Chapter 5
Monday, I tailed Danny from where he worked to his apartment, where he arrived home at nine-thirteen, carrying a paper bag of vodka.
Tuesday, eight-fifty-seven, the same routine.
Wednesday held a slight deviation when he brought a young woman with him, her head down and shoulders hunched. They entered together at ten-twenty. She left alone at midnight, her makeup smeared and her collar pulled high around her neck.
While he was at work, I broke into his apartment to map out the layout, memorizing the fastest routes on and off his floor, the distance between the stairwell and his door, and the twenty-second delay on the security lights.
I would have preferred more time to confirm his patterns, but with Friday fast approaching, I’m out of time.
The night shift manager at the liquor store works Thursdays, which means Danny gets off at eight-thirty. Factoring in his usual stop at the corner store for cigarettes, he should return home around nine.
I have sixty-two minutes.
My backpack drags at my shoulders as I emerge from the stairwell, baseball cap down to hide my identity, and my movements casual but purposeful.
The hallway stretches empty in both directions, and I approach Danny’s door without hesitation, as if I belong. The lock is a basic deadbolt, good enough to keep out amateurs, but poses no challenge to my trained fingers.
I pull on latex gloves and unroll my tools on the carpet beside the door, selecting a tension wrench and hook pick.
In thirty seconds, I’m in.
I close the door behind me, taking in the apartment with a quick scan.
The air hangs thick with stale beer and unwashed clothes, undercut by the unmistakable musk of Alpha pheromones.
Empty bottles crowd the coffee table, while takeout containers fill the kitchen sink, crusted with what might have been last week’s dinner.
A television dominates one wall, surrounded by gaming consoles with controllers left on the floor. Dirty laundry lies in small mountains across the carpet. The coffee table hosts a collection of cigarette butts, crushed into an ashtray shaped like a woman’s body.
My fingers curl into fists at my sides. This is the type of man who dared to claim my sister.
I force the rage down, channeling it as I unpack my supplies from my backpack.
The painter’s tarp unfolds with a crackle as I lay it across the living room floor. The zip ties I arrange by size beside my bag, ready for use.
The chemical restraint comes next, a fast-acting sedative to render him unconscious within seconds of inhalation.
I position it near the entryway, rigged to trigger when the door opens all the way.
The device appears innocent enough, designed to be mistaken for an air freshener.
It’s scary how easy it is to buy these kinds of things on the dark web.
With the trap set, I search the apartment for weapons Danny might have access to. The kitchen yields a set of dull steak knives, which I place in the freezer, out of reach. A baseball bat leans against the wall near the television. This goes into the bathtub, buried beneath towels.
The bedroom door stands half-open, revealing rumpled sheets and more clothes strewn across the floor. I push it wider, stepping over a pizza box.
The nightstand drawer slides open to reveal condoms, a pocketknife, and a small vial of clear liquid that chills my blood. Date-rape drug or a Heat inducer. Both options are disgusting. Both are illegal. I’ll leave it for the police to find when someone comes to check on him.
A spiral-bound notebook sits on the shelf above his bed, and when I flip it open, I find page after page of handwritten entries.
Names. Dates. Locations. Physical descriptions that focus on scent profiles and Heat cycles.
Notes about how each Omega responded to Command, which ones fought back, and which ones went quiet.
My stomach twists as I flip through it. This isn’t a journal. It’s a catalog of every Omega he’s ever harmed.
Lena’s name is the latest entry, the ink still fresh. He’s included our address.
Friday night. Corner of Elm and 4th. Heat just beginning. Fought back, but responded to Command. Mark took well. Pretty little bitch needs training.
My vision narrows, darkness creeping in from the edges as I read his clinical assessment of my sister. Below her entry, he’s written:
Brother could be a problem. Handle if necessary.
I trace my finger over his handwriting as the rage inside me hardens into cold focus. The evidence locks into place. Danny isn’t just an opportunistic Alpha who crossed paths with my sister. He targets vulnerable Omegas, repeats the behavior, and keeps records.
And he’s been doing this for years.
I count the pages, discover some already missing, and tear out the entry about my sister, along with the five pages behind it, in case they carry the imprint from the pen. Then I close the book and return it to the same spot where I found it.
Maybe with this and the drugs, the police won’t spend a lot of time investigating Danny’s death.
Another check of my watch. Eight fifty-two. He’ll be home soon.
I fit a mask over my mouth and nose before I take up position behind the door, in the small space between the wall and a bookshelf stuffed with gaming guides and sports magazines. From here, I can see the chemical trap without him seeing me when he enters.
At a little past nine, a key scratches in the lock, the metal-on-metal sound triggering a flood of adrenaline through my system. I flatten against the wall, my breathing slowing to near-silent as the door pushes open.
Danny stumbles in, kicking the door closed behind him with the casual disregard of someone who believes they’re alone and safe in their territory.
As he crossed the threshold, the trap triggers with a soft hiss. The chemical compound releases into the air, misting in his path, invisible but potent.
Danny freezes mid-step, confusion washing over him as the sedative hits his system. His pupils dilate, and his mouth opens in a question that never forms. His knees buckle first, followed by his torso as control of his muscles evaporates in seconds.
As he crumples toward the floor, I rush forward and grab the back of his shirt and belt, easing his landing so the neighbors won’t hear a thud.
“Wha…” His feet kick without strength.
The initial effect takes twenty seconds, stripping away most of his motor function and his ability to use Command. Full sedation takes hold at sixty. I use his remaining lucidity to swivel my hips and heave him onto the plastic sheet.
His breathing settles into the deep rhythm of chemical unconsciousness as I stand over his prone form, assessing him the same way a butcher selects a cut of meat.
Danny appears smaller while unconscious, the broad shoulders and Alpha build that terrified my sister reduced to dead weight on my tarp.
Crouching, I remove a second device I picked up from the outer pocket of my bag. This one is smaller than the first, and it’s not meant to keep him asleep.
Killing him while unconscious is better than he deserves.
I administer it while his muscles are slack and unresisting, timing it to take hold as the sedative fades. By the time he wakes, his brain won’t be able to signal his body to move, but he’ll have enough awareness to understand what’s happening.
I dispose of the applicator, wipe down the contact point, and zip the bag closed. I also collect the dispenser by the door, tucking it away. No reason to leave more traces than necessary.
I check my watch. The sedative should keep him under for twenty more minutes, though effects vary by body mass and metabolism.
I use the time to strip him of his liquor store uniform, wrinkling my nose at the stench of sour sweat wafting from the pit stains. I hide it among the many piles of dirty clothes, indistinguishable from the rest.
Lifting the first zip tie, I bind his hands behind his back and his ankles together. The gag comes next, a bandana pushed between his teeth and secured around the back of his head. I roll him like a log to the center of the plastic.
The blue veins in his neck pulse with each heartbeat, his carotid artery visible beneath thin skin. Such a fragile thing, life. So easy to interrupt.
Eighteen minutes after his collapse, Danny’s eyelids flutter, his consciousness returning.
I sit on the coffee table across from him, knife balanced on my knee within his view.
As Danny registers his position, confusion gives way to panic. He jerks, a violent attempt to sit up that ends with a pathetic twitch of his shoulders. One knee drags a useless inch over the plastic before falling still again.
A breath tears out of his chest, and he tries again, harder this time, but his body refuses to follow through, limbs shuddering instead of obeying.
His gaze snaps to me.
I don’t move.
The panic spikes fast after that. I can see it in the way his breathing turns shallow and frantic as he tests himself again, rolling his shoulders, straining his wrists, bucking his hips. The disconnect becomes more obvious with each effort. Power without coordination. Rage without leverage.
Good.
A muffled sound forces its way past the gag, somewhere between a growl and a plea. His neck cords stand out as he tries to gather himself to use Command.
Nothing happens.
The motor lock holds.
Satisfaction sweeps through me, the way it always does when preparation pays off. I wasn’t sure how good this stuff was, considering the source, but it was worth the cost.
“I considered starting while you were unconscious,” I say, calm in a way that doesn’t match the inferno raging inside me. “But I want you to understand why this is happening.”
I shift the knife on my knee so the light catches on the sharp edge.
He mumbles, unintelligible through the gag.
I pull out the papers I’d torn from his notebook and hold them up for him to see. “You keep some interesting reading material.”
Fear replaces the panicked anger, and sweat beads on his forehead.