Total pages in book: 160
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161615 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 539(@300wpm)
Hiro read the message, then looked at me. “Reo wants to know if we’ve found anything.”
My pulse ticked up. “Tell him I’m now thinking Mami might be a stronger suspect than Hina. However, it’s still just intuition. No concrete evidence yet.”
Hiro typed my words exactly, expression unreadable.
Another buzz.
A second message.
He lifted his gaze. “Reo says the Scales’ hallway footage was wiped clean too, during the same window of time. Yet, other camera areas were kept.”
“So. . .that definitely points to the spy coming in and out of here.”
Hiro put his phone up. “And whoever did it knew exactly what to delete.”
Somewhere deeper in the suite, a soft mechanical whir pulsed—a camera adjusting? A vent shifting?
Or something else entirely?
I couldn’t tell. That uncertainty tightened around my ribs like a slow-moving fist. A cold ripple dragged itself down my spine.
I glanced back at the cameras—silent, dark, watching everything.
“Great,” I muttered. “Let’s hope the new people in the security room aren’t spies keeping tabs on us because if we find the right thing. . .they might come down here and kill us before we can report it.”
Hiro didn’t smile. “Anyone coming for you dies first. I can kill four men before you take your next breath. Their blood won’t even have time to cool.”
I blinked.
“You’re safe, Nyomi. They’re the ones who should worry.”
“Okay.”
The air still felt too charged, too alert.
I continued on.
But, are we sure no one is in here?
The silence didn’t feel empty—it felt occupied. Like someone stood just out of sight, listening, cataloging each breath we took.
For some reason, I felt like Goldilocks sneaking into the three bears' cabin.
Except in the original story, Goldilocks had stumbled upon the cottage by accident—lost in the woods, hungry, innocent in her trespassing.
I was here with intent. Camera ready. Mission clear. About to rifle through the belongings of three women.
Besides, Goldilocks had been a little blonde white girl.
Of course she had.
Only a white girl would see an unfamiliar house in the woods and think, I'll just let myself in. Try the porridge. Test the chairs. Sleep in the beds. That level of false entitlement—that assumption of safety and welcome—wasn't available to everyone.
A Black girl would've seen that cottage and kept walking.
Would've thought: That's not mine. Those aren't my people. If I go in there and they come home, I'm not getting the benefit of the doubt.
She would've stayed hungry.
Stayed tired.
Kept moving through that forest until she found her own way out.
And then there would've been no story at all.
I stared at those three nameplates in their elegant script. Someone had chosen that font—someone who cared about aesthetic perfection even in the smallest details.
A second later, I felt Hiro’s attention shift toward me, like he was cataloging the exact way I was assessing the space.
Then, he spoke, “You surprise me more and more.”
I looked over at him. “How?”
“You are assessing EVERYTHING.” Hiro watched me the way a man watches a weapon he didn’t realize was loaded—cautiously, curiously, and with a heat he tried to disguise under restraint.
I swallowed.
His attention pressed against me like a palm at my lower back, guiding without touching. Next, his gaze moved from the nameplates to the hallway décor, then back to me. “Most people look at what’s obvious. You look at other things. The décor. The walls. The books. The nameplates. You read a room the way Reo reads a battlefield.”
“Spaces don’t lie. People do.”
That made him still.
“I took Environmental Psychology in college. I thought it would be boring, but it was fascinating.” I gestured down the hallway. “Everyone edits themselves in conversation. They perform. They choose how they want to be perceived. But living spaces? They don’t have that kind of discipline. People reveal their truths in what they keep, what they hide, what they curate, what they let fall into neglect.”
He considered this.
I could tell he was listening—not politely, but strategically.
Absorbing.
Analyzing me as I analyzed the Scales.
I continued, “If you want to understand someone, look at the objects they surround themselves with. Look at what they reach for instinctively. Look at what they haven’t thrown away. Look at the pattern behind the pattern. A bedroom isn’t just where someone sleeps—it’s the blueprint of their personality. Sometimes a bookshelf shows what the person wishes they were. Many times a desk shows what they’re pretending to be.”
“Explain.”
“Nightstands are the giveaways.”
“How?”
“Well. . .one example. . .if the nightstand is cluttered with half-finished books and medicine bottles, that’s someone overwhelmed. If it’s empty, that’s someone hiding themselves. And if it’s curated—candles, flowers, a single perfect book—that’s someone performing calm, not living it.”
“I like this.” Hiro’s gaze flicked over my face—eyes narrowing slightly, as if committing every word to memory. There was something hungry in that attention, not sexual exactly, but more fascinated. Like he was discovering a new way to read the world. “And something as small as these nameplates?”