Chapter Four #3
We reach the edge where the waves lap greedily at the pylons, black water slapping against the wood with hungry, open mouths.
Vince stumbles, nearly losing his footing, and I shove him to his knees, so he’s forced to stare into the abyss waiting to claim him.
A coil of rope lies discarded there, thick and frayed, smelling of brine and mildew.
Forgotten by men who never imagined it would become the perfect noose.
I snatch it up, fingers working fast, steady, looping it around his throat with practiced ease.
His muffled cries vibrate against my palm, his body shaking so hard I can feel his terror through every inch of contact.
He thrashes, but he’s no fighter—just a coward wrapped in greed and filth.
The rope cinches tight, biting into his flesh, and I tie it off with a knot so firm it could tether him to hell itself.
I lean close again, letting the steel kiss his throat one last time as my words brand him deeper than the blade.
“Every one of them is waiting for you down there, Vince. Every scream, every tear, every stolen life. Time to join the graves you dug.” I force him forward, his body lurching toward the edge until his toes hang over the slick, rotting planks.
The rope bites tight against his throat, secured to the dock’s post like an executioner’s knot.
His eyes bulge wide, bloodshot and frantic, terror etched into every trembling line of his face as the truth dawns on him—he knows exactly how this ends.
I kick him off the dock, my boot connecting hard with his back. The force sends him sprawling forward, his body snapping over the edge before gravity drags him down. The splash cracks through the night like thunder, loud and violent in the suffocating silence.
His body thrashes wildly, limbs flailing in the black water as the tide surges, dragging him under again and again.
Each time he breaks the surface, gasping and choking, the noose tightens, strangling him as much as the waves.
His fists pound against the water, frantic splashes turning weaker with every second, his muffled cries gurgling into nothing as salt and sea choke them off.
The ocean hisses and slaps, eager to claim him, pulling him deeper until his panic is just ripples across the surface.
I don’t look away. Never allowing him that mercy.
I watch as the bubbles surge from his mouth in frantic bursts, dwindling until the last one breaks the surface and fades.
The sea grows calm again, as if nothing happened, as if it hadn’t just devoured a monster.
And I think of the boy Vince threw in once, his tiny fists pounding the water in desperation, lungs burning for air that never came.
The ocean claimed him too. Tonight, it takes Vince in payment.
Only when I’m sure—when the silence feels final—do I cut the rope, the fibers snapping in my hands as I let his body drift free.
The tide will carry him out; deliver him to the same nameless grave he gave so many others.
Let him join the ghosts he made, dragged down into the same darkness he forced them into.
One down. Two to go.
Though taking Vince out calms some of the demons gnawing inside me, it’s nowhere near enough.
His thrashing, his terror, his final, gurgling breath—it dulled the edge of the blade in my chest for a moment, but only just. The release was fleeting, a single exhale after holding my breath too long.
Because the truth is, men like him are everywhere.
They crawl out of the woodwork like roaches, feeding off fear, preying on the weak, multiplying faster than they can be cut down.
Vince was necessary—an example, a steppingstone—but he was only one, and I’m still starving.
The hunger claws at me, feral and insatiable, demanding more.
It’s not enough to remove one parasite. I need to tear the whole nest apart.
The entire encounter took less time than it would to sit through a movie, less time than most people waste scrolling through their phones.
Which means I still have hours left before dawn bleeds across the horizon, hours left to keep the hunt alive.
The thought quickens my blood, the rush of adrenaline drumming through me like war drums. I can almost hear it in my veins—steady, merciless, inescapable.
Hours to finish what I started. Hours to deliver judgment to the rest of the names burning a hole in my mind.
If I time it right, if my plan unfolds the way it should, I’ll end the night with three bodies instead of one.
Three names wiped clean off the list. Three men who thought they were untouchable, reduced to whispers in the dark.
My heart hammers faster just thinking about it, syncing perfectly with the steady rhythm of vengeance.
The anticipation sharpens me, focuses me, hones me into something lethal.
There’s no room for hesitation. No room for second-guessing.
There’s no time to waste.
I slip into the night, each step measured, silent, deliberate, the kind of movement honed by months of stalking men who thought shadows would keep them safe.
The city breathes differently at this hour, restless and feverish, like it knows blood is about to be spilled.
My destination pulls me forward with grim certainty—Blake Drummond, the second name on my list, as predictable as the tide and twice as foul.
Every evening at this exact time, Blake anchors himself in the back corner of the Velvet Crown.
The place is a pit dressed up in neon lipstick, a club where broken promises flicker above the door in cheap pink lights, where the bass is so heavy it rattles bones and drowns out screams. Cigarette smoke coils through the air, wrapping itself around perfume and sweat until the whole place reeks of desperation.
He thinks the noise and chaos make him invisible, that his filth disappears into the drunken haze of half-naked dancers, sweaty cash, and glazed-over eyes.
But men like Blake can’t disappear. Not from me.
I’ve always seen him. And tonight, I’ll make sure everyone else sees what he really is, too.
Blake’s crimes don’t creep in whispers. They stink of gasoline and rot, impossible to ignore once you get close.
He’s made a fortune running product through these walls, drugs so potent they leave bodies in alleys, club bathrooms, and back seats of cars.
I’ve read the files, seen the crime scene photos—girls barely old enough to buy their first legal drink, veins lit up like fire, bodies crumpled as if they’d been discarded the second their use ran out.
He doesn’t sell death. He packages it as magic; promises it will set them alight.
When they finally fall—empty, twitching—he steps over the wreckage and never looks back.
But that isn’t even the worst of it. Blake deals in flesh as easily as he deals in powder.
He lures them in with promises of quick cash, of opportunity, of being “seen” in his clubs—then funnels them through back rooms where they’re handed off like currency.
Some crawl out broken. Others never walk out at all.
And Blake just keeps grinning, keeps skimming the profits, keeps smearing his filth across everything he touches.
He thinks the Velvet Crown hides him. That the flashing lights and pounding bass blur out the edges of his sins. But tonight, the only thing blurring will be his vision when I take him apart. Piece by piece.
He’s slouched in his usual seat like a king on a throne built of lies, arrogance dripping from every lazy movement.
His glass of whiskey sweats on the table, half-drained and surrounded by the stink of smoke and stale liquor.
Two dancers cling to either side of him, but their eyes give them away—hollow, tired, desperate to be anywhere else.
They’re props in his performance, bought and paid for like the rest of his life.
His hand grips one girl’s thigh, fingers digging in so hard her skin will wear bruises by morning, while the other waves around a stack of cash as if it crowns him ruler of this pit.
He thinks money makes him untouchable. Tonight, it will choke him.
The haze of smoke and neon hides me as I close in, the pulse of strobe lights slicing across the crowd like fractured lightning.
Bodies press around me, swaying to the pounding bass, but I weave through them easily, a predator cutting through a herd.
When I move, I move with purpose—sharp, direct, unstoppable.
No hesitation. My blade flickers once under the lights, a flash of silver like a secret too quick to catch, before I drag it across the bag of coke waiting next to the table.
White powder spills in a soft dusting straight into his drink, dissolving instantly into poison he’ll never see coming.
He doesn’t notice. Of course he doesn’t.
His mind is too fogged by ego and decay, too busy drowning itself in whiskey and self-importance.
By the time I’m behind him, close enough to feel the heat radiating off his body, his hand is already lifting the glass to his mouth.
The rim touches his lips, his throat tipping back, mid-sip.
That’s when I strike. My hand clamps down on his shoulder, hard enough to pin him, the blade of my presence cutting sharper than steel.
With my other hand, I seize his jaw and yank his head back, forcing the glass upward.
Whiskey floods his mouth, spilling over his lips, drenching the front of his shirt as I ram the rest down his throat.
He sputters immediately, choking and gagging, liquid burning its way down with no chance of escape.
The dancers shriek, their screams sharp enough to pierce even over the bass, but the music swallows them whole, muffling their terror into the chaos of the club.
No one notices. No one cares. In here, screams are as common as laughter.
Blake’s eyes go wide, bulging as the cocktail burns its way through him, the laced whiskey searing into his veins like wildfire.
His body jerks, muscles spasming against my grip, but I hold him steady, forcing every drop of poison down.
For the first time in his life, Blake Drummond isn’t in control.
He’s choking on his own sins, and I’m the one holding the match.
I lean close, my lips brushing the shell of his ear, my voice slicing through his panic like a scalpel.
“You thought you could poison everyone else, Blake. Sell them rot. Bury them alive in their own veins. How’s it taste now?
” The words settle into him heavier than the liquor flooding his gut, cruel and deliberate, because I want them to be the last thing his disintegrating brain processes before the darkness swallows him whole.
His body jerks violently, convulsions tearing through him as foam froths at his lips.
His limbs flail, knocking the glass from his hand, the sharp crack of shattering glass swallowed by pounding bass.
Shards scatter across the sticky table and floor, glinting like tiny knives in the fractured neon glow.
The lights above flash red, then green, then strobe, painting his twitching form in grotesque hues, like some carnival nightmare come to life.
His hands claw weakly at his throat, his nails raking down his own skin, as though he could dig out the fire now ripping through his veins.
No one looks twice. No one moves to help. In this place, death is just another party trick, another high gone wrong. This isn’t an accident; it’s judgment. Justice.
His eyes roll back, whites flashing before they sink into shadow, his terror stamped across every spasm as his body seizes.
The foam on his lips thickens, his breaths hitch and gurgle, until finally—mercifully—his head tips back against the booth, lifeless.
The arrogance that once dripped off him like sweat is gone.
The smirk that made me want to carve his face open is wiped clean. What’s left is nothing. A bag of meat.
I straighten, watching him for one more beat, making sure the poison did its job. My voice drops into the only eulogy he deserves, soft enough that only his corpse hears it. “Two down. One to go.”
Then I disappear. Sliding into the crowd, hood drawn low, swallowed by smoke and neon.
To them, I’m no one. Just another shadow in the chaos.
No one notices the man slumped in the booth, already forgotten, his empire ended in the same place he poisoned countless others.
His reign of rot is over, and I’m already moving toward the next.