Collateral obsession, p.6
Collateral Obsession, page 6
And I have a feeling his family will end up grateful for what I’m going to do to him today—if they have even half a functioning brain between them. Love only stretches so far; once something like this comes to light, affection doesn’t just fade, it mutates into pure disgust.
I catch my reflection in the mirror, fingers gliding over the creases of my sundress—white cotton scattered with bright little daisies. His daughter’s favorite flower. A symbol of purity, innocence, and new beginnings.
The irony lands like a punchline only I’m cruel enough to appreciate.
I brush the daisy scrunchie in my hair, then move to the earrings that match the dress perfectly. Today, I wear innocence like a costume, my entire look a lie to mirror his own—the mask of virtue he wears every fucking day.
What seals the whole performance is the mask. A flimsy, plastic replica of the one he forced those kids to wear in his videos. I slip it over my face just as his car crunches into the gravel of the backyard. The sound bleeds through the half-open window, sharp and intrusive, and for a heartbeat, it feels like he’s already here, breathing the same air as me.
Revulsion erupts like a living thing, hot and immediate, crawling up from my gut. The mask presses against my skin, suffocating and scratchy, its cheap plastic scent clawing its way into my nose until every instinct screams to rip it away. And just as quickly as the disgust lands, anger sparks through me—sharp, electric, coursing along my veins like lightning ready to strike.
Maybe I’ll rethink how I kill him. Or maybe I’ll just…add a twist.
My gaze slides to the far corner of the room—his daughter’s bedroom. That’s where he’ll die. Right beside the tiny fabric tent she plays in. I stride toward it, unable to resist the urge to admire my work one more time before the house erupts into chaos.
I made this space for him.
Pinned to the wall, framed by daisy stickers and scattered toys, are screenshots from every video he watched, commented on, or saved. A sick little shrine to who he really is.
I reach the tent and gently draw the flaps closed, tucking in a secret meant just for him.
My patience thins with every dragging second, and I have to remind myself to breathe just to keep from snapping. I step out of the room and move upstairs to his office, sliding into the black leather chair behind his desk. His laptop sits open, security feeds flickering across the screen in cold, grainy squares.
And then, after a few stretched-out, torturous heartbeats, I see him.
A spark ignites in my chest, molten fire bubbling beneath my ribs. Heat races through my veins, my fingers clutching the fabric of my sundress as a coil of impatience twists tighter and tighter inside me.
He steps through the front door exactly the way he always does—unguarded, settled into the rhythm of his own mundane routine. One hand rakes through his disheveled black hair as he drifts toward the kitchen. He swings open the fridge, grabs his bottle of scotch, and for a moment, the world looks painfully normal on the screen.
I don’t blink. My gaze stays glued to the feed as I unlock my phone and type the first message.
A heartbeat later, a notification chimes from downstairs, sharp and deliberate. Anticipation shoots through me, a molten current igniting every nerve. I shift in the black leather chair, crossing my legs as the tension coils tighter, waiting for the impact to strike him. My foot swings, brushing the edge of the desk, tapping out a soft, insistent rhythm—like the steady ticking of a clock counting down the seconds he has left, unaware of the fire creeping closer.
His expression fractures in real time—confusion flaring first, followed by the early, trembling sparks of fear. I don’t bother waiting for him to catch up. I send another message, and the way his lips twitch at the corners is almost funny. Anger unfurls across his features exactly on cue, blooming dark and ugly beneath the kitchen lights.
The scotch bottle hits the counter with a dull thud, forgotten. Whatever thirst he had evaporates. Now it’s just him and the phone, his entire world narrowing to the words on the screen. He stares for a long, tight second before finally, his thumbs begin to move.
PIECE OF SHIT:
Who are you?
That’s when I send a hand-picked screenshot from one of his videos. The still is perfect: that predatory gleam in his eyes, the warped grin carved across his mouth, the kind of expression no camera should have ever preserved. A truth frozen in pixels.
He clamps a hand over his mouth, as if he could silence the evidence, stifle the reflection of himself staring back. Shame claws its way out of the grave he thought he’d buried it in. Beneath my skin, impatience ignites, a scorching pulse I can’t ignore. I waste no time—fingers pressing the call button before I even think.
From my vantage point upstairs, I catch the full impact—the way his whole body jolts when the phone buzzes in his hand. He hesitates, staring at the screen a moment too long, like he’s bargaining with the universe for a glitch, an error, a reprieve. Then, with trembling fingers, he answers. His hand twitches near his face, each blink sharp and frantic, as if he’s trying to snap himself awake from the nightmare he’s stumbled into—blind to the cruel irony that he constructed it all with his own hands.
“What do you want?” he asks, voice unsteady, stretched tight over panic.
“You don’t sound nearly as confident as you do in your videos.”
A heavy silence drapes the room, thick and suffocating. That voice—he hadn’t expected it. Of course not. Men like him never consider that a woman could be a threat.
I hear the sharp gulp, the quick intake of breath. “Look, I didn’t do anything—” His words falter, fading into a frantic search for an excuse. “I just… looked,” he stammers, each syllable trembling. “I wasn’t trying to hurt anyone.”
Disgust twists beneath the mask, curling my lips into a silent snarl. The plastic scratches, claws at my skin, as if trying to burrow in. Heat floods my veins, simmering, threatening to boil over. I lean into the silence, letting it press down exactly where it hurts the most.
“You look at your daughter the same way?” I question.
The pause that follows stretches taut between us. I can feel the storm brewing inside him—panic sparring with shame, each giving way to a fury that churns just beneath the surface, ready to erupt.
“Don’t you dare talk about my daughter!” he snaps, his voice trembling with uncontrollable anger and despair. “What do you want? Is it money?”
“No,” I cut him off. It’s always the same fucking offer. I’ve lost track of how many times people thought money could save them. I could buy him ten times over and sell him to the worst corners of the web he likes to lurk in. Maybe it would finally teach him something.
“So what is this?” he barks. “You trying to blackmail me? Make me do something that’ll hurt me or my family?”
He paces the room, back and forth, each step frantic, every movement soaked in hopeless tension. His breaths come ragged and uneven, his chest rising and falling like a balloon stretched too thin, ready to snap at any moment. “You can’t prove shit. The pictures mean nothing! Could be fake. Deepfakes. I’m not doing—”
“The pictures. The videos. Every single session you had on that site,” I interrupt, my voice smooth and even, like morning mist crawling over a field of graves.
I had hoped he would hold my attention longer, but boredom already seethes inside me, a yawn rising deep in my chest.
“I need you to listen to me. Maybe then, I’ll make it quick,” I say.
He grunts, raw and primal, sweat slicking beneath his arms and darkening the expensive fabric of his shirt. I watch him unravel, each layer of composure peeling away—panic twisting into denial, denial curdling into frantic bluster—until the first cracks finally show. His curses cut through the room, jagged, ragged, and pitiful in their intensity. He has no idea how completely he’s already lost control.
“Stop whining,” I demand, my voice a hard, clean edge slicing through his panic. “I need you to go to your daughter’s room.”
He protests immediately, but I’ve already muted the call. Let him stew in the silence. Let him scramble through the maze of possibilities: run, call the police, grab a weapon, try to outsmart me. They all cycle through the same fantasies of control.
But the end never changes. I always finish the job exactly the way I intend.
I place the phone on the desk, curl my fingers around the knife, feeling its weight settle in my hand, and push up from the leather chair.
I slip out of the office, sliding into the corridor with deliberate, measured steps. The house breathes around me, its silence taut with expectation. Every creak, every whisper of movement sharpens my senses. Before he arrived, I had loosened a single floorboard in that room—a small advantage.
One creak. That’s all I need.
I make my way down the stairs, deliberate and unhurried, each step a measured mark against the silence. Somewhere nearby, the warped wood groans under his weight, and a ripple of satisfaction curls through me.
Carefully, I inch across the threshold, my eyes drinking him in. Up close, he’s smaller than I pictured—deflated, fragile, pitiful. My grip tightens around the knife hilt, rooting me in the present.
But I don’t strike. Not yet. Not until he sees the real surprise.
I rest my shoulder against the doorframe, shifting my weight until it feels anchored. The room falls into heavy stillness. He holds perfectly still, all attention trained on the tiny tent.
A tense calm flares in me, warm and alive, smoldering in my chest like embers ready to ignite. My palms moisten, the instant tightening around me, soft as silk yet fraught with peril.
Once his attention fully locks onto the scene I built for him, something in his posture shifts. He notices that the tent looks wrong, different, and his phone slips from his hand. The thud hits the floor with enough force to pulse up through the boards, a vibration that travels straight into my boots.
I use the distraction, drifting one step closer.
Slowly, deliberately, I lift my chin and angle my gaze toward the corner camera. I know Dante is watching. I let my eyes settle on the lens, holding steady, letting the gravity of the moment bleed through the glass and into him.
Turning back, I meet the moment his unsteady hand pulls the tent’s fabric apart. His breath catches, a jagged, raw gasp that slams against the walls. He stumbles, glassy-eyed, locked on the scene I’ve meticulously constructed. Dim shadows twist around him, pressing the room closer.
A broken, croaked cry slips from him, tangling with the electric tension in the room. It cuts through my restraint, unraveling the last of my composure. I’m behind him before he can see, driving the knife into his shoulder. A sharp whimper tears from him as his legs buckle.
He turns sharply, his gaze locking with mine—and in that split second, the truth strikes him. The spark of recognition, the bloom of horror. I’ve watched it ignite in so many eyes, and it never loses its thrill.
That moment when they know escape is impossible. When their voice dies in their throat.
When all that’s left is to stare, shaking, and endure what I’m about to inflict.
His eyes trace slowly up my body, from the hem of my sundress to the mask hiding my face, and I watch the truth click into place. Revelation after revelation breaks across his expression, twisting it into something warped with denial.
I suppose this is what people mean when they say a lifetime flashes before your eyes in a heartbeat of panic and despair.
Regret doesn’t touch him. Confusion never comes. Instead, terror takes him whole. It floods his features the moment he realizes his carefully curated facade isn’t just cracked—it’s been obliterated. And I see every monstrous truth beneath it.
“No, no, wait—”
But I don’t. The second stab goes into his other shoulder, and he collapses into the tent, crushing part of the setup beneath him. The tiny destruction kindles a fresh blaze of fury inside me.
His voice becomes nothing but gurgles and wet chokes as I plunge the knife into him again and again. The blade tears through muscle, gristle, and bone, and even when he stops moving, I don’t stop.
A high-pitched ringing claws at my ears, sharp and relentless. The metallic tang of blood saturates the air, thick enough that I can taste it on my tongue. His body lies in ruin, shirt soaked through with spreading crimson, a living canvas of destruction. My vision blurs—whether from flecks of blood or the unbidden tears welling in my eyes, I can’t tell.
Sometimes, when the anticipation stretches too long, excitement overwhelms me, and the act itself floods me with such raw, unbridled emotion that tears spill anyway. Time loses meaning, the world shrinks to just me and the body I paint with my marks, each motion an intimate imprint of my passion. The white-hot rage boiling inside me burns so vividly that a sharp, nervous laugh escapes my lips, echoing through the suffocating silence that follows.
Shaking, I yank the plastic mask from my face, savoring the sharp kiss of fresh air on my damp skin. I swipe the sweat from my brow, straighten my spine, and roll my neck with slow cracks. Inch by inch, the rage uncoils, slipping out of me as I lift his face in my hands, my eyes boring into his.
A slow, predatory smile curls across my lips as I catch the faint gleam of hope still flickering in his eyes—a glimmer that hadn’t quite died. My breathing steadies, each inhale deeper than the last, the tremor in my body receding as I release his face and tilt my head, surveying the scene.
The tent lies in ruin, fabric torn and distorted. Crooked daisy stickers cling desperately to the flaps, and a single screenshot flutters down, landing on his head, smeared with blood like a final accent.
The sound rips out of my chest, louder now—a raw, ringing laugh that ricochets through the room with violent clarity. It feels absurdly out of place, a dissonant note in the horror I’ve crafted, and yet it leaves me dizzy, lightheaded, intoxicated by the culmination of everything I’ve orchestrated.
Crouching beside him, I press the mask against his face, the idea cutting cleanly through the fog clouding my mind. Sometimes improvisation works best, and right now, it feels flawless. I adjust it, smoothing the plastic over his slack, lifeless features until it sits perfectly.
Rising, I catch my reflection in the mirror. My dress, once pale and pristine, clings to me in dark, sticky patches. My hair is a disheveled chaos, strands sticking to damp skin, a silent testament to the storm I just unleashed. The sight strikes me with sudden clarity, and the weight of exhaustion presses heavily on my shoulders, settling in like a familiar shroud.
I step slowly out of the room, and my stomach growls loudly, insistently—a reminder of the ritual that always follows the work.
New clothes.
And a burger.
Desert Oasis (Middle East)
The side of my face burns, raw and taut, like leather left baking in the relentless sun, while my fingers tremble and clamp around the binoculars. The desert air weighs heavily, pressing into my shoulders, constricting my throat. Anxiety coils in my chest, hot and hollow, ready to tip me over the edge. Minutes stretch and smear into hours; the SUV no longer feels like a vehicle, but a tomb where time has frozen, refusing to release me.
I draw a slow, deliberate breath through my nose, forcing a shard of control back into my lungs. My free hand tugs at the hem of my black T-shirt, the sweat-drenched fabric clinging to me as if fused to my skin. Even peeling it an inch away sends a shock of cold racing up my spine, goosebumps erupting along my arms. I close my eyes, wetting my parched lips with my tongue, silently wishing the chill would linger—a fleeting mercy in the desert’s merciless, sun-baked grip.
“It’s your own fault,” Estella murmurs, her voice soft and intimate, brushing against my ear. I shift slightly, the binoculars still warm in my grip. She shrugs, lips pressing thin before quirking at the corners—part scold, part tease—like I’m a child she can’t quite stop pitying. “I don’t understand why you’re taking this so seriously.”
“What?” I rasp, my voice cracking in the dry air. I clear my throat, though it barely makes a difference—the silence between us has grown teeth, snapping at the edges of my patience. She’s been watching me the entire time, still and quiet, offering no plan, and I can’t bring myself to speak first. Not after everything that happened a few days ago.
A storm of emotions tore through me, with shock leading the charge. The last mission had ripped open a truth I couldn’t deny: Estella was the killer—the shadow we’d trailed for months. Every other assassin whispered her name, feared her from afar, yet none had any clue who she really was.
A faceless shadow.
A local legend in death itself, her reputation stretching even to the highest ranks, sending ripples of fear through those who thought themselves untouchable. I hadn’t been sure it was really her—until I saw the way she moved, the clothes she wore, and then watched her kill a pedophile through the surveillance cameras. Only then did the pieces click, two plus two forming a picture I couldn’t unsee.
The Order trained her to perfection. She doesn’t follow a predictable pattern—she can’t—and that’s what makes each kill feel like a separate symphony of death. Yet beneath the chaos, there’s a signature, so distinct that it’s how I realized she was the one we’d been hunting.
She doesn’t just take them out one by one, slitting throats like some mechanical ritual. No, for her, killing is a meticulously crafted ceremony. She studies her victims, maps their weaknesses, and selects the perfect outfit for each mission, every choice deliberate, every move executed with precision.
I did my homework on that lawyer—a man whose life was polished to such an obscene sheen it almost hurt to look at. The deeper you dig, the more layers you uncover: a dozen people working in concert, crafting the illusion of perfection. Each detail, each nuance, leaving traces that, to someone like her—or me—reeked of cheapness beneath the glitter.
