I stand over the body, cleaning the hook on the kid’s jacket. I feel a profound, hollow peace.
“Get rid of it,” I say. “No fingers. No teeth. I want him to be as anonymous as the dirt he is.”
“You got it,” Jax says, grabbing the body by the ankles. “Silas, grab the heavy end. My back’s killing me.”
“Stop whining, Jax. You’re just lazy.”
I walk back to the mouth of the alley and look up at Wendy’s window. It’s dark. She’s safe. She’s sleeping, oblivious to the fact that the bricks below her are stained with the lifeblood of the man who dared to look.
My phone vibrates.
He was just the scout. There are three more.
My jaw locks. My smile returns, feral and wide.
“Good,” I whisper to the rain. “I’m still hungry.”
Peter
My sister doesn’t know half of what I do. That’s the only reason she still calls me her brother.
She thinks I run numbers. Maybe a little dirty work for the local syndicates. Nothing serious, nothing that leaves a permanent stain on the family name.
She never asks too deep because she doesn’t want the answer, and I don’t give it to her because I don’t want her to see me for the hollowed-out husk I’ve become.
I don’t want her to see the boy she used to share a bedroom with replaced by a man who has more in common with a meat hook than a human being.
But she’s sharp. Always has been. And she’s the one person on this planet who can cut me down to size with a single, disappointed look.
Which is why I keep my walls sky-high when she calls my name across the apartment tonight, dropping her designer bag on the counter like she owns the place. The space smells like her—expensive perfume andlavender—a stark, jarring contrast to the scent of bleach, iron, and burnt flesh still clinging to my pores.
“You’re out late again,” she says. Her voice is casual, practiced, but her eyes are predatory. They flick over my jacket, the lingering ghost of smoke on my hands, the bruises blooming faint and purple across my knuckles where I slammed that boy into the brick. “What are you doing, Peter?”
I smirk, leaning against the doorframe. “Working.”
She doesn’t laugh. “You don’t work, Peter. You haunt. You’re a ghost with a pulse, and I’m tired of wondering who you’re scaring tonight.”
I almost snap back, almost tell her that the only thing I’m scaring is the competition, but then I see it—what she’s really hiding. The subtle shift in her stance, the way she pushes her hair back too quick, her fingers trembling just a fraction. She didn’t come here for me. She came here because ofher.
“Wendy,” I murmur, tasting the name like it’s a shot of gasoline I’m about to swallow.
Her eyes dart away. Too fast. Too obvious. “She’s fine.”
“No,” I say, stepping closer, my boots thudding heavy on the hardwood. “You’re worried. You’re vibrating with it.”
“She’s my best friend. I’m allowed to be worried when she stops answering my texts at midnight.”
“And I’m not?” The edge in my voice is sharper than I meant it to be, a jagged blade that draws blood the moment it touches the air.
She crosses her arms, her chin lifting in defiance. “About what, exactly? You barely talk to her. You look at her like she’s a problem you’re waiting to solve.”
I huff a laugh, a dark, wrong sound that echoes in the quiet kitchen. “I don’t need to talk to her to know her. I know the way her pulse jumps when I walk into a room. I know the way she clenches her teeth to keep from screaming my name. I know her better than you ever will, Sister.”
“Jesus, Peter.” She shakes her head, a look of genuine horror flickering in her eyes. “You sound like one of those men we promised each other we’d never become. Like the ones who used to wait for Mum outside the back door.”
Too late. I’m already ten steps past those men.
I lean against the counter, letting my smile turn cruel, letting her see the shadow behind my eyes. “You really think she’s safe? Walking home through alleys that smell like death? Sitting in clubs where men would sell their fucking souls for a chance to fuck her? You think you know the kind of ghosts that follow her around? You think I’m the only monster in this city?”
