She said if you clone a monster, the monster survives only long enough to destroy itself. And if you clone an angel, there is a chance that something good might still exist. The monster always dies. The good always lives.
Her daughter lives through Emily.
And I never thought that would matter to me, but it does.
Watching the world through her eyes gave me something I never had. Hope. A reason to live.
And when I say I would kill every person who stood in my way, I mean it, even if that path leads to killing Detective Mara all over again, even if it was meant to happen from the beginning.
I move through Rourke’s house, room by room.
A home I will never have.
Dirty dishes sit in the sink, crusted and unwashed. Trash rots in a bin, the lid closed as if it could hide the smell. But it can’t hide what matters. The man who lived here never lived at all. He buried himself inside the lives of the dead, chasing one question until it consumed him.
Why?
If you ask why people kill, you will always get the wrong answer.
The real question ishow.That is where the truth lives. Endless methods. Endless control.
If you ask how Ezra Zane killed them, you find something simple beneath the murders. You see a broken bond of a ruined mother figure. He hunted women who resembled her. He forced them to love him. If they complied, he would take his time. Ifthey refused, he would take control back with his hands around their throats.
When my father copied his mind, he unlocked something Ezra never had.
Control.
I controlled my target. I choose how it happens. I decide who around them lives and who does not.
My father was wrong. He believed that love and comfort can erase the urge to kill. He thought that a happy childhood would cure the sickness.
Instead, it created something worse—a monster without restraint.
And he turned Zeke into that.
Not me.
I was raised in a cage from the moment I existed. I learned control before I learned mercy. I didn’t kill because I had to. I killed because I could.
I kill to make sure I never lose myself.
Finding Emily sharpens that control even further.
Whenever the thought comes to me, or I imagine my hands around her neck, I step outside, and I twist someone else’s.
I got rid of abusers, molesters, spoiled brats who break their friends and bleed their families dry.
Not because I had to.
Because I could.
How did I do it, you ask?
I watch.
I watch every one of them carefully. While they plan ways to hurt others, I plan ways to hurt them. I let them expose themselves. I let them believe they are safe.
Does that justify murder?
