behind closed doors

The vibration of Grace’s phone split the silence of her suburban bedroom—three sharp buzzes. A code. Cain’s code. It meant danger. Urgent. Now.

She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Ryan, who snored softly, one arm draped over the sheets. Her feet barely touched the floor as she padded through the hallway. Lily’s door was slightly ajar, soft pink light spilling into the corridor from a nightlight shaped like a unicorn. Her daughter was curled up beneath a fleece blanket, safe, dreaming.

Grace’s heart twisted.

By the time she reached her car, Samantha and Ava were already on the move. They didn’t need to speak. When Cain summoned them like this, explanations came later—if at all.

The warehouse on the city’s edge loomed in the dark like a mausoleum. Inside, Cain stood shirtless, blood streaking his knuckles, his hair damp from sweat. His jaw was tight, fury radiating from him like heat off asphalt.

“What happened?” Ava asked, arms crossed, voice sharp.

“One of our delivery guys talked,” Cain growled, lighting a cigarette with hands that barely stopped shaking. “A runner. Devon Marks. He’s got a family. Suburbs. Real friendly. Real stupid. I need him gone.”

Grace’s stomach dropped. “Gone?”

“I don’t care how. But he needs to disappear. Quietly. And soon.” His gaze moved over each of them like a brand. “Unless you want your perfect little lives burned down.”

Samantha flinched. Ava went still. Grace didn’t move at all.

“He lives near you,” Cain added. “Use that. Charm him. Or poison him. Just don’t screw it up.”

No one spoke as they walked back to their cars. The silence between them was thick with dread—and something else. Something darker.

That night, Grace stood in the audience of Lily’s school recital, her hands clapping to the rhythm of a glittery choreographed number. She smiled, waved, mouthed *I love you*.

In her purse: a photo of Devon Marks, his address, and a gun with the safety off.

Cain sat in the back row. Watching. Waiting.

She didn’t look at him.

But she felt him.

And as the children sang about dreams and starlight, Grace realized she wasn’t the same woman who’d once baked cookies for the PTA. She was colder. Sharper.

Cain hadn’t seduced her.

He’d awakened her

Grace didn’t drive straight home after the recital.

She parked two streets down from Devon Marks’ beige, two-story house—the kind with wind chimes, a tire swing, and a smiling mailbox painted by children. The kind of home she used to dream of having. The kind of man she used to trust.

He came out with the trash—middle-aged, a bit soft, salt-and-pepper hair, phone clipped to his belt like a suburban sheriff.

He had no idea death was watching him from across the street.

Grace lowered the visor mirror and stared at herself. Lipstick perfect. Eyeliner flawless. But her eyes—her eyes were ice. She didn’t recognize herself anymore.

She called Ava.

“He's got two kids. A dog. It's a clean neighborhood. We can’t just make him vanish.”

“We’re not saints, Grace,” Ava said coolly. “And we don’t get to walk away.”

Samantha patched into the call. “We need leverage. If we scare him, maybe he disappears himself. Cain didn’t say how.”

Grace looked at Devon again, trash bin in hand, waving to his neighbor like this wasn’t the prelude to destruction. “Then let’s make him scared.”

---

That night, Ava and Samantha waited in Grace’s kitchen, wine glasses untouched, tension clinging to the air like static.

Grace placed a printed dossier on the table—photos, financial records, emails Cain’s hackers had pulled.

“He’s having an affair,” she said. “Her name’s Olivia. Pilates instructor. They meet at a motel off Route 15. Thursdays.”

Ava arched a brow. “We’re going old-school blackmail?”

“We’re giving him a choice,” Grace replied. “Walk away from everything. Take the silence package. Or we let his wife—and Cain—find out what he’s been doing.”

Samantha nodded. “We do this, we control the fallout.”

Grace leaned back, and for the first time in weeks, she almost smiled. “And we prove we’re not liabilities.”

---

Two days later, Devon received an unmarked envelope.

Inside: a USB drive, two photos of him and Olivia tangled in motel bedsheets, and a burner phone.

The message arrived shortly after: *Leave town. Take nothing. One word, and your kids grow up fatherless.*

He left that night.

And Cain didn’t ask questions.

---

Grace sat alone on her back porch, barefoot, a glass of bourbon in hand. The wind carried the scent of freshly cut grass and barbecued chicken from next door. The neighborhood buzzed with laughter, sprinklers, summer promises.

Perfect.

She wasn’t.

Cain arrived after midnight.

He didn’t knock.

He never did.

“You handled it,” he said, standing in her doorway, shirt unbuttoned, shadows playing across the hard lines of his torso.

“We did,” Grace replied. “Clean. Quiet. Just like you wanted.”

Cain’s eyes locked on hers. “You’re not scared of me anymore.”

“No,” she said, her voice low, raw. “I think you’re scared of me now.”

A slow smirk tugged at his mouth. “That should turn me off.”

“But it doesn’t,” she whispered.

He crossed the room in two steps and slammed her against the wall, mouth hot, fingers bruising, the taste of bourbon still on her lips as he kissed her like he owned every broken part of her.

And maybe he did.

Because Grace didn’t resist.

She kissed him back like she was already halfway to hell.