Chapter 5 Estella
Seattle, USA
Usually, my work involves bigger figures: high-ranking politicians, bloated billionaires whose pockets nearly tear from the weight of their wealth.
Today is different. And for the life of me, I can’t remember how many criminal lawyers I’ve killed already.
I’ve cut so many lives short over the years that the count is long gone.
When I first started, I kept a journal—a meticulous ledger of every person I’d taken out.
My twisted version of journaling therapy, as people like to brand it.
I logged everything: their names, the names of their families, their childhoods, the grades they pulled in school, even the comments their teachers scribbled on old report cards.
Every scrap of who they were, captured in ink.
Cane never felt the need to explain much about the people he sent me after.
Each time, he handed me an envelope, always the same: one sheet of paper with a basic dossier.
At first, the lack of detail used to piss me off.
But over time, I understood. That was part of his lesson.
I had to learn how to find out everything myself.
In this line of work, there’s no lifeline, no safety net.
If someone reaches out a hand to help you, it’s only so they can drive the knife in once you trust them.
So I adapted. And somewhere in that shift, I uncovered a truth about myself—an itch I can’t quite shake off.
I’m obsessively curious about the people I’m sent to eliminate.
It’s a quiet, persistent addiction. I trail them, dissect their routines, peel back the layers of their lives until I know them more intimately than the people who share their beds.
In a warped way, I nearly become their friend.
I learn them—who they are beneath the masks, the habits, the rehearsed smiles—right before I take them down. Living, breathing human beings with histories and hopes and flaws. But none of that matters for long.
Not once the hunt begins.
Digging into today’s target was, strangely enough, a pleasure. On the surface, he looked painfully ordinary—another forgettable face in a gray crowd. But the deeper I went, the more he unfolded, layer after unexpected layer, revealing a complexity no one would’ve suspected.
By day, he plays the part of a respectable criminal lawyer, an upstanding arbiter of justice.
But by night, he runs a sprawling, multi-tiered site buried deep in the darknet—distributing illegal content to the world’s worst degenerates.
I’ve seen some dark shit in this line of work, but what I witnessed last night while scrolling through his site? It made me sick to my stomach.
The more I learn about my targets, the better I know how to deal with them.
That’s something The Order drilled into me from day one—no mistakes, no patterns, no suspicions.
Clean, efficient, and untraceable. Sometimes, I wish I had a signature.
A mark that would make the FBI shiver when they find it.
I like attention. I crave it, if I’m being truly honest with myself. But not at the expense of everything I’ve carved out of blood and grit.
I earned my place. Spent years honing every skill, every instinct, sanding myself down to the sharpest version of who I needed to be. I can’t let a moment of weakness splinter all of that.
“He’s on his way.”
I reach up and nudge the earpiece tighter into place, my finger lingering just long enough for irritation to spark.
The damn thing clashes with everything I’m wearing—an eyesore wedged against an outfit I curated down to the stitch.
How I present myself matters, always has.
I never use gear like this—no bulky headphones, no clunky mics, no tacky tech glued to my skin.
But thanks to the persistent inconvenience known as Dante, here I am, accessorizing with equipment I’d normally set on fire.
“He should be there in five minutes. You okay?”
I roll my eyes and flick the damn thing off. Dante’s glued to the house cameras—he can see perfectly well that I’m fine. What kind of question is that, anyway? We’re in the middle of a mission, and he’s checking in on my feelings like some lovesick amateur.
Honestly, it’s a miracle he even made it on time, found a van, and wired up all the equipment without setting something on fire.
I’ve barely seen him for a few minutes, but in that short window, I caught the look in his eyes the second he saw what I was wearing—a quick flash of emotion, like a startled animal caught in a spotlight.
He didn’t comment, not a word. Which only makes me wonder whether he bothered to dig into our target’s background… or if that reaction was all about me.
If he doesn’t get it, that’s on him. A little research would’ve told him everything he needed to know.
Our dear lawyer has his own late-night hobbies.
Sometimes, when his wife and daughter are sound asleep, he hosts video chats with minors.
He orders them into place—how to stand, how to tilt their heads—while the masks conceal their identities and strip the room of anything human.
They make it even worse—grotesque little props that pretend to hide what’s already unspeakable.
Before I cut his throat, I want him to understand that the entire world is about to see him for what he really was.
His family, his friends, every colleague who ever shook his hand or smiled at his lies…
they’ll all know. They’ll see the sickness he hid behind that carefully constructed life, and realize just how close they let a monster get.
And I have a feeling his family will end up grateful for what I’m going to do to him today—if they have even half a functioning brain between them. Love only stretches so far; once something like this comes to light, affection doesn’t just fade, it mutates into pure disgust.
I catch my reflection in the mirror, fingers gliding over the creases of my sundress—white cotton scattered with bright little daisies. His daughter’s favorite flower. A symbol of purity, innocence, and new beginnings.
The irony lands like a punchline only I’m cruel enough to appreciate.
I brush the daisy scrunchie in my hair, then move to the earrings that match the dress perfectly. Today, I wear innocence like a costume, my entire look a lie to mirror his own—the mask of virtue he wears every fucking day.
What seals the whole performance is the mask.
A flimsy, plastic replica of the one he forced those kids to wear in his videos.
I slip it over my face just as his car crunches into the gravel of the backyard.
The sound bleeds through the half-open window, sharp and intrusive, and for a heartbeat, it feels like he’s already here, breathing the same air as me.
Revulsion erupts like a living thing, hot and immediate, crawling up from my gut.
The mask presses against my skin, suffocating and scratchy, its cheap plastic scent clawing its way into my nose until every instinct screams to rip it away.
And just as quickly as the disgust lands, anger sparks through me—sharp, electric, coursing along my veins like lightning ready to strike.
Maybe I’ll rethink how I kill him. Or maybe I’ll just…add a twist.
My gaze slides to the far corner of the room—his daughter’s bedroom. That’s where he’ll die. Right beside the tiny fabric tent she plays in. I stride toward it, unable to resist the urge to admire my work one more time before the house erupts into chaos.
I made this space for him.
Pinned to the wall, framed by daisy stickers and scattered toys, are screenshots from every video he watched, commented on, or saved. A sick little shrine to who he really is.
I reach the tent and gently draw the flaps closed, tucking in a secret meant just for him.
My patience thins with every dragging second, and I have to remind myself to breathe just to keep from snapping.
I step out of the room and move upstairs to his office, sliding into the black leather chair behind his desk.
His laptop sits open, security feeds flickering across the screen in cold, grainy squares.
And then, after a few stretched-out, torturous heartbeats, I see him.
A spark ignites in my chest, molten fire bubbling beneath my ribs. Heat races through my veins, my fingers clutching the fabric of my sundress as a coil of impatience twists tighter and tighter inside me.
He steps through the front door exactly the way he always does—unguarded, settled into the rhythm of his own mundane routine.
One hand rakes through his disheveled black hair as he drifts toward the kitchen.
He swings open the fridge, grabs his bottle of scotch, and for a moment, the world looks painfully normal on the screen.
I don’t blink. My gaze stays glued to the feed as I unlock my phone and type the first message.
A heartbeat later, a notification chimes from downstairs, sharp and deliberate.
Anticipation shoots through me, a molten current igniting every nerve.
I shift in the black leather chair, crossing my legs as the tension coils tighter, waiting for the impact to strike him.
My foot swings, brushing the edge of the desk, tapping out a soft, insistent rhythm—like the steady ticking of a clock counting down the seconds he has left, unaware of the fire creeping closer.
His expression fractures in real time—confusion flaring first, followed by the early, trembling sparks of fear.
I don’t bother waiting for him to catch up.
I send another message, and the way his lips twitch at the corners is almost funny.
Anger unfurls across his features exactly on cue, blooming dark and ugly beneath the kitchen lights.