Chapter 27 Geneva
GENEVA
GHOST IS GOING AFTER DOMINIC CARTER TONIGHT.
And I’m going with him.
“Relax, sweetheart,” Benedetto says, peering at me from the driver’s seat. “Ghost won’t leave you out of the fun. He’s just doing some recon while you’re at work. Preparation is key.”
“You would know.”
He nods. “I would. So are you excited for your first kill?”
My eyes widen and I look around as if someone else is in the vehicle with us, overhearing our outrageous conversation. And by “outrageous,” I mean illegal as fuck.
I gape at Benedetto, my fingers tightening around the strap of my bag. “Jesus, can you not say it like that?”
He smirks, unfazed. “Why? That’s what this is. You’re planning to kill a man.”
I exhale, pressing my fingertips against my temples. “You make it sound like I’m picking out a new pair of shoes.”
“Eh.” He tilts his head, considering my words. “More like getting your first tattoo. Painful, permanent, and something you’ll either regret or get addicted to.”
I roll my eyes. “Great analogy. Very comforting.”
Benedetto chuckles, turning his attention back to the road as he navigates through the morning traffic. I shift in my seat, crossing my arms, my stomach twisting.
Because, deep down, I know he’s not entirely wrong.
My mind has been churning since last night. About the moment itself. What it’ll feel like, and what it’ll sound like. If I’ll walk away completely changed.
I stare out the window, watching the city rush past. “I should be more worried about getting caught. But all I can think about is what it’s going to do to me.”
Benedetto hums, flicking his turn signal on. “That’s normal.”
I shoot him a look. “Normal?”
“For people like us.”
He says it so casually, like I’ve already crossed some invisible threshold. Like I’m already one of them. A murderer.
I shake my head. “I’m not like you.”
“Not yet.”
“I want justice. That’s all this is.”
Benedetto grunts. “Oh, yeah? For a psychologist of the criminal variety, you’re not very good at your job if you can’t see this for what this truly is.”
“What in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
“You’re not doing this for the greater good, Doc. You’re doing it for yourself.”
I stare at him, my pulse ticking faster. “And that makes me just as bad as the people who killed my parents?”
He shakes his head. “No, it makes you human.”
I turn back toward the window. The city outside continues thriving at its usual pace with people walking, cars honking, and life moving forward as if the world isn’t shifting beneath my feet.
Benedetto says I’m human like it’s an excuse.
Or better yet, an explanation. But if that’s true, if wanting someone dead is just part of human nature, then what does that say about all the people I’ve studied?
The ones who acted on those urges, who let their need for vengeance, control, or power consume them?
I’ve spent my entire career analyzing the minds of killers, dissecting their motivations, unraveling the why behind their actions. And now, I’m forced to stare my own “why” in the face.
I want Carter to die. Not just so he can’t hurt me. Not just so he can’t hurt anyone else. I want him dead because I need him to pay for what he did.
My hands begin shaking, so I curl them into fists to hide it. I glance at Benedetto. He’s relaxed, one hand on the steering wheel, completely unbothered. This is easy for him. Is it because he’s done it often enough to numb him to the effects of murder and violence?
“Getting caught is only a problem if you’re sloppy.” Benedetto chuckles, breaking my internal musings. “And Ghost is anything but sloppy, so don’t worry, sweetheart.”
A slow, eerie calm settles over me. I should be more afraid. I should be second-guessing myself, running through every moral dilemma I’ve ever studied, weighing every consequence.
Instead, I just nod. “Then I guess I don’t have to worry.”
Benedetto grins, but there’s something almost proud in the way he watches me. “Now you’re getting it.”
I stare at my computer screen, but the words blur together. I blink, shake my head, and try again. Nothing.
I tap my fingers against the desk, my foot bouncing under it, my thoughts refusing to settle. My inbox is full of reports to analyze, cases to review, but my mind keeps pulling me away, back to last night.
Abby.
Ghost.
Dominic Carter.
I lean back in my chair, letting my head settle against the headrest. I knew today would be hard, but I didn’t realize it would be impossible to concentrate. I’m not even sure why I bothered coming to work, other than to avoid getting fired and to appear normal.
I click out of the report I haven’t successfully read and glance at the clock. It’s barely past noon. Ghost is out there somewhere. Watching our target.
I told him I wanted to be there tonight.
I told him I wanted to pull the trigger.
I still do. But now that I’m sitting here, surrounded by fluorescent lights and the hum of government-issue computers, reality presses in.
I’ve spent years studying the criminal mind, mapping out the pathways of psychopathy and impulse control, diagnosing the people who exist in the gray area between instinct and evil.
But now I’m choosing to step into that gray area. To blur the line between observer and participant. The thought should scare me. Maybe a small part of me is scared. But not for the reasons it should be.
A notification pops up in the corner of my screen, breaking through the haze.
New Email—Detective A. Harris
I sit up a little straighter, clicking it open.
Geneva,
I’ve got something I’d like your take on. Crime scene details attached. No prints, no surveillance. Just a body left to be found.
The cut on the throat is too precise. Clean. Not an amateur.
Killer took his time. Didn’t rush. Tell me what you see.
—Allen
I click on the attachment. The moment the image loads, my breath catches.
A man, mid-forties, sprawled on the floor. The room is stark, empty except for the blood pooling beneath him. His throat is sliced clean, the wound meticulous. No struggle, no chaos.
Not frenzied. Not reckless. Professional.
I swallow hard. Was it someone like Ghost? Or was it someone worse? Or maybe they’re one and the same, and I’ve been too fucking blind to see it. Nausea churns in my stomach at the thought.
Ghost kills with purpose. At least, that’s what I tell myself. That’s what I need to believe. But what if that’s just a lie? What if he’s not different at all? What if he’s just better at hiding it?
I exhale, rubbing my eyes. I need to focus. Analyze. But my mind won’t stop spiraling.
Abby… I saw the way Ghost flinched when I said her name. The way his fists clenched like he was holding himself together with sheer will. The way his voice went dead when he told me to drop it.
That wasn’t an act. That was pain. And it was real.
Whatever happened to her didn’t just hurt him. It broke him. Fractured him in ways that might never be repaired.
What happens to a mind when it shatters like that? When it snaps under the weight of something so excruciating that there’s no coming back from it?
I begin clicking through my files, my heart beating faster with every selection. I have years’ worth of studies, lectures, clinical case files, articles, forensic evaluations, interviews, and behavioral analyses done by myself and others in my field. All of it archived, categorized, and documented.
I pull up a study on trauma-induced psychopathy, my eyes scanning the words like someone seeing the sun for the first time.
Symptoms of trauma-induced psychopathy:
Blunted emotional response
Lack of remorse
Predisposition to violence
Dissociation from actions
Impulsivity
I chew the inside of my cheek, gripping the mouse tighter as I let my gaze drift down the list again, slower this time.
Blunted emotional response.
I don’t need a study to confirm what I already know: Ghost doesn’t react like other people.
Fear, sadness, guilt—none of it touches him in the way it should.
His emotions, when they surface, are controlled, measured, as if he’s pulling them from some far-off place instead of feeling them in real time.
Even his anger is cold. Not a wildfire, but an avalanche. Forceful and devastating.
The only time I saw him lose control was the night Skinner attacked me. That’s when Ghost was wrath personified.
Lack of remorse.
I’ve watched Ghost kill without hesitation. I’ve listened to him talk about taking a life like it’s nothing more than a minor inconvenience. A means to an end. He doesn’t regret what he’s done. And if he does, it’s buried so deep, even he doesn’t recognize it anymore.
Predisposition to violence.
That one almost makes me laugh. He is violence. It drips from him, seeps into every movement, every calculated breath, every word spoken in that smooth, unbothered cadence. Even when he’s still, he’s dangerous. Like a land mine, waiting for the slightest pressure.
Dissociation from actions.
I think about the way Ghost speaks about killing, how he calls it necessary, like it’s just another task to complete.
The way he doesn’t dwell on it, doesn’t replay it in his mind or lose sleep over it.
It’s not something that happens to him, it’s something he does.
A choice he makes without hesitation, because in his mind, there’s no alternative.
But then there’s the last one.
Impulsivity.
I frown, tapping my fingers against the desk, my thoughts tangling into knots. This is where the profile doesn’t quite fit. Ghost isn’t impulsive. Not in the way a classic psychopath is. He doesn’t act on a whim. He doesn’t kill for pleasure, or because of some insatiable, uncontrollable need.
He plans. He strategizes. Every move he makes is deliberate and precise.
A calculated step in a game only he understands.
Even when it looks like he’s acting on instinct, I know better.
He’s already mapped out every scenario, every reaction, every possible outcome before he even lifts his hand. And that’s what makes him different.
He wasn’t born like this.
He wasn’t some reckless, thrill-seeking killer who found pleasure in chaos. He wasn’t a monster from the start.
He was made.
Shaped. Molded. Broken down and rebuilt into something unrecognizable.
Something lethal.
Something unstoppable.
I think about the way he moves, the way he reacts—or rather, doesn’t. How he never lets emotion dictate his actions, never allows himself to slip, even in the heat of the moment. It’s not normal. It’s trained.
Maybe because he learned that impulsivity is dangerous.
My fingers tremble around the mouse. Ghost fits this category. The trauma. The violent tendencies. The lack of remorse.
But that last part, the lack of recklessness, that’s what sets him apart. That’s what makes him Ghost instead of a mindless killer.
But for how long?
That thought creeps in, unbidden, curling around my ribs like a vise. What happens when something, or someone, shakes that control? What happens if he ever loses it again?
God help whoever’s in his path.