Chapter 5 Indie #2
Home invasion was needed for this one. These guys are dotted across the state now; the police have never been able to connect them. The sick part of me likes to rough them up if it’s a break-in and always toy with them.
I like to let them know who sent the angel of death before they no longer waste oxygen.
“Why isn’t this being reported as a home invasion with murder? His wife didn’t say he had an illness?” she whispers, and I dip my head in response, directing her to the changing room so we can leave.
We don’t speak another word to each other as we shower and head home.
The minute we walk in the front door, knowing our surroundings are safe from prying ears, we head straight into Regina’s room.
Our permanent residence isn’t anything special compared to the homes our parents live in, but it serves its purpose well.
We live in a small town; our house is a modernised farm style, four bedrooms and a huge backyard encased with a wall of forestry. It’s only the two of us, and one room serves as Regina’s den, the other my weapons sanctuary.
It’s the only town in the state that’s far enough away from all Sumus members—that we know of. We’re still armed to the teeth with surveillance, courtesy of having to always look over our shoulder.
Killing people does that to you, along with the rest of our past.
Regina types away on her keyboard, and I nervously begin to pace, something I haven’t done in years.
We’ve never had an instance where a target was covered up like that.
All of them have been reported exactly how we wanted them to be.
Killing falls under my resume; the longer you do it, the easier it gets, because they deserve it, and they’ve been getting worse over the years.
Paranoia hasn’t taken me in its grip like this for a long time.
When Regina hacked the police files, we thought crazy had finally caught up to our psyche that night, thinking only our case was isolated because of who hurt us.
Oh how wrong we were.
Every single name we had in our hands was on that police database, so many women left without justice, just like us.
That was when we decided we had to do something.
It took over a year before we finally set ourselves up, before I was ready to blacken my soul.
Regina would either slip a card disguised as mail for the women, or we’d subtly hand them out passing by, like we were selling them something in particular.
You happen to randomly stumble on one of our cards, it gives nothing away.
Unless the words directly speak to you. They’re embedded with our company’s hidden anagram.
REVENGE.
It’s only a QR code, with no further information. You scan it, nothing happens.
Regina gets a ping that a code has been activated, then some fancy shit involving a VPN and harmless virus.
She gets your internet history, scopes out anything related to the people that hurt them, and social media pages to match up with our findings. She’s able to trace anything you’ve deleted, and all works towards our mark’s case.
Once she’s confident in identifying you from our record, she slips a private messaging app on your phone to communicate through.
Some are more hesitant than others, and it takes time to build up the trust. Hence why we haven’t cleared the full list in our five years.
We don’t go in bloodthirsty; we let them know if they want that problem solved, we’re willing to do it.
We let them know what’s on offer.
Blackmail or death.
The girls that work for us are the ones who chose the latter. We use the funds to pay them back and keep some for ourselves.
Someone’s got to fund our insane revenge plan.
It’s good for us; it means we can subtract the funds and remain hidden. They won’t even notice, given the eye-watering amounts we’ve witnessed.
So we don’t necessarily kill them all, just take care of them as their victims ask. Others have done much more sinister acts since, and our contacts want nothing more than to see them dead.
Our latest one, Elenna White, is a prime example.
She was desperately looking for a way out and almost took it upon herself to kill her husband herself. She’d have been imprisoned for life, or worse, the death penalty, and she didn’t deserve it.
We watched him for weeks, Elenna allowing us into her home security system to watch his routine, and unfortunately, witness his abuse.
We asked because consent is everything—people like Clarke don’t know the meaning of the word.
“She deleted it right after I confirmed it was done. There’s zero evidence on her phone. His offshore account was shifty, so will likely fall into the hands of whoever’s managing it.”
I nod, taking in the information. I didn’t leave behind any evidence; I never do.
Something isn’t adding up though.
I made a mess of the ground floor, spiked Clarke’s nightly whiskey to make him weaker, then stuck a knife in his side, just to add to the fear factor.
I could have taken it too far; it’s happened a few times, Regina having to call me back.
So instead, I shook off the darkness and took enough belongings to link up that he’d been an unfortunate casualty in a break-in.
He spoiled the fun as he went for his phone, and I only provided him a teeny bit of hope by letting him dial the first two digits for the police. His head hit off the tiled floor with a sickening, harmonic thump.
One bullet straight between the eyes.
“Nothing else showed up in his file?” I ask her, watching her eyes ferociously dart from each corner of the screen, scouring the information we already poured hours into over the last few weeks.
“Nope, nothing. The only thing was that funding for his company’s research. The details don’t seem to ever have been revealed. Nothing to say he had an illness either.”
The facts spin around in my head like a vortex. I try to string them together to find out the element I need.
Elena would have mentioned something crucial like an illness. I could have suffocated the bastard to death, but that would have been too kind an end.
Regina pushes back from the desk. “Maybe they just didn’t want people to know he was murdered. They have the money to cover that up too, I suppose.”
She’s right. There’s nothing stopping them blocking anything going out against him, no matter what light it shines him in.
It doesn’t satisfy the gnawing at the back of my brain though.
“Too risky to contact Elenna and ask either,” I add. Whilst we usually keep an eye on the victims to make sure they get set up, we can’t reach out and ask her what’s going on; all we can do is observe in the background.
The only saving grace is we don’t need to try and employ her; she already has enough money to start over again.
We’ve never had a kill hit the headlines, at most the papers for an invasion. Usually followed by a tagline with ‘is crime on the rise?’
Which is laughable, seeing as if they revealed the true figures, society would be in an uproar.
“We should keep an eye on Elenna, give it a couple weeks before we contact her again, maybe even drive by her new apartment.”
“Agreed,” she answers, closing down her system to call it a night.
Later that night when I lie in bed, I can’t help but let my mind wander.
There’s no reason to cover up his murder; if anything, his status should cause an outcry.
Clarke inherited that company, and it was known worldwide.
It should never have fallen into his hands.
I don’t know what direct part he plays in the research, but a man as cruel as him shouldn’t be anywhere near vulnerable individuals.