Page 134 of He Sees You

"Yes," I say simply.

"Here? With them?"

"No. You don't deserve to die with your customers. You're special, Daddy. You get a special ending."

We drive him back to the place it all started—the Lockwood estate.

Dawn is breaking as we arrive, pale light filtering through the trees.

The house looks different in daylight, less menacing, more pathetic.

Just a rotten monument to evil men's ambitions.

We take him to the groundskeeper's cottage where he maintained Richard's legacy.

"Any last words?" I ask.

"I did love you," he says. "In my way."

"Your love was poison. This is the antidote."

He closes his eyes. "Your mother would be proud of you."

"My mother ran. I'm standing."

"Make it quick."

"No."

I think of every girl he sold.

Every childhood destroyed.

Every father who became a monster because Sterling enabled him.

Every mother who lost a daughter to his network.

When I'm done, my father doesn't look like himself anymore.

He looks like justice.

Cain holds me as I shake, not from horror but from completion.

It's finished.

My father is dead, his network destroyed, twelve girls saved.

"Our wedding night," I say, looking at our blood-covered hands.

"No honeymoon could compare," he agrees.

We burn the cottage with my father inside, along with all the evidence except what we need for insurance.

The fire will be investigated, but my father has many enemies.

A tragic end to a complicated man, they'll say.

By the time we return to Cain's cabin, the sun is fully up.