CHAPTER 150 — I Don’t Need a Face to Kill You

CHAPTER 150 — I Don’t Need a Face to Kill You


The Japanese Special Guest POV… A Meeting at a secret back room club

The bass from the club thumped through the walls, a steady, heavy beat that made the glasses on the table tremble.
The back office smelled like old wood, leather, and expensive cigar smoke.
No windows. Just one dim lamp hanging low over the desk, its light a tight circle in a room full of shadows.

The French Minister was already in the room when I stepped in. He smelled of sweat and stale cologne. His jacket was crumpled on the chair beside him, his tie hanging like it had given up.

His hands clasped too tightly in his lap. Sweat dotted his forehead, catching the light every time he shifted. His suit was perfect, his hair perfect — but his eyes… his eyes kept jumping to the figure across from him.

He couldn’t see the figure’s face.
He couldn’t even tell if it was a man or a woman.
The voice was distorted, mechanical — it could’ve belonged to anyone.

Without thinking, I tapped two fingers on the desk — in time with the beat. Not because I enjoyed the music. Because the rhythm helped me decide which bones to break first.

On the desk between them lay a long, slim black case.  The Minister had carried it in himself, hugged against his chest like a child. Now it sat untouched.

Before I spoke, I reached out and adjusted the edge of the black case by a fraction, making it perfectly parallel with the desk’s grain. Some things demand order before chaos.

“Do you have it?” My voice slid through the changer, deep and sharp enough to make him flinch.

He nodded too fast and reached for the case on the table. His hands shook so badly the clasps took longer than they should have.

My voice distorted: “Open it.”

The Minister’s fingers fumbled over the clasps. He pushed the lid back to reveal a painting wrapped in protective cloth Carefully, he peeled it back.

It was a portrait — a woman, seated in a red chair, her gaze turned slightly away. The colors were rich but worn, like time had been chewing at the edges.

A woman. Still. Eternal. Her eyes were soft but knowing, her lips painted with care. And on her bare shoulder — a birthmark. Small, distinct.

I’d seen that mark before.

It wasn’t just pigment on canvas. It was a key.

I  leaned forward.  Leather gloves brushed over the surface, not in admiration… but in search.

A pause.
Then — a sharp, short laugh that made the Minister flinch.

“This,” I said, tracing the shape in the air above the paint, “is fake.”
His fingers twitched against his knee. A bead of sweat broke free from his temple and slid down, disappearing into the stiff collar of his shirt.

His mouth worked like a fish’s. “No—no, this is what I was given. I swear, I..”

The words hit the air like a slap.

“Do you think I can’t tell the difference between paint that’s two hundred years old and paint that was dried in a warehouse last summer?”

My  gloved hand moved to the woman’s painted shoulder. The fingertip traced a dark fox -shaped birthmark.

“And this…” My voice dropped lower, “this is missing something. Something that was taken.”

The Minister’s throat bobbed. “I… I have no idea what you mean.”

I leaned back, the chair creaking. The distorted voice was calm now, almost bored.
“Give me your phone.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed hard. The chair legs squealed against the floor as he shifted back, as if an extra inch of space could protect him.

The Minister hesitated. “My— my phone?”

“Now.” I growled

His hand shook as he reached into his pocket, producing a sleek black device.
I took it without looking, turned it over once, then crushed it in one hand. Plastic cracked, glass crunched, metal bent. The screen lit briefly in my hand before I crushed it in my palm. Plastic and glass cracked like brittle bones.

The Minister jolted. “What”

“You were being followed,” I told him. “My men are dealing it. Consider it already handled.”

The Minister went pale. His Adam’s apple jumped. His eyes darted to the locked door behind me.

“Vittorio De Luca,” I said, letting his name settle in the air like poison, “should be smarter than his father. Because if he makes the same mistakes… he’ll join his parents in the ground.”

The Minister’s gaze flickered to the shadows beyond the desk. “What… what mistakes?”

I ignored the question. Instead, they reached down to the floor and picked up a manila envelope. A photograph slid out, pushed across the desk until it touched the Minister’s hand.

Katarina’s face stared up at him.

Katarina Delgado.

The Minister’s eyes widened the moment he saw her.

“Have you ever seen her? In real life?”

The Minister hesitated — then nodded. “Yes. In Rome. Once.”

I laughed — low, distorted, the kind of sound that doesn’t warm a room.

Before sliding the photo across the desk, I brushed my gloved fingers over it — not to clean it, but to sweep away dust that wasn’t there. The Minister’s eyes followed the motion, like he couldn’t decide if it was ritual or madness.

“So she lives.” My gloved finger tapped her shoulder in the picture, right where the birthmark would be.

“Still wears her hair to the left, doesn’t she? To hide it.” I said it like a memory, not a guess. The Minister stiffened — he didn’t know if I was bluffing, and that was the point.

“Then I hope the De Luca family plays smarter this time… or history will eat them whole.”

He swallowed hard. “And if they don’t?”

I leaned in close enough for him to feel my breath, close enough for the shadows of my hood to swallow his gaze.

“…Then I’ll finish what I started before she was even born.”

They slid their gaze back to the painting. That same gloved fingertip traced the birthmark again the exact one Katarina had on her shoulder.

“Find me the real one. And I'll get her.”

The Minister’s voice was barely a whisper. “And… if I can’t?”

I leaned forward, and for the first time, the Minister could see the faint reflection of his own face in the black glass of my mask.

“Then you won’t be in any position to care.”

The bass thumped again. Somewhere outside, a laugh echoed in the club.
But in this room, the air stayed still.

The Minister nodded quickly, his fingers curling into fists on his knees. He didn’t dare ask which one the I meant — the woman in the painting… or the girl in the photograph.

Because deep down, he already knew the answer.

The bulb overhead swayed on its wire as I walked out, leaving the painting on the table. A curse in oil and canvas. A woman who looked too much like her to be coincidence.

Tell Vittorio De Luca, I said over my shoulder, that when I find the real one… I’ll take the girl too.