Page 856 of Coal Hearts

Chapter Twenty-Eight

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Henri

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I HAD TO GIVE CREDIT WHERE credit was due.

I was no longer the naïve idiot who’d done his best to hide all his life. A man who’d shackled and blinded himself to what he was and how many men like him existed.

Victor had taught me well.

I now knew how to recognise beasts in human clothing. I could smell them. See through their bullshit. I no longer feared them or myself.

I just...acted.

Victor had a technology-dampening web over his island, ensuring he remained safe for two decades. I got rid of Q’s phone the moment I figured he’d track me with it.

I copied the list to another phone that I stole off my fifth victim.

I staked out the old two-bedroom cottage where I’d nursed my dying mother and waited until the witching hour to sneak through the cobbled laneway and break into my own home.

There, I packed a bag.

I grabbed my old license to be able to fly if need be, and added it to all the cash and weapons I’d stolen from the men I’d slaughtered.

Slipping back into the night, I checked the next name on my list.

A name I knew well.

Patrick.

The Scottish motherfucker who’d challenged me on my first day at Victor’s.

Apparently, he hadn’t been on the island when it blew up.

I figured I’d be generous and bring the party to him.

It didn’t take me long to drive to his house.

I smashed his back window and crawled into an immaculate kitchen. Pink school bags hung on a hook in the corridor. A pair of women’s high heels rested by a dog bowl.

My hands curled around the gun I’d stolen a few hours ago, testing to make sure the silencer was on tight.

I didn’t want to kill a husband and father.

But I would happily kill a rapist.

I found their bedroom on the second floor.

I treaded with silence as I found him asleep beside a pretty red-headed wife.

She slept facing away from him, her fiery hair a curly mess on her pillow.

I didn’t stop to worry how she’d feel waking up beside a dead man. I merely grabbed a throw cushion from the floor, pressed it against the man’s skull, and fired.

The softest pop.