Rourke set a trap for a gullible young girl, but he baited the wrong animal. And make no mistake, I'll take pleasure in this. Not the violence itself, but the inevitability of it. The way the hunter becomes the lesson.
When midnight comes, I won’t be hunting. I'll be avenging.
If I’ve learned anything, it’s that perfection doesn’t happen by accident. Flawlessness is manufactured, carved out piece by patient piece until the thing you want fits exactly where you put it.
The trap is set. There’s work to do. A job to finish. A man to unmake.
I move down the hall and into the room in the basement where light is optional and mercy never lived. This is where I prepare when the world needs correcting.
I inventory without thinking. Gloves. Plastic folded with military precision. Knife cleaned, handle wrapped. Spare gloves. Zip ties. Plastic sheeting. A sealed change of clothes. Burner phone. Charged battery. Cash. A crowbar tucked where no one would think to look.
There are other tools too, chosen with care. Instruments of pain meant to persuade and remind the body how fragile it really is. Enough to break. Enough to teach.
Nothing here is accidental. Every item earns its place. I don’t rush. I rehearse and strip the act down to its essentials until what remains feels inevitable.
This won’t be chaos. It won’t be sloppy. It’ll be exact.
I don’t picture his face. That comes later. For now, I picture the sequence. The entry. The moment he realizes the math has changed. The silence after.
Everything is ready. The hours thin, and the time nears.
Now we wait.
I eat the way I always do before a job—slowly and deliberately without distractions. Food isn’t comfort; it’s calibration. Protein, water, nothing wasted. The body needs to be steady, and the mind must be sharp. Whatever comes next will take both.
This isn’t appetite. It’s discipline. The kind you build over years until restraint feels more natural than impulse. Rage is sloppy, and hunger clouds judgment. Control is what keeps you alive when the night turns unforgiving.
When the plate is empty, I sit for a moment longer, breathing evenly, letting the weight of it settle. I close my eyes and let the night assemble itself in my head, not as chaos but as a sequence. One thing flowing cleanly into the next. No surprises or noise. Just intention narrowing to a point.
I rehearse it once. Then again.
Not as a plan.
As a certainty.
On my way out, I stop at the mirror for one final check. Six-four. Broad shoulders built for damage, not display. Ink marks most of myskin—black snakes coiled around bone, skulls peering from beneath ragged script, fangs and fire and all the monsters I’ve already killed. Nothing decorative or soft. Just warnings carved in flesh.
The face? Strong angles. Straight nose. A jaw that’s never backed down. Golden brown eyes that track everything and give nothing away. A neatly trimmed beard shadows my mouth, dark as the hair falling in thick, unruly waves I never bother to tame.
But beneath all of it—the order, the calm, the control—is the other thing.
The one that waits.
The one that kills.
Some things fall like dominoes—slowat first, then inevitable.
Last night, I came here to find Silas Rourke.
Instead, I found her.
I let my eyes drag across the room. I don’t move until I’ve mapped every face, every shift in posture. Then I slide into a different seat. Two stools down from last night, angled just enough to watch the door without turning my head.
The mirror behind the bar is advantageous. From here, I see it all—who walks in, who lingers, who stares too long. Every blink, every breath.
They don’t know they’re already caught.
I fucking love a mirror. It does half the work for me. Watches what I can’t. Reflects what people try to hide. Shows me how they move when they assume no one is looking. It allows me to study them.
