CHAPTER 3 - Deimos
Discipline is discipline.
I lasted exactly three days after the first encounter with the woman who stole my soul. On the fourth, I breached the security system on her floor. It wasn't difficult. Most systems rely on predictability. I don't.
Now the camera feeds, loop silently on the large monitor mounted opposite my bed. Black and white footage. Sterile corridor. Her office. The autopsy room.
I don't watch constantly. That would imply obsession. If I watched her every move. I would already be there. I observe when necessary. When she arrives. When she leaves. When someone lingers too long outside the back door.
Control is proximity. Control is access. I'm protecting something dangerous. She isn't fragile. She can protect herself. But like I said. I deal in certainty.
I know her full name by now. "Madeline Emerson."
Her name slips so easily from my tongue. As if it was made for me to say. Her academic history. Top of her class. Surgical pathology fellowship. Published twice.
There are interviews archived online. Conference panels. A hospital gala photo from two years ago. She's smiling in it, but not fully. As if she already knows something the rest of them don't.
Her date of birth. She's 26. Four years younger than me.
Her registered address. The car she drives. All public. All obtainable. I stopped there. The rest, I prefer to discover myself.
The way her voice lowers when she's irritated. The way she tilts her head when she concentrates. The exact shade her eyes turn under the sterile lighting. Some things shouldn't be downloaded.
They should be earned.
The apartment I own is immaculate. Italian marble floors. Dark oak paneling. Custom recessed lighting that mimics a constellation across the ceiling. Every piece of furniture is chosen for symmetry. No windows. I prefer it that way.
I stand before the mirror mounted against the black wall, already dressed entirely in shadow. Tailored shirt. Fitted trousers. Polished boots.
I slide the gloves on slowly, adjusting the leather over each finger. Ritual before ruin. My gaze lifts. The white strand cutting through the side of my dark hair, like a scar I never earned. I was born with it. I brush it back.
Madeline’s platinum hair catches light the same way.
A grin appears before I can stop it. Like a contrast was designed with intention.
Too precise to be a coincidence. If someone believed in fate, they would call it poetic.
I don’t believe in fate. I believe in choices. And tonight I’m choosing to be found.
My hair is precisely styled back, exposing the tattoos along my temples.
They’re shaped like claws, stretching down and connecting the ink that covers my whole neck.
I’m not the face-ink kind of man, but this fits.
The rest of my tattoos stay hidden beneath tailored fabric.
They cover most of my body. Stories too disturbing to show the outside world.
My fingers brush against the necklace at my throat. The cross. And memories I would gladly burn, along with half of the men I’ve killed, rise without permission.
Is she the light you were talking about, mother?
She made this cross before she died, and the words she left me still echo.
“Worship only those who show you the light. The ones who break the darkness you carry because of your father.”
She was fanatically religious, and I don’t blame her. A cruel marriage will fracture anyone’s mind. She ended up dead under his hands. His wife. My mother.
Rage moves through me like a poison. I’ll never forgive that man.
I know he’s still alive. I hear his name whispered in the highest circles of the Elite I currently work for, but we haven’t stood in the same room for years.
I severed our contact long ago, vanishing into the underworld to build my own throne of bones.
He thinks I’m just another asset, another shadow in the distance. He doesn’t realize I’m the monster he created, coming back to finish what I started.
Many of my clients are part of the fucked up cults built on rape, torture and violence. Even on children. Not a single member of the Elite is innocent. And I plan to bathe in their blood. Including his. Soon enough.
I didn’t choose to work for these monsters voluntarily.
To do their dirty work, I had to earn their trust. In a world like this, trust is currency.
It took years to get close. Still not close enough for my plan.
Years of obedience, patience, pretending.
But I’ll end it. And no one will see it coming.
Tonight’s assignment is simple. A politician’s son with gambling debts and a mouth too loose for his own survival.
The client requested discretion. Clean. Quiet.
Untraceable. I slide the blade into the holster at my side.
Clean is easy. Quiet is instinct. Untraceable is optional.
This one won’t disappear. He will be found.
Not immediately. Eventually. I smooth the cuff of my sleeve and allow the corner of my mouth to lift. She will get him.
When I work, I don’t rush. The incision is deliberate. The damage is focused. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t scream for long. Most of them don’t once they understand there will be no negotiation. I clean the blade carefully before switching instruments.
When the cavity opens, I pause. The heart is a fragile thing. It sits protected behind bone and muscle, arrogant in its assumption of permanence.
I take a small folded piece of paper from my inner pocket. It’s protected inside a thin plastic sleeve. I slide it carefully into the hollow I’ve carved. Not shoved. Placed. Deliberate. Inside the main organ that’s no longer useful. No longer beating.
Then I close the body just enough to delay discovery, not prevent it. She will have to look. And she will find it herself. Because she always goes deeper than protocol requires. That’s what makes her different. Dangerous. And that’s what makes this necessary.
The client wanted a disappearance. No body. No evidence. No noise. Instead, I leave the body where it will be found within hours. Public enough to draw attention. Clean enough to suggest precision. Disturbed enough to raise questions.
I wipe the scene the way I always do. Fingerprints, fibers, entry points.
Habit is a muscle memory. But I don’t erase everything.
A camera across the street will catch the edge of my silhouette.
A reflection in glass. A shadow that moves wrong.
News spreads quickly when something doesn’t fit the pattern. And this won’t.
Back in the car, I remove my gloves slowly. The white strand falls over my forehead again when I lower my head. I don’t fix it this time.
She’ll open him under sterile lights. She’ll make the first incision without knowing. She’ll understand that this wasn’t negligence. It wasn’t sloppiness. It was a choice. I didn’t break protocol. I broke it to her.
A few hours pass as I monitor the building’s cameras. A system I already know better than the men who installed it.
Madeline sits in her office. Clueless.
The feed flickers before stabilizing. The back entrance. Headlights cut through the rain-soaked darkness. A sanitary vehicle pulls in. Her best friend.
I recognize her now. I made sure I did. Best friend. Confidante. The one who laughs too loudly in archived photographs. The one who stands too close in every image. She steps out first. Then the gurney. Black body bag. Delivered to the back door like cargo. Like a gift. My gift.
I lean back in the driver’s seat, studying the angle of the camera. The way the fluorescent lights hit the wet pavement. Somewhere in that building, Madeline is about to meet me again. She just doesn’t know it yet.
A few minutes later, I’m already behind the corner near the back entrance. Close enough. Hidden. Tonight, I want my entrance to feel different. Cutting the electricity would be predictable. I’ll make them both paranoid first.
I pick up a rock and throw it into the darkness near the sanitary vehicle. Then I listen to the sound of two best friends pretending they aren’t afraid.
“Did you fucking hear that?”
Lucy asks, her head snapping toward the loud noise.
Silence stretches between them. I know my little pathologist is already analyzing the situation in that sharp, methodical mind of hers.
“It’s late, no one should be here. Especially not on private property,” Madeline states. Her voice is quiet.
“Maybe it’s your annoying ex again. Stalking your pretty face,” her friend jokes.
My jaw tightens so hard my teeth nearly crack. What ex? The thought flashes hot and ugly before Madeline responds.
“Oh shut up,” she mutters, her eyes rolling.
“Bitch, stop reminding me about him.”
Lucy laughs, throwing her hands up in surrender. Then they move closer where the sound came from. Curious. Exactly what I wanted.
While their attention is elsewhere, I slip toward the back door and enter the mortuary. Easy. I head straight to the autopsy room. My hidden spot. The one I used the first time.
I know how to trick the motion sensors now. But more importantly. I know how to use them to my advantage. How to make them react. How to make her doubt what she sees.
The security cameras show nothing unusual.
Because of me. Because I allow them to. I don’t want to deal with security tonight.
Bryan. I know all about him too. Annoying gym rat, thinks he’s untouchable.
Cocky. Narcissistic. I despise those personality traits.
And he owns them all. Madeline has a friendly relationship with him. I despise that even more.
But the ex Lucy mentioned, that’s my next project. No one else gets to stalk my little storm. Only me. The thought settles into my mind with dangerous calm. I don’t act out of jealousy. I act out of correction.
Footsteps echo down the corridor outside. Then, the metallic screech of wheels. The trolley. How convenient. They push it into the autopsy room together.