Page 68 of Peak Cruelty

Marlowe

W hat starts as one thing often becomes another. The man at the bar stirs his drink with the same hand he used on her throat.

I wonder if it shakes when no one’s watching. I sit four tables back, nursing something herbal and harmless. I don’t look at him. I watch his reflection in the mirror above the bar.

He leaves a ten-dollar tip. Smiles at the waitress like he didn’t once put a girl in the hospital for talking too loud in court.

When he stands, I follow.

Not right away. Not close. Just enough.

People think it takes rage. It doesn’t.

It takes rhythm.

You wake up. You read the names. You memorize the walk. The car. The habit. The soft underbelly they think no one can reach.

Then you wait for the moment they forget they’re being watched.

And you take it.

He pays the check in cash, tucks his phone into his back pocket. When he leaves, I give it two minutes. Long enough to look casual.

Then I follow.

He cuts across the hotel atrium. I trail behind, take the service hallway past the vending machines, the fire exit cracked just wide enough to tempt anyone in a rush. I’m already on the other side when he steps through.

One step. One hand. One whisper.

“Don’t scream.”

He doesn’t. Not fast enough.

I press the knife in—not deep. Just a promise.

“Say it.”

He chokes on the silence.

“Say it.”

“I—I’m sorry.”

Wrong answer.

When it’s done, I wipe the blade on his shirt and drop it in the nearest sewer grate.

I don’t keep trophies. I keep notes.

There were 326 homicides in this city last year. Or maybe it was 412.

No one’s looking for number 327—not if he’s no one.

And he is.

No hashtag. No backstory. Just a man who thought no one was watching.

Back in the hotel room, I wash and dry my hands. Shower. Get ready for a date I’m sure I’ll hate.

Vance’s letter is on the bed, folded inside the book I never meant to keep. I haven’t read it in a long time. I don’t need to.

I remember the part he hoped I’d listen to.

I didn’t.

I’m not sorry.

He doesn’t occupy my every thought the way he once did.

But sometimes, when I double-check a lock, or shift the mirror just slightly to the left?—

I feel him.

Not watching.

Just there.

Like muscle memory.

Like gravity.

Like the echo of something sharp that once cut clean.

And I am reminded that his death wasn’t the end, just another beginning.

That it hurt like hell and I got up anyway.

Because men like Vance—they don’t leave behind graves.

They leave behind blueprints.

He started something brutal. Righteous. Incomplete.

I’m finishing it.

Not just because I owe him.

Not just because I miss him.

Because he was wrong. Some things do deserve to end in blood.

Now they die for real.

No theatrics. No confessions.

The kind of justice that doesn’t need a hashtag.

I used to think I was the footnote.

His mistake. His exception.

But the last thing he said to me—back when we still believed we had time—was that I wouldn’t be just a footnote in his life.

He was wrong about almost everything.

Except that.

* * *

Read the next Britney King thriller: The Social Affair is available here. Enjoy the first chapter at the end of this book.

Visit britneyking.com to receive your free exclusive short story. Easy peasy.