined hall that opens up to the bronze door of Seven7Seven’s dark, glamorous interior.

This is the height of the below-Fourteenth Street crowd’s pomposity. As one of the silent, hidden owners, Seven7Seven makes me a shit ton of money, and I can keep an eye on movers and shakers of all kinds.

Some of them I can use.

Some of them I might need to dispose of.

The Barnes and Noble and Japanese convenience store on the ground level don’t even hint at what’s up here. A person has to book a spot weeks in advance or receive a special invite. The place is well-known to its very specific target audience, and entry is highly coveted.

I settle back in the shadows and observe.

I don’t need to be here. Cooke’s demise is a done deal, and glitterati parties are not my fucking jam. With the next job I decided to take on? Let’s just say there are other avenues to get what I need. But there’s a certain symmetry, an air of fate about doing it this way.

Not real fate. This is crafted down to the finest detail of the evening, complete with her arrival on the dot. But like all good artists, it’s going to appear seamless, effortless. A natural occurrence, just like fate. And when she realizes there isn’t a drop of serendipity or chance of any kind involved, her real fate, her future, finite as it is, will be sealed.

But I still refuse to look at Ivy Gardner. Not yet.

I want to time everything perfectly. Cooke, my revenge, my next project?—

“You’re pretty,” a girl slurs, her hand on me, lashes fluttering furiously.

She’s hot enough, I guess, whoever the fuck she is. But she’s touching without permission.

I glance at her hand then her until she releases her grip on me. Rich and never worked a day in her life. This type is easy to pick out of a crowd. She doesn’t go away, and I’m aware my fellow Obsidian Knight, Malone West, is watching closely.

“Not interested. Go away.”

“You don’t mean that.”

“But,” I say, gauging just how cruel I can be. “I do.”

Her eyes narrow and she turns, flouncing off.

“That’s not nice, Vale.” I stiffen at the sound of Malone’s voice as he approaches me from the bar.

“There’s a lot more I could have said. Or done.”

“Boundaries,” Malone warns.

“The thing, West,” I say, not bothering with the niceties of society—fuck society—as he hands me a Laphroaig. “Is that money gives us the freedom to do anything we want.”

“You’re a cold fucker.”