Well, if you don’t have to go through legal channels and proper protocol.
And the rest? Turning him into bait.
“Oh my god, he came. He actually came.”
I’ve wanted to confront this man for damn near fifteen years. But I never really thought about what I’d do if I actually got this far.
Merged with the wall, I watch as the bane of my existence mists into the room, pausing as he sees the dismembered body. Anxiously, I wait for his reaction. Will he be impressed? Notice my careful attention to detail?
Every cut I carved into the bastard’s flesh was meaningful; a parallel of his numerous victims’ injuries, one to represent each. As soon as I tortured his name out of him and realized he was posted on the Shadow Knight’s job request board? The opportunity was too perfect to pass up, even if I had to pull a rush job. My research may have been quick, but it was thorough, down to identifying the type of weapon used to inflict each corresponding wound. It was an exhausting night, but totally worth it.
Finally, Havoc Knight is going to see that he fucked up leaving me behind. I would’ve been the best asset the guild could have ever asked for.
Instead, he turned me into his worst enemy.
“You’re here, aren’t you? Watching…” Hand on the knife at his hip, he slowly scans the room.
I slide seamlessly from one wall to the next for a better vantage point, saying nothing, heart in my throat. He’s going to see it any moment now. And that unshakable composure he’s renowned for is going to crumble right before my eyes.
He steps past it, and my eye twitches. Five minutes he searches the room, and he misses it by a hair's breadth every single time. On the sixth pass, something inside of me snaps.
“Jesus fuck, are youblind?It’s right. Fucking.There!”
His head whips towards me as I emerge from the wall, storming over and snatching the slim, dark blue flash drive out of the wound in the corpse’s neck. “Obviously, he only would have come here for a damn good reason; like if someone threatened they were going to the police with proof of his crimes. So he came to destroy the blackmailer and any evidence he had on him. There was a fight, hence the mess, and the killer wanted him to choke on his crimes, knowing it’d be found during the autopsy. Gods, it’s not that complicated!”
“The King of Carnage,” Havoc breathes, a layer of frost coating the hilt of the knife he unsheathed faster than I could blink. “You were beat to the kill?” He tsks his tongue. “I’m surprised you stood by and watched instead of slaughtering them both for the hell of it.”
My eye twitches. “There wasn’t anyone else,Iset the scene. Crafted the script and everything, you ungrateful dick, even compiled all of the bastard’s crimes onto the flashdrive to make it easy for police to sweep it under the rug since there was no covering up this one.”
“No, I suppose there wasn't.” He looks around slowly and I stiffen, feeling the judgment oozing out of his pores. I try to picture the room through his eyes, but can’t see the problem.
Sure, the walls and furniture are coated in blood spatter, but those wide arcs are a work ofart. The chicken on the stovetop is burned to a crisp, but I shut off the burner once I noticed the smoke so it wouldn’t set off any alarms or burn the place down. I practically giftwrapped the case for whatever cop ends up in charge of the crime scene. Three hundred seventy-two video clips of the rat bastard hurting women.
The fact that his severed penis was burning in the skillet next to his dinner should have been a dead giveaway. But nooooooooooo. ApparentlyI’mthe problem, here.
“At least I don’t sell my soul to the highest bidder.”
His gaze snaps to me and his jaw flexes. “I don’t take any jobs that I don’t believe in.”
“No, just children that don’t belong to you.”
Frowning deeply, he demands, “What the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“HowisArson these days, anyway?”
His confusion melts away with a vicious snarl. “Stay thefuckaway from my son.”
Papa bear’s hackles raise with a ferocity that makes my chest tight. I can’t even imagine the pieces of shit that birthed me and Arson batting an eye if someone backhanded one of us right in front of them. To see this level of parental protection from someone not even related to us? It stings, not gonna lie.
I’m glad my brother has that, even if I never will.
Hella envious, though.
It finally hits me, then. There’s no point arguing with him.
I’ve spent far too much of my life trying to get revenge on someone that will never even care that I hate him.
Havoc takes advantage of my distraction and throws a blade. I react on instinct, jerking my head to the side and snapping a hand up to catch the knife. The wraith anticipated it though, and uses that split-second opportunity to mist behind me, planning to drive another knife into my back.
