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He said he loved her.
He said she was different.
That’s what echoed in Brishel’s head while she stared down at his body, slumped in the leather chair, eyes still half-open like he might blink if she waited long enough.
But he wouldn’t. She made sure of that.
The gun in her hand was shaking now — not from fear, but adrenaline burning itself out like a cigarette filter smoldering on linoleum. Her breath came in sharp, mechanical pulls.
Everything smelled like cordite, sweat, and the expensive cologne he always wore — the kind you could still smell even after the blood started pooling around his spine.
He’d died with his mouth open. She wondered if he was going to say her name.
Brishel hadn’t always been like this. Once, she was the bright-eyed girl from Indiana who color-coded filing systems and brought in cupcakes for birthdays.
That girl died somewhere between the third time she let Richard fuck her in his locked corner office and the day she found a lacy red thong in his desk drawer that wasn’t hers.
She didn’t say anything, not right away.
She smiled, sat on his lap, kissed him like she meant it, then left work early and went home to her empty apartment and screamed into a pillow until her throat went raw.
He’d told her she was special. That he’d leave his wife eventually. That he just needed time.
What a joke.
She wasn’t his secret weapon. She was his stress relief.