52. Cain
Cain
The water in the oversized marble bathtub was blood-warm and inviting. It was a calculated, controlled perfection, much like my sprawling, pristine penthouse that overlooked the glittering skyline of the city below.
Everything in my life was meticulously ordered. Immaculate. Symmetrical.
Everything except the sloppy, inebriated blonde human currently clinging to my left arm.
“Come on, baby,” she slurred, her voice a high, grating pitch that echoed off the imported Italian tile. She giggled, sending a splash of soapy water over the edge of the tub to stain the dry floor. “You’re so tense. Let me help.”
I stared straight ahead through the floor to ceiling glass, my jaw set so hard my teeth ached.
She was a model. Blonde, slim, and objectively attractive by human standards.
I had picked her out specifically for her aesthetic symmetry.
But right now, with champagne on her breath and her wet, heavy limbs draped over me like a dying animal, she was nothing short of repulsive.
She leaned in, her glossy pink lips puckering as she aimed clumsily for my mouth. I smoothly tilted my head away, letting her lips brush harmlessly against my wet shoulder.
It was a pathetic display. But then again, humanity had always disgusted me.
My mind, as it had done with a sickening, obsessive frequency over the last few decades, drifted back to the Manor. It drifted back to a girl with heavy, dark waves and defiant blue eyes who hadn’t been pathetic at all.
June.
I had spent decades trying to fill a hollow, echoing void in my chest that I vehemently refused to acknowledge was there.
I had driven the silver blade into her chest myself to complete the Ritual.
I had watched her die. But instead of erasing her from my brother’s soul, I had immortalised her in my own.
I had developed a quiet, crawling obsession with the exact shade of her blood, the fire in her eyes before I extinguished it, and the look she gave Julian—as if he were a god. "
Julian..
A dark, bitter amusement flickered in my chest. I was honestly surprised my twin had stuck around the Manor as long as he did after the Ritual.
He hadn’t stayed out of brotherly loyalty, of course.
He had stayed purely to butcher me. He had spent the first few years of our immortality waking up every single day with the sole objective of finding new, inventive ways to tear me apart.
But I was the one who had cast the spell. I was the architect of our ruin. He couldn’t kill me. And eventually, he realised it. One morning, the Manor was simply empty, and Julian was gone.
“Are you even listening to me?”
The grating voice dragged me immediately back to the present. The blonde model pouted, her mascara slightly smudged beneath her eyes—a messy imperfection that made my skin crawl.
“I’m listening,” I lied, my voice a smooth, cold drawl that lacked any of Julian’s warmth.
“Then kiss me,” she demanded, splashing more water as she clumsily swung her leg over my thighs, straddling me in the water. She threw her arms around my neck, her champagne glass slipping from her fingers and sinking to the bottom of the tub.
She lunged forward, pressing her sloppy, wet mouth roughly against my jaw.
The last tether of my meticulously controlled patience vanished.
In a fraction of a second, the cold, sociopathic beast beneath my skin took over. My hand shot out of the water. I clamped my large, iron clad fingers directly over the delicate hinge of her jaw and the base of her throat, stopping her dead in her tracks.
Her eyes went wide with sudden, breathless shock. The tipsy haze vanished, instantly replaced by the primal, helpless terror of a prey animal realising it was trapped in a cage with a predator.
I looked at her, my expression blank, devoid of any sympathy or passion.
“It’s a pity,” I whispered, my voice detached and calm echoing through the luxurious bathroom. I tilted my head slightly, my thumb pressing brutally into her pulse point. “I usually wait until after. But you’re just too god damn annoying.”
With a swift, surgical, and effortless twist of my wrist, I snapped her neck.
The sickening crack echoed loudly off the marble walls. Her eyes rolled back, her body going instantly limp. I released my grip, letting her lifeless form slide into the warm, foaming water.
I sat there for a long moment in the welcomed silence.
I reached blindly for my own glass of champagne, took a slow sip, and looked back out at the city skyline.
Where are you hiding, Julian?
The water lapped gently against the sides of the marble tub, the pristine white bubbles slowly parting as her lifeless body settled. She floated face down, a tangle of wet blonde hair fanning out like a halo across the surface as the water around her began to bloom with a dark, ribboning scarlet.
I stared at the floating corpse, my pulse perfectly steady. It was always the same.
Every single night, a new face. Every single night, a different name.
And every single night, they never made it to see the morning sun.
It had become a necessary, calculated habit over the last few decades.
Use, dispose, and replace. It was the only way to keep the crushing, suffocating boredom of immortality at bay.
But there was a strict, unspoken rule to my cycle of disposal.
Only blondes.
My mind instantly detaching from the violence of what I had just done. I preferred it this way. I preferred the blonde hair, the complete absence of anything that could remind me of the Manor.
The last time I had allowed a brunette into my bed—decades ago, in a dimly lit hotel room in Paris—the illusion of my control had faltered momentarily.
I had been looking down at her, my hands pinned to her wrists, when the shadows in the room shifted.
Just for a fraction of a second, the dark, heavy waves spilling across the pillows weren’t a stranger’s.
The defiant, terrified eyes looking up at me weren’t hazel—they were a deep, suffocating blue.
Her face had morphed flawlessly into June’s.
The shock of it had triggered something deep within my chest—something gut wrenching and frighteningly close to human emotion.
It felt like grief. It felt like the obsession I had spent lifetimes trying to bury under piles of wealth and bodies.
I had ripped the girl’s throat out before she could even scream, utterly terrified of the humanity that phantom image had dragged to the surface.
I never touched a brunette again. Blondes were safe. Blondes were blank, interchangeable canvases that allowed me to remain exactly what I was—emotionless.
I stood up slowly.
The water cascaded off my tall frame, pooling onto the imported Italian tile. I didn’t bother reaching for a towel. I was unbothered by the cold air of the penthouse or the dead girl currently bleeding out in my bath.
I reached out and grabbed the neck of the chilled champagne bottle from the silver bucket on the counter, ignoring the crystal flutes entirely.
I walked completely naked across the sprawling, pristine apartment, the heavy silence broken only by the sound of my wet footsteps. I stopped in front of the massive floor-to-ceiling window, the bustling city stretching out beneath me like a scattering of diamonds in the dark.
I took a long, slow drink straight from the bottle, the cold champagne burning the back of my throat. I stared out at the millions of tiny lights below, the millions of fragile, fleeting mortal lives unaware of the immortal serial killer standing high above them.
I pulled away from the glass and set the half-empty champagne bottle down on a black marble table with a soft clink. Beside it sat my phone, a slim piece of modern technology that felt mundane in the hands of an immortal.
I picked it up, my wet thumb swiping across the screen. The blue light illuminated my pale features, casting shadows over my face as I scrolled through a contact list that consisted of disposable assets.
I stopped on a number I hadn’t dialled in a long time.
It belonged to a private investigator—a highly connected, resourceful mortal whose loyalty I had purchased a long time ago with a small fortune and a very clear, unspoken understanding of what would happen to him if he ever failed me.
He was the best in the world at hunting down what didn’t want to be found.
I hit call and lifted the phone to my ear.
It only rang twice.
“Sir,” a cautious voice answered on the other end, detached and devoid of any casual pleasantries. The underlying tension in his tone told me exactly how much he feared this late-night call.
I looked back over my shoulder. Through the open doorway of the bathroom, I could see the edge of the tub, the red foaming bubbles, and the pale, lifeless arm of the blonde model draped over the marble ledge.
My expression remained blank.
“I think it’s time I find my brother,”
A heavy silence stretched over the line for a moment as the investigator absorbed the weight of my command. Finding Julian wasn’t just a missing persons case—it was hunting a lethal, immortal soldier who had spent the last century actively trying to erase his own existence. And mine.
“I’ll put every resource on it immediately,” the man finally replied, his voice tight. “Where do you want me to start looking?”
“Everywhere,” I spat out, turning back to look out at the glittering city below.
“Let me know when you find something.”
I ended the call, dropping the phone back onto the table. I stood there in the silence of the penthouse, the phantom, harrowing memory of June’s eyes flashing in my mind one last time before I brutally shoved the image back down.
A sinister smile touching the corner of my mouth.
Let the games begin.