Chapter 7

Nico had woken up at some wee morning hour, though he hadn’t slept well, for days now. Sleep had become some kind of myth lately, something his body pretended to do while his mind would roam in the dark, back to the study.

To Odette.

To the incident in the kitchen earlier that week.

He ought to have been focusing on the case.

On the folder locked away in his room, parked with Giancarlo's forensic overviews and tribunal-acceptable suspicions.

On the evidence that Salvatore had been stabbed first, before even being shot, and that his murderer had likely dispatched him up close—intimately. In rage or terror.

But instead—

His thoughts, strayed elsewhere every night, every minute. To her.

To the sound of her breathing made when she'd gasped—earlier that week in the kitchen, when their hands touched while reaching for a dish.

To the warmth of her skin against his.

To the sweep of her waist, the soft flesh of her wrist when he'd given her a cup and she said thanks without looking.

To somet