11. Wraith
Chapter 11
Wraith
T he man in the photo I stole from Lily has a name.
Ethan Cross.
Finance asshole. Teflon ego. The kind of man who thinks he’s a god because no one’s ever hit him hard enough to remind him he bleeds.
Lily dated him. Months before she consumed my life.
I dig into him without a second thought because obsession’s a hell of a drug—and I’m already too far gone to quit.
He’s worse than I expected.
Not a killer. Not a mastermind.
Small fry compared to the monsters I hunt.
But he touched her.
And that’s enough to sign his fucking death warrant.
Womanizer. Liar. Parasite with a Rolex.
The kind of man who treats women like disposable toys—fucks them, leaves them crying, and brags about it later over overpriced whiskey.
I dig deeper .
Two kids. Two different women.
He never claimed either one.
Backlogged child support he fights in court just to watch them drown in legal fees.
Not even a whisper of shame.
I stare at his bank records.
His purchases.
The dresses.
The shoes.
The jewelry.
Was it for her?
Were they the same ones I found tucked away in her closet like some shameful secret?
Did he buy her things just to tear her down?
Did he press her against a wall?—
Use her softness?—
Then toss her aside like she was nothing?
I don’t know.
But I will.
I’m going to find out.
Every detail.
Every touch.
Every lie he ever fed her.
And if he hurt her?—
If he made her think she was anything less than everything?—
I’m going to carve that regret into his fucking bones.
He got to her before I did.
Touched what was mine.
Treated her like something cheap.
Forgettable .
Disposable.
Not anymore.
Now?
I’m going to show him what real consequences feel like.
I’m going to ruin him.
I’m going to erase him.
Until she can’t even remember he existed.
I dig deeper.
Find names.
Faces.
Stories buried under threats and broken promises.
Jessica Morales.
Nineteen.
Barely scraping by.
Works nights at a rundown diner. Cleans floors on the weekends.
And somehow still makes it to every event, every appointment, every scraped-knee emergency.
A child herself when he found her.
Just another kid rotting in the foster system.
She probably saw him as her fucking knight in shining armor.
She never took him to court.
Didn’t even try.
I find out why.
Buried in old emails.
Masked in encrypted files.
Blackmail.
Explicit threats if she ever opened her mouth.
Pictures. Lies. Promises to ruin her, take her daughter, drag her name through the dirt until there was nothing left.
She was alone.
Terrified.
Fighting a war she was never meant to survive.
All while raising a little girl with big brown eyes and a gap-toothed smile.
Sophia Morales.
Three years old.
Too young to know her father is the reason her mother never sleeps through the night.
Rage pulses sharp behind my ribs.
Men like him don’t deserve air.
They don’t deserve mercy.
Danielle Reeves.
Twenty-six.
Nurse.
Raising a five-year-old boy.
Aiden.
No blackmail this time.
Just exhaustion.
The court fees bled her dry.
She stopped fighting because every paycheck disappeared before it even touched her hands.
She gave up chasing justice.
Because the system was built to break women like her.
And Ethan?
He just kept smiling.
Kept building his empire out of the bodies he left behind.
I knew men like him.
I hated men like him.
The system let them fester and rot everything they touche d
I grew up watching kids just like Sophia and Aiden get turned into collateral damage.
Left to rot while men like him smiled and walked away.
Forgotten.
Disposable.
Not this time.
This time, someone remembers.
This time, someone’s going to make it hurt.
I crack my knuckles and start moving.
First, the money.
If I’m going to dismantle him, I want it to last.
Two-thirds of his wealth—gone before he even realizes it.
I siphon it off into two separate accounts, buried under fabricated shell corporations.
One for Sophia Morales.
One for Aiden Reeves.
Buried so deep even the government couldn’t peel it back without starting a war.
Rigged to drip-feed over time?—
Small pieces when they turn eighteen.
Another slice at twenty-three.
The rest at twenty-eight.
Enough to survive.
Enough to thrive.
Enough to become something he’ll never touch.
The final third?
I move it into a shadow account.
Designed to send out automatic payments every goddamn month.
The child support he should’ve been paying.
Jessica and Danielle will start seeing money tomorrow.
Anonymous. Untraceable.
Safe.
It’ll come with a message—short, brutal, final.
You’ll see news soon. Don’t worry. Don’t talk. Keep your heads down. Take care of the kids and more of this will come every month.
No heroics.
No gratitude expected.
If they so much as hint at where it’s coming from, it stops.
I’m not a fucking hero.
I’m making sure his sins bleed into something better.
On the surface?
It’ll still look like Ethan Cross is sitting pretty.
He could log into his accounts right now and see the numbers smiling back at him.
Mirrors.
Lies.
The real money’s already gone.
Next—the nails in his coffin.
I rip open every dirty file he thought he buried.
Bribes.
Fraud.
Tax evasion.
Insider trading.
Enough to make him the lead story on every news station across the country.
Anonymous tips land in all the right inboxes.
The kind of people who don’t look away when they smell blood.
The audits will hit first.
Then the asset freezes .
Seventy-two hours.
That’s all it’ll take to turn him into a fucking pariah.
The press will tear him apart.
Every skeleton he stuffed into a closet will get dragged into the light and put on display.
He’ll hide.
He’ll panic.
And me?
I’ll wait.
Not because I have to.
Because I want to.
Because I want to savor every hour that ticks by and breaks him a little more.
Terrifies him a little more.
And when he finally drags his useless, broken body back to the place he thinks is safe?
That’s when I’ll knock.
It’s almost too easy.
One tip.
One whisper.
And the world stops looking at Ethan Cross like he’s untouchable.
The first audit notice hits his inbox at nine-thirty sharp.
By ten, the press is at his office doors.
By noon, federal agents start freezing his accounts.
By two, the company he built his paper throne on issues a statement: We are cooperating fully with the investigation.
He’s in a meeting when it happens.
One minute he’s running his mouth about quarterly projections?—
The next, his assistant is white as a sheet, whispering in his ear.
He brushes her off.
Arrogant fucker.
Still thinks a man like him can outtalk gravity.
But the murmurs start.
The sideways glances.
The texts flying across the room.
You see this shit?
Did you know?
How long has he been dirty?
His phone buzzes nonstop.
He pulls it out.
One headline screams at him:
ETHAN CROSS UNDER INVESTIGATION FOR FRAUD, TAX EVASION, brIBERY.
Another:
Sources claim Cross siphoned millions into offshore accounts.
Another:
Victims Speak Out: “He Destroyed Our Lives.”
The blood drains from his face.
Right there, in front of everyone.
The meeting falls apart.
People are standing now.
Grabbing their shit .
Putting distance between themselves and the bomb about to go off.
He tries to bark orders.
No one listens.
When the security team comes to escort him out, he knows.
It’s over.
He doesn’t get a quiet exit.
No soft sweep under the rug.
It’s cameras flashing in his face.
It’s reporters screaming his name.
It’s strangers looking at him like he’s already rotting.
He spends the night in a holding cell.
Just another man with too much cologne and not enough power left to matter.
When he finally crawls back to his penthouse?
He’s not a king.
He’s not a wolf.
He’s a fucking ghost.
I watch him from across the street.
High above the city, tucked into the shadows, I can see everything.
Ethan. Fucking. Cross.
Big-shot financier.
Golden boy.
Whiskey-soaked fuck-up.
He paces the penthouse like a man already dead.
Back and forth. Back and forth.
A rat trapped in a maze of his own making.
I’m on the roof, watching everything through the cameras I installed earlier that day.
He’s crumbling beautifully.
The press is waiting outside, hungry for a new headline.
The feds are crawling over his assets, tearing through what’s left of his life.
His so-called friends?
Gone.
Even his lawyer bailed this afternoon.
Told him there’s nothing left to fight for.
I smirk, watching him stumble toward the bar again.
Pour another glass with a shaking hand.
He downs it in two gulps.
Pathetic.
I should leave.
The job’s done.
He’s lost everything.
But I don’t.
Because it’s not enough.
Not yet.
He hurt her.
And if he didn’t—he wanted to.
I wonder if he whispered pretty lies in her ear.
If he touched her like she was something he deserved.
If he ever made her cry.
If he ever made her feel less than.
He lurches across the room, grabs a bottle by the neck, and hurls it at the wall.
Glass explodes.
Whiskey sprays across the marble floor.
He screams—a raw, broken sound—and slams his fists against the window.
The city lights reflect him back.
A wreck.
A ruin.
A man stripped bare.
I smile beneath the mask.
Good.
He should see what he really is before he dies.
I glance at the clock.
Almost midnight.
Perfect.
I push off the wall, roll my shoulders, and cross the rooftop in three easy strides.
The service door is mechanical and surrenders to me with barely a tap of a few buttons.
Silent. Precise.
Predator steps.
Inside the penthouse, the wreckage is worse up close.
Broken glass.
Smeared blood.
Staggering, desperate sobs echoing against marble and glass.
I move through the wreckage without a sound, letting the crackle of glass under my boots be the only warning he gets.
His head snaps up.
Wide eyes.
Pale face.
Sweat dripping down his temples.
Good.
Panic makes it sweeter.
I stop in the center of the room.
And slowly?—
I start clapping .
Three slow, deliberate strikes of my gloves against my palms.
The sound cuts through the room like a blade.
He spins.
His puls hammering against his neck I can see it from here.
I say nothing.
Just stand there.
Gloved hands.
Hood low over my mask.
Silent. Watching. Waiting.
The clapping stops.
He takes a step back.
Then another.
Good instincts.
Won’t save him.
“Who—who the fuck are you?” he stammers, voice cracking.
I tilt my head slightly.
Let the silence stretch.
Make him sweat.
Then, finally, I speak.
Voice low.
Deadly.
“You shouldn’t have touched her.”
The words hit him like a gunshot.
I see it.
The way they sink in.
The way recognition dawns—and terror slithers right after it.
He knows he’s fucked .
He just doesn’t know which her I’m talking about.
I watch him scramble.
Dumb, useless panic.
He lunges for his phone?—
Too slow.
I move.
A boot slams into his ribs, sending him airborne.
He crashes into the coffee table.
Glass shatters.
He chokes on his own breath, gasping like a fish out of water.
I take a slow step forward.
No rush.
No panic.
I already know how this ends.
He scrambles back, palms slipping on whiskey, glass shards leaving bloody hand prints.
Pathetic.
His hands shake.
“I—I don’t even—what the fuck is this about?” he stutters.
Another slow step forward.
My boots crunch against the wreckage.
“Lily.”
One word.
Enough to freeze him to the floor.
His face twists—confusion, terror, disbelief—all fighting for space.
“She—she doesn’t even—” he starts.
But the words die in his throat when I crouch in front of him.
Close enough to smell the fear rolling off his skin.
Close enough to break him.
I grab his chin, leather gloves biting into his jaw, and tilt his face up.
Studying him.
Not a man.
A stain.
A mistake.
“Do you love her?” I ask, voice almost curious.
He stares at me.
Mouth open.
No sound.
“What?” he whispers, breath hitching.
I lean closer.
“So tell me, Ethan,” I murmur, deadly calm.
“Did you touch more of her than her waist? Did she let you? Did she moan for you?”
His whole body jolts.
“No—no, I swear to fucking God—” he babbles.
Tears blur his bloodshot eyes.
He’s not lying.
Good.
Because if he had?—
I smile under the mask.
A slow, dark thing.
“Good,” I whisper.
And then I slam his head into the floor.
The crack of his skull against the marble is sharp, satisfying.
The first punch is clean.
Precise.
The second shatters cartilage—blood sprays.
The third?
The third is just because I want to.
Because it’s him.
Because he touched her.
Spoke to her.
Breathed near her.
Ethan sputters, blood pooling between his lips.
“P-please—” he gasps.
I sigh.
Stand.
Roll my shoulders.
Blood stains my gloves.
My knuckles ache.
I tilt my head, looking down at the wreck of a man at my feet.
“You don’t deserve her,” I say simply.
I grab him by the collar, hauling his broken body upright.
He dangles like a puppet with its strings cut.
Barely conscious.
Barely anything.
“You’re going to do one last thing for me,” I murmur.
Dragging him across the glass-strewn floor, ignoring his weak protests.
Toward the floor-to-ceiling windows.
Toward the night.
The city yawns open beneath us—cold and hungry.
Ethan starts struggling when he realizes where we’re going.
“No—no, no, wait—” he whimpers.
I don’t wait.
I slam him against the glass .
The pane groans under the impact.
Cracks spiderweb out under his weight.
He sobs.
Begging now.
Pathetic.
I lean in close, mouth brushing his bloody ear.
“Jump.”
He jerks once. Shakes his head hard enough to snap his own neck.
“I—I didn’t touch her—went out twice?—”
My grip tightens, knuckles whitening.
“That’s twice too many.”
And with one final, effortless shove?—
He goes.
No scream.
Just a silent fall into the black.
I watch him tumble.
A flash of limbs.
A smear of color.
Then nothing.
By the time he hits the street, he’s forgotten.
Erased.
The world keeps moving.
Unbothered.
Oblivious.
I watch for another second.
Make sure the crowd gathers.
Make sure the sirens start.
Then I turn.
Walk away .
By the time they find the body, I’m already slipping back into the night.
Already watching her again.
I sink into the worn leather chair.
Crack my knuckles.
Flex the blood from my fingers.
The monitors glow in front of me—six angles, six different views.
And every single one?
Her.
Lily.
Moving through her day like nothing happened.
Oblivious.
Untouchable.
Perfect.
She hums to herself as she walks down the street, swinging a little bag in her hand.
Pauses to pet some ugly little dog.
Smiles at a vendor and buys a flower she doesn’t even need.
Still so fucking sweet it’s almost unbearable.
Still breathing.
Still smiling.
And she has no goddamn idea what just happened.
No clue that halfway across the city, sixty stories down from the penthouse he thought made him a king, Ethan Cross’s body paints the pavement.
I lean back.
Exhale slow.
Drag my fingers down my face.
There’s a photo missing from her wall now.
An obvious gap.
One she hasn’t noticed yet.
But she will.
Soon.
I curl my hand into a fist.
Feel the phantom echo of my knuckles splitting his skin.
He didn’t deserve to breathe the same fucking air as her.
He didn’t deserve to touch her.
I made sure he never would again.
She’ll notice something soon.
Because tomorrow?
She gets another message.
Another quiet little reminder that her life is being curated.
Protected.
Claimed.
Piece by piece.
Breath by breath.
Heartbeat by heartbeat.
I lean back, smirk cutting sharp across my face.
“You belong to me, angel,” I murmur.
“And soon…”
I tap the screen—right over the soft curve of her smile.
“…you’ll know it.”