Page 105 of Lunar Crest University

I need to get this body down to the basement, where I have an…oven. I have an oven to burn any evidence, but I’m scared to tell her that. Then again, how much worse can it get? I already killed him in front of her.

“We need to get him to the basement.”

Nodding, she swallows. “Okay. And…what exactly is in the basement?”

She’s being so strong; I can see it in her eyes, mixed with the haze of uncertainty. I fear she’s trying to take on too much at once, that she might still break if she has to see it all in a matter of twenty-four hours.

“Everything we need to make him disappear,” I say lowly.

Her chest heaves in an unsteady manner. “Okay.”

“You don’t have to help me with this,” I urge, putting my hands on her shoulders like that’ll get my point across better. “I can do it. You can take a shower or make some coffee.”

“While you’re dealing with a dead guy?” She quirks a brow. “I’m sorry, but that’s not going to help me relax at all.”

“What you’ll see down there won’t help you relax either.”

It’s a messy process. The oven isn’t big enough to hold an entire person inside, so the body has to be dismembered in order to fit. I’ll have to remove his limbs and sever him in half completely just to get him in the damn thing. I’m not sure she could handle that, not with the way she could barely handle the sight of her own blood the first night I met her.

I don’t know how she didn’t pass out last night, but maybe she was in too much shock for it to really bother her.

Finley sighs anxiously, tilting her head up at me in a sympathetic manner before placing a hand on my face. “How do you do this? How are youokayafter this? This is so heavy, Luca. Are you…okay?”

“Are you?” I rasp.

“Luca,” she pleads. “I’m serious.”

“This is what I know how to do. I disassociate. I compartmentalize. You don’t. I don’t care about me right now, Finn. I care about you. You’re being supportive, and I love you for it, but I’m scared you’re going to crumble any minute now.”

Her face softens. “Finn.”

I blink slowly as I frown.

“You called me Finn.”

“I did,” I say.

“I’m not going to crumble.” She sounds certain of it. “Whatever happens now, we’re in this together. You…murdered a man last night. A few weeks ago, I probably would’ve had a stroke or something, but now?”

I watch her carefully as she searches for the right words.

“You killed him for me. You’re doing all of this for me.”

Fuck, she’s trying so hard. She’s going against every fiber of who she is to try and prove to me she can handle this, but I’d never ask that of her. I’ve changed enough of her life as it is; I don’t want to push it any further. There’s no possible way I can let her into that basement on good conscience.

Leaning down, I press a chaste kiss to her lips. “I know you want to help in any way you can,Princesa, but this is me asking you to stay up here. If this is the one and only time you ever listen to me, that’s okay. Just,please?”

She seems unsure at first, but as she studies my face for a few moments, whatever she sees is enough to convince her. Putting her hand on my chest, her thumb rubs back and forth.

“Okay, I’ll stay here.”

Thank fucking God.

I wait until she pads back up the stairs out of sight before I walk over toward the basement door, prop it open as wide as it’ll go, and grasp onto the fucker’s ankles to tug him down the concrete steps. The plastic wrap is loud as hell on the way down, and each step is a reminder that I’m so close to being done with this bullshit forever.

Two hundred and four.

So fucking close.

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