Page 23 of Cashmere Cruelty

“—and half the people on that terrace want you dead right now. So I’d start talking if I were you.”

For a long moment, April Flowers doesn’t say anything. Neither do I.

Then, after what feels like an eternity, she holds out her wrists and repeats, “Bolt. Cutters. Then I’ll talk.”

Exhausted, I walk to the sink. I take out the toolkit and set it on the table. I make sure the bolt cutters are visible, but make no move to get them just yet. “Talk. Then I’ll cut you loose.”

My feisty tailor doesn’t move. So I take out my gun and set that on the table as well.

That seems to get a reaction out of her. “Wow. Class act, aren’t you?”

“Yes. And, if I decide to use this, it won’t matter whether your hands are free or not. So talk. Now.”

Trembling with rage, she stuffs both her cuffed hands into her pocket. Then she fishes out…something. “There. Asshole.”

I take the crumpled paper from her. “What’s this supposed to be?”

“You can read, can’t you?”

I grit my teeth. In my entire life, no one has ever dared speak to me like this. Oddly, I don’t hate it.

I scan the document. I quickly realize what it is: a paternity test. “How did you get this?” I ask in disbelief, skimming over the data-filled columns.

“Your jacket,” she answers. “You left hair on it. It’s inevitable, really. Happens to the best of us.”

“And you… swiped it?”

“Yeah.” She shrugs. “So, you know… It’s either your kid or Mr. Buttons’s.”

“Who’s that?”

“My cat.”

I stare at her. “These tests require a consent form.”

“Which I handed in.”

“How?”

“Your receipt.”

I keep staring.

“Don’t look at me like that,” my tailor-slash-forger says, cuffed hands raised in a show of innocence. “If you don’t want your signature forged, next time, order on our website.”

I ought to be mad. I ought to be fucking furious. I ought to put this defiant little seamstress in her place and show her what I am, what I’ve done, what I’m still capable of doing.

But in reality…

I’mimpressed.

I keep reading the document. At the end of the second page, after endless gibberish, the only number I can understand stares at me in bold:

99%

I take a moment to collect myself. For a full minute, I do nothing but pore over the document again and again. Nothing but reread that number, as if its meaning could change with one more glance.

But it doesn’t.

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