Rook is their silent muscle.
Bishop is their hacker.
And Knight is unhinged chaos incarnate.
A landlord found zip-tied to a chair in his own office, his right hand wrapped around a pen and every finger broken. Everyone thinks he deserved it. And maybe he did. Or maybe he just pissed off someone with money.
A college athlete found howling under the bleachers with both kneecaps shattered. He never played again. Never talked to cops. Whatever he did, he knew better than to make it worse.
A pharmaceutical exec who disappeared for seventy-two hours. When he resurfaced, he'd transferred his entire net worth to some nonprofit and checked himself into a psych ward. Swore up and down he saw Rook unmasked and that he was a demon straight from hell itself. Becameintenselyreligious.
And then there are the ones who don't come back at all. No bodies, no investigations, just... gone. The forum calls these "permanent solutions."
Premium pricing. No questions asked.
These aren't vigilantes with a code. They're killers for hire who've figured out how to make people disappear without leaving a trace.
And that makes themperfect.
The water shuts off in the bathroom. I close everything, clear my browser history twice just to be safe, then open my actual econ notes like the good little senator's daughter I'm supposed to be.
"You coming to the party tonight?" Heather emerges in a towel, her brown hair dripping onto our questionably clean carpet."Sigma Nu's throwing a rager, so you know there's gonna be good shit. Better than the kind you keep in that bag."
She waggles her eyebrows at the hot pink pill case sitting on my desk and I hastily swipe it into my pocket.
Guess I haven't been as subtle about my increase in reliance on these little white gems as I'd hoped. Whatever. I tell myself I'll wean off them once this nightmare is over. In the meantime, it's all about coping and surviving.
"Can't." I gesture vaguely at my laptop. "This test is worth thirty percent."
She shrugs, already rifling through her closet for whatever microscopic outfit she'll squeeze into. "Your loss. Josh has been asking about you again."
I somehow suppress a shudder at the thought ofJosh.Six-foot-two of entitled lacrosse player who thinks my stepfather's position makes me interesting. He cornered me at the last party, breath reeking of cheap beer, hands wandering until I accidentally spilled my drink on his crotch.
Oops.
"Tell Brad I joined a convent."
"Are you even Catholic?"
"Details."
She laughs, pulling on a dress that barely qualifies as clothing. "You're weird, Ellie. But like, in a good way."
If only she knewhowweird. Like how I've spent weeks researching hired killers instead of studying. Skimming cash from ATMs across the city, never the same one twice, buildingan untraceable payment. Or how almost half of my cash is in shit like Bitcoin.
Cyrus would be fuckingproud.
Heather leaves in a puff of vanilla body spray. The second the door clicks shut, I'm moving.
The cash is hidden in duffel bag underneath my bed. My hands shake as I count it for the fifth time. Twenty thousand in hundreds, rubber-banded in neat stacks. Another ten thousand in crypto, give or take whatever Bitcoin's doing today. The seed phrase is backed up on a USB drive that looks like a tube of lipstick.
Thirty grand total.
Everything I've saved, stolen, and skimmed over the past six months.
Some people save for spring break in Cabo. I saved to have my stepfather murdered.
The irony isn't lost on me that I'm using Todd's own money to pay for his execution. Poetic justice, or whatever the fuck you call it when you hire vigilantes with your abuser's cash.
