everybody knows that the dice are loaded.
Mina knows knows Cordelia is dead before she goes to sleep, but she doesn't think about it until morning. She expects that Caius will know immediately that it was her doing, and then be angry; she doesn't know if he's found out yet, but she's coming back from her shower with her hair wet and a thin white tank top and underwear on, vulnerable and unafraid. She did this for him, for them, their future, and no matter what you do or what you say Cordelia was never going to be a part of that. What she was doing was hurting it, and unfortunately she lacked the vision to comprehend that they were going to make things better, and to do so they need to be in positions of power. Especially Caius, who is too good a man to do something like this for himself -- at least, probably not to a woman.
Cordelia Roy was shot point-blank, back of the head, by a man who then took her purse and credit cards and ran away. She didn't suffer, and she probably never even had time to realize she'd been attacked. The gutted purse will be found in a few days, and the money in it will be gone, of course. It's a robbery. It's nothing political. It's certainly nothing personal. That's what they'll all say, with sadness, weariness. Sometimes bad things just happen.
It's unfortunate. It really is. Even the person responsible thinks so.
Citlalmina Olin, the young mistress to Cordelia's husband and (just ask her) love of his life, sits on a desk in the bedroom, bare-legged, feet balanced on the chair in front of her. She quietly plaits her long black hair into a single, sleek braid, and waits.