Kill Him Nine Times Chapter 05
Genevieve reacted first.
She rolled her eyes and leaned into Matteo’s arms.
“You think Matteo called you here to ask you out?”
“That’s hilarious. You see a rich guy and stick to him like glue. Can’t be shaken off.”
Matteo was trembling, harder and harder.
From this close, I could hear his teeth chattering.
He shoved Genevieve away.
She stumbled and fell to the floor.
Matteo pointed a trembling hand at me.
“Cosima, you’re insane. All I did was say no, and you killed me twice.”
“Not again. Not this time!”
As if to give himself courage, he finished speaking and tried to rush past me toward the door.
Too bad for him.
When I came in, I’d locked it behind me.
And changed the code.
After all these years of running his errands, I knew his front door better than my own.
Matteo threw himself at it, fumbling with the keypad.
Nothing happened.
His back was drenched in a cold sweat.
When he turned around, he saw me standing ten feet away with a knife in my hand.
It was the chef’s knife from his kitchen.
Sharp.
I’d used it before to cut fruit for him.
The scar on my finger was still there.
The fear of death washed over him again.
Even his teeth trembled as he spoke.
“Cosima, don’t do anything rash. We can talk about this.”
I smiled faintly.
“Talk about what? Matteo, didn’t you know all along that I was just a player trapped by the system?”
“Isn’t that what you liked? Watching me orbit you like a dog?”
Matteo had known for a long time that I was a player.
He had seen several others before me.
He watched girl after girl, forced by their systems to smile at him, to debase themselves for him.
That day, before I went into the bar, I’d overheard him talking to his friends.
He said, “Players like Cosima live or die by my mood. Rain or shine, one phone call and she has to come running.”
“When I get tired of this little follower, I’ll dump her for any reason I want. Her system will just swap in the next girl.”
“Because I’m the center of this world.”
His friends all thought he was bragging.
Only I knew it was the truth.
Before me, three girls had already failed the task and been erased by the system.
So now I understood.
If he wouldn’t be my boyfriend, I’d kill him until he agreed.
I raised the knife.
Matteo screamed, “Cosima, stop—”
The blade plunged into his abdomen.
Genevieve’s shriek was shrill enough to lift the roof.
Blood poured out.
Matteo tried to speak, but when he opened his mouth, only a choked gasp came out.
The next second, the world cracked apart again.
The fourth loop had arrived.