Chapter 16

Killer

Then came the landlord. He wasn't violent in the same way, but his cruelty was colder, slower. He took advantage of people who had nowhere else to go, people who were desperate. He’d hike up the rent, let conditions rot, then laugh when a family with kids had to sleep in the street. He didn't care about the real lives he wrecked. I remembered a feeling of pure helplessness, watching a family struggle, a kid, maybe nine years old, crying because they had no place to be safe. That feeling of being exposed, vulnerable, without a roof over your head, because someone decided your basic needs weren't worth their time. This landlord thought money was power, and human lives were just numbers on a ledger. He deserved to feel truly alone, to have everything he valued stripped away, leaving him with nothing.

The bar owner. He poured drinks, chatted up his customers, seemed like just a regular guy running a local spot. But he ran a different kind of business too. He groomed young ones, pulled them into his dark world with false kindness, getting them hooked on things that broke their lives before they even had a chance to start. He used their weaknesses, their longing for acceptance, to trap them. I remembered the cold grip of addiction, the way it swallowed a young life whole, a kid, barely nine, seeing the slow, terrible decay of someone they loved, caused by the very poison this man peddled. He built his fortune on broken people, on shattered futures. He deserved to feel the ultimate loss of control, to have his own life ripped from his grasp by the very darkness he spread.

Victor Vance. They called him a rich playboy, a party animal. But I knew his real game. The way he preyed on innocence, on dreams. He promised the world, then took everything, leaving behind wreckage. He didn't use brute force, not always. He used charm, promises, a smooth tongue. But the end result was the same. A spirit crushed. A life twisted. I remembered the hopes of a little one, eager to please, wanting to be good. A kid, barely nine, trusting. And that trust being shattered, over and over. Vance knew how to manipulate, how to get what he wanted by making others believe his lies. He spun webs of fantasy, then trapped the unwary. It was just like the way the monster had twisted gentle words into cruel demands, turning every kindness into a trap. So, I took Vance’s charm. I took his false promises. I took away his ability to lure anyone else into his traps.

Then there was Tommy Jenkins, the low-level drug dealer. He was just a street punk, not a big shot, but he was another link in the chain of destruction. He put the tools of ruin into desperate hands, he corrupted the young, he brought violence to neighborhoods that already had too much. He didn’t care who got hurt, as long as he made a quick buck. I remembered the fear of the streets, the desperation that drove people to buy from guys like him. A nine-year-old, hiding in shadows, listening to the shouts, the sirens, the despair caused by the poison Tommy peddled. He was a small cog in a big, ugly machine, but he played his part in destroying lives, one small package at a time. He deserved to have his short-sighted greed lead him straight to his end, to be just another statistic in the violence he embraced.

Robert Maxwell. He was next. They called him a powerful businessman, a pillar of the community. But I knew his real power. The power he held over the scared, the helpless. I knew his anger, the way it twisted words into weapons, twisted bodies into submission. He liked control, Maxwell did. He liked the fear. He used to make it a game, sometimes. A quiet game, where the rules were always changing, and the kid always lost. He would twist words, making the child doubt what they saw, what they felt. That twisted satisfaction in his eyes, knowing he held all the power. That was the same look the monster had, years ago, when a nine-year-old begged for it to stop, only to be laughed at. So, I took away Maxwell’s control. I took his power. I left him with nothing but the fear he had given so many others.

And now Davies. He was different, more important. He was the Commissioner. He was the system. The lock on the cage. He wasn't the monster under the bed, he was the person who told you there was no monster, even as it devoured you. He took the voices of the voiceless, the cries of the most vulnerable, and he buried them. He used his power, his badge, his influence, to ensure that the darkest secrets remained hidden, that the monsters walked free. I thought about the child, nine years old, who went to adults, who begged for help. Who whispered the terrifying truth to someone who was supposed to protect. Only to be dismissed. To be told it was their fault. To be quiet, to be a good little secret-keeper. That feeling of being shut down, of having your pain ignored, of being told your trauma wasn't important because of who the monster was. Davies embodied that betrayal. He silenced the suffering of countless children, protecting men who feasted on innocence. He was worse than the direct abusers. He was the grand architect of their continued crimes.

So, I didn't just kill Davies. I ripped him open. I exposed him. I carved the truth into his flesh and pinned his monstrous deeds to his chest for the whole world to see. I used the letter opener, a symbol of his power to write, to sign off on their freedom, to bury the truth. And the depth of his mutilation? That was for every tear, every silent scream, every dream shattered by the monsters he protected. That was for every time a child, just nine, was told their suffering didn't matter, that their cries were unimportant. It was a message, burned into his very being, that the reckoning would be just as ruthless as the pain he inflicted.

The city was in an uproar. Good. Let them be. Let them look at the monster they put in charge, the man who smiled for the cameras while burying children's pleas. Let them finally see the ugly truth festering beneath their neat, orderly lives.

The police would be scrambling, desperate. The detective would be at the center of it, torn between his duty and the horrifying truth of his boss. He would dig. He would find those files. And when he did, his world, the world of the law he believed in, would crack open. He would see that justice, true justice, sometimes had to be taken, brutally, violently, by those who had been denied it for too long.I felt no remorse, only a profound sense of purpose. The child, the one who was nine, who suffered in silence, who was abused more than once, finally had someone fighting for them. This was for every hidden scar, every whispered fear, every plea ignored. This was for the broken pieces of a childhood that no one cared to mend. This was for the darkness that tried to swallow a little one whole.

And this was just the beginning of the true cleanup. There were still so many shadows, so many hidden monsters. And I was their reckoning.