Chapter 237

Chapter 140
There’s a specific stillness that comes after rage.
It’s not peace. It’s not even exhaustion. It’s like… anesthesia.
Numb. Cold. Clear.
I stood in front of the mirror and didn’t flinch at the cracks running across my reflection. I looked like a woman who’d just clawed her way out of hell and was ready to redecorate it. My eyes were sharp, my shoulders tensed.
My Mouthaas set in a line that promised retribution.
They thought I’d crumble. They thought they’d made me small.
Idiots.
I was never small. I was simply dormant.
I dried my hair mechanically. Every drag of the towel over my scalp was methodical like removing evidence. It wasn’t about vanity anymore. It was about transformation.
Pipe Wellesley, the unstable roommate with a mysterious past? She was irrelevant. Pipe, the broken little muse in Antonio’s bed? Gone.
No. What the world had just done was give birth to something worse. Something untraceable.
Something necessary.
Grant wanted to humiliate me? He should’ve aimed to kill.
The irony made me smile. It was just a twitch of the mouth, but it felt good. Because now, he was going to die.
But he couldn’t just die. No. That would be barbaric. Sloppy. This had to be clean. Surgical. Elegant.
This had to be suicide.
The Art of the Artful Mistake —I could teach a masterclass.
The thing about murder. I mean, real, cold, practical murder—is that it’s not like the movies. It’s not heat-of-the-moment. It’s not red rage blurring your vision as you swing a bat or stab a knife.
It’s cold and planned. Choreographed, like ballet. And I’ve always been a decent dancer.
I stared at the phone long after Grant’s voice died in the ether, and the photos burned my vision. My mind was already building a blueprint. A timeline. He wanted me there at ten. I checked the clock. 8:12 p.m. Two hours to assemble a masterpiece.
Two hours to turn a hotel room into a crime scene that sang the lullaby of suicide.
I stood slowly, the grin stretching my face like a second skin. This was no longer just anger. This was clarity. A focus I hadn’t felt in years. Not since two years ago when I made my last art.
I hadn’t killed since then. But God, it came back easy.
First: disguise. I couldn’t show up as me. Not Pipe, the sharp-tongued girl with a trail of sarcasm and blood under her nails. No. I needed to be invisible. Forgettable.
I snuck to Fiore’s room and went straight to her wardrobe. Luckily for me, she and Raul were still in the living area, busy groveling about my downfall.
Maybe… who knew if maybe they’d become my next artful mistakes? We just might see.
Anyway, Fiore had this oversized camel trench coat she wore when she wanted to look harmless and sad. I threw it on over a black turtleneck and jeans. Flat-soled shoes—no heels.
I tied my hair up in a messy bun and put on glasses I hadn’t worn in months. I perchedit low on my nose. Add a cheap tote bag full of murder supplies and I looked like a grad student about to drop out and join a cult.
“You’re not an art,” I whispered to a blade, sliding it into my belt. “Just a stain.”
Perfect.
I packed gloves. Two pairs. One for the crime, one for the escape. A travel-size bottle of cleaning alcohol. A rag. A silk scarf. Zip ties. A bottle of sedatives I’d swiped from Fiore’s med drawer three weeks ago “just in case.”
I tossed in a used tissue—Grant’s DNA, from the last time he’d made the mistake of trying to kiss me and I’d subtly wiped his drool with it. I’d kept it because my instincts had screamed he’d become a problem. And now, here we were.
Lastly, the pièce de résistance—a forged suicide note. I sat down at the desk and typed it on my laptop, carefully mimicking the typeface from Grant’s company emails. It was easy since I used to work for him for years. Latest content publıshed on
I knew how he wrote. Arrogant. Dramatic. Like the world owed him punctuation.
“To whom it may concern…
If you’re reading this, I’ve lost everything. My consciences. My name. Myself. I manipulated too many people and burned too many bridges. I was drunk on power and thought I could win. But I lost. I hurt people I shouldn’t have, and I can’t live with the weight anymore. I’m sorry. Truly. But this is the only way I can find peace.”
I read it aloud twice, making sure it sounded just the right amount of unhinged but plausible. Then I printed it, folded it gently, and slid it into a plain white envelope marked with his name. I sprayed it lightly with his cologne—the one he stupidly gave me for my birthday, thinking I’d find it romantic.
“Lucifer Morningstar,” I muttered under my breath. “You have an appointment with Hell.”
I left the apartment at 9:06. A cab took me to a few blocks from the Azul Royale. I got out early because I didn’t want security footage catching a cab number tied to my name. I walked the rest of the way, heart steady and breath calm. Not because I wasn’t nervous. I was. But it was the good kind. Like walking a tightrope with razors for ropes. It sharpened me.
The hotel gleamed like a gold tooth in a mouth full of poverty. Luxury dripped from the front desk, from the perfumed air, from the bored concierge who looked like he’d seen too many rich men with too many secrets.
“Room for Lucifer Morningstar,” I said, adjusting my glasses.
He barely blinked. “Eleventh floor. Keycard?”
“He’s expecting me.”
The man smiled blandly and handed me the keycard. “Enjoy your evening.”
Oh, I planned to.
The elevator ride was silent. I mean, way too silent. My breath came out in foggy little puffs I tried to swallow back down. I gripped the tote tighter.
Ding.
I stepped out. Thick carpet. Quiet hall. Room 1113.
I knocked twice.
“Come in, my angel of death,” Grant’s voice drawled from inside.
Damn right, I am.
I opened the door.
He was in a robe. A fucking silk robe. Champagne in one hand, a smirk on his face. There was music playing softly… some pretentious jazz. And on the bed, a red dress was laid out like an invitation to sin.
“You came,” he said, grinning. “And you even wore your serious glasses. I’m honored.”
I smiled. “Figured I’d give you the last gift you’d ever get.”
He laughed. “You always had a sense of humor.”
“Yeah,” I murmured, shutting the door behind me and sliding the lock into place. “I kill with it.”
He didn’t hear me. He was too busy walking toward me like a man expecting a night of indulgent sex. I waited until he was close—close enough to smell his cologne, then I held up the bottle of champagne he’d clearly been sipping.
“Want me to pour?”
He nodded with bright eyes. “God, yes. You’re glowing. What is it? Rage? Betrayal? Lust?”
“Something like that.”
I took the bottle, turned my back to him, and swiftly dropped a crushed sedative pill inside his glass. Stirred it with a swizzle stick like a bartender in Vegas. My hands didn’t even shake.
“Here,” I said, handing it to him. “To betrayal.”
He clinked it against my untouched glass. “To victory,” he corrected, and downed half of it.
He eyed me up and down, a smirk appearing on his lips. “I’m surprised you’re not dressed for seduction tonight, Pipe. The Pipe I know is always dressed to kill.”
If only he knew the pun he’d just casually made.
Well, that’s because I don’t need a killer outfit to kill you, Grant. You’d already been a sucker for me. All I had to do was prey on that.
But then again, I still came prepared. Pipe Wellesley was always dressed to kill.
I raised an eyebrow, letting the trench coat fall open slightly to reveal the black turtleneck underneath. “Seduction? I thought we were here to talk business.”
He chuckled, taking a sip of his champagne. “With you, business and pleasure always intertwined.”
I stepped closer, the soft carpet muffling my footsteps. “Is that so?”
He leaned in, his breath warm against my cheek. “Tell me, what was it like with Antonio?”
I tilted my head, feigning curiosity. “Why do you ask?”
He shrugged and I watched his fingers brush a stray strand of hair from my face. “Because however it was, I want us to have an even better one. I miss the old days, Pipe. When you seduced men and brought me unending contracts. Come back.”
I laughed softly, the sound echoing in the spacious room. “You always did know how to flatter a girl.”
However, he didn’t grinned from ear to ear, already expecting…