Chapter 2
ADRIEL
He struck again. The Midnight Murderer. That’s what the news calls him because the time of death is always around twelve.
But me? I call him a coward.
Who else would kill young women? They can’t defend themselves against him. He overpowers them, violates them, takes their lives slowly and painfully.
He butchers them while they’re still alive. Cuts a star onto their abdomen, like some kind of branding. I have no idea why, but I intend to find out. I will know everything about him.
I bet he enjoys every moment of his sick game. Likes to watch them as he cuts into them.
I know the type of animal he is. Sick. Depraved. A devil in human flesh. And when I find him, I will take his rotting soul and I will feed it to the devil.
In the multi-room basement of my two-story home, I stare at one of my large computer screens in the security room, which I keep locked. Can never be too careful. The other rooms down here look like regular bedrooms, plus a living room. No one would even suspect what I have here.
Hacking into some police files, I attempt to find more evidence the cops may be too blind to decipher.
When I find the killer, I’ll enjoy taking his life. I’ll do to him what he’s done to them.
An eye for an eye. Of sorts. Except what I do to him will be far worse.
He won’t be my first, nor my last, but at least I have a method to my madness. I choose them wisely. Methodically. Or they choose themselves, if I’m honest.
There’s no sense of guilt or shame for my actions, for the lives I cut short, for the demons I eradicate. I kill them because I want to. Because they need to die.
There’s a hunger embedded inside me, a thirst I need to quench, and this is how I do it: ridding the world of the cancer spreading through its streets.
I’m the doctor who contains it, ridding them of a disease that exudes a putridness like no other.
That’s what they all are. I’m doing the world a favor.
But in the same token, I’m doing myself one too. There is a deep sense of loathing and rage behind my actions, this need to extinguish. It fuels me, like oil to a flame, like heat energy strengthening a storm strong enough to wipe out cities.
But harming innocents? No. There’s no honor in that. I kill those like him, and that’s as far as it ever goes. And I will kill him too. I just have to find him first.
I’ve hacked cameras in the areas where he’s dumped the bodies. Searched every inch for clues. He’s good. Too good.
But I’m better.
He doesn’t leave the women in the same places. And he never shows his face on camera.
Of course not. Because, like me, he knows where every one of them is. Every street. Every corner. He studied it until he knew the city like the back of his hand.
But unlike me, he doesn’t run an underground tech company. One that creates surveillance equipment for those who can afford it, among many other things. Not all of it legal, of course.
Eventually he’ll get sloppy, and that’ll be my chance to take him out and clean up my mess.
I’m good at that. The nuns at the orphanage where Mommy Dearest abandoned me made sure I learned how important cleanliness was. And those bitches loved to show us what happened when we didn’t obey.
At sixteen, after I escaped that place, I freed the children and burned it to the ground. Some of the nuns I knew from the time I was a little boy still worked there. I tied them up and made them beg before I burned them.
Hearing their screams fed my depravity. I wanted it. Knowing they were suffering was the best revenge I could’ve asked for.
The police never did find who did it. The kids described a man with a scary mask. Because that’s what I wore. A frightening Halloween mask made to terrify little children. I was their boogeyman and their savior.
One good thing came out of it, though. I met a kid at that shithole about my age who taught me about computers.
It was the one thing we had at the orphanage.
Once he was adopted, I continued to teach myself.
Got myself a job after I ran and saved enough for a crappy computer. Then I slowly built what I have today.
My work keeps me sane and focused. As sane and focused as a man like me can be. Everything I’ve grown in my business is my work alone. I don’t employ anyone. I prefer it that way. It’s a necessity, really.
This is where sinners come to die.
This is their purgatory.
Where they burn for their crimes.
And when I say burn, I mean it. The room adjacent is installed with a cremation furnace. Except when I torch them, they’re very much alive. And here, they are forgotten. Their ashes never to be traced.
I’ve killed twenty, and I’m still here to tell the tale. And I’ll kill twenty more if I have to.
Turning to another computer screen, I watch her—the woman who gave me life, with a little girl I know to be my niece, Sophia, skipping around beside her as they get ice cream at my mother’s favorite shop.
The nuns never kept it a secret. That I was left as a newborn, still wailing for a mother who didn’t want him. I grew up hating her, not knowing who she was at first. Not until I found my birth certificate that the nuns kept hidden.
I wanted to ask her why.
Why did she keep my twin, Raphael, but abandon me? What made him special? What was it about me that made me unlovable? Did she sense my depravity? Was it there from the time I climbed out of her womb? Did she hate me instantly?
I wanted to ask her all these things. When I infiltrated my brother Gio’s wedding a month ago, I was gonna take her and ask her everything, but instead, I left her a little note to remember me by.
Cut off the hand of one of the guards and pinned it to the fence, along with the note, where my whole family would find it.
I still recall every detail from that day. The words I wrote are etched into my memory. It’s too bad I didn’t get to see her face as she read it.
Dear Mother,
I hope this letter finds you well. I’m so glad to see the beautiful life you’ve built for yourself. But I must admit, I am a little hurt that life didn’t include me. I see you kept my twin, Raphael, but I guess I was disposable. Thrown away like trash.
But don’t worry. I know where you live. I’ve known for a long time. Waiting in the shadows. But I’m done waiting. And I’m coming for you. For all of you.
-A
I meant every word in that letter. I want her dead. And whether my father dies too depends heavily on whether he knew about me.
I look like him, Patrick Quinn. Have his green eyes, while Raphael has the eyes of the man she married before my father.
The one she spent her whole life with until he died.
At first, I thought he was my father, but the more I watched the family, the more I stared into the eyes of Patrick… I knew. He was my father.
I didn’t discover I had a fraternal twin until I saw the birth certificates of all three of her sons. And Raphael? He had my birthday. She kept him. And the day I was born, she left me.
She didn’t even bother to make sure I had a loving home to go to. No. Not Mommy. She threw me into the hands of monsters. Tortured and bruised with every passing year.
While they lived as one happy fucking family.
Fisting my hands, I slow my breathing, needing to control myself before I get too entwined in my fury. But it’s what she did to me, and it’s what she’ll have to deal with when I show her my face.
I’ve imagined her death over and over. Want to take a garrote to her throat and watch her bleed across the plastic in my basement.
My heart drums with thrill. She’ll deserve it. Worse was done to me, and it’s all her fault. I want to take everything from her, from my father. But I have to be sure he knew about me. It would be like her to lie.
When I’m through, though, they’ll all pay the price for her mistakes.
I watch her again, examining her laugh.
Did she even care? Did she watch me wail for her while she held my twin in her arms? Was he enough? Did she even think about me? Look for me?
I doubt it. She’d have found me if she wanted to, but she didn’t.
She was glad to see me gone.
Unwanted. Abandoned.
It’s what I’m used to. Being alone. I’m comfortable here in this house. I’ve never needed companionship. Sure, I feed my need for pleasure, but it’s never been anything more.
Love is a concept I fail to comprehend. It’s an emotion I don’t know how to decipher. It’s a good thing, too. It’d be worse if I craved it.
But rage, I know. Rage, I feel. And soon, Mommy Dearest will know just what became of her darling boy.
If I ever felt an ounce of love, my upbringing ripped it out of me. They starved me of the need for affection until I didn’t know what it felt like to have it. To want it. Whips and chains are what I know. What I need. What I desire. The pain, it’s my only friend.
And when I’m through with the Marinos, that’s all they’ll ever know too.
Sophia’s dark brows crease as she looks up at the exact spot where the camera sits, right in the corner of the ice cream shop. Her chocolate cone drips past her little fingers as she slants her head thoughtfully, staring right at me. A moment later, she grins and looks back at her grandmother.
My mother takes her by the hand, while my finger draws an X over her face. My niece doesn’t deserve to be with that cruel woman. She’d give her up too if it served a purpose. She’s not a good person. Never was.
Sophia gives the camera one last look before they head out. And I start to wonder if that little girl would recognize me. She saw me at my mother’s wedding not too long ago. Asked me if I was her father’s friend.
I smile at the memory. I like her. I don’t know why, but I do. It’s not affection, not really. But it’s something…
I scrub the thought from my head. No need for that clouding my intentions for tonight.
My mind must remain sharp.
The next one on my list is someone I’ll enjoy killing.
Slowly.