The Finisher (Dark Verse #4)

Prologue

It was his third murder that week.

His fiftieth in total, spread out over years. But this one was special. Something he would celebrate later.

The woman's body lay torn open in the grimy alley, heels askew, lipstick smudged, eyes vacant.

He loved that look in their eyes—the unseeing gaze fixed on an open sky they would never soar through. Because in those last moments, he was their god. They called him the Fortis Finisher. He preferred Lord of Death, though no one really used that name. Not yet. Someday, when all the murders were connected to him and the corrupt cops finally woke up, they would.

Smoke seeped from the crack between the buildings in thin tendrils. A light bulb flickered somewhere overhead. And the butcher? He wiped his knife on the torn hem of her skirt, letting the blood soak into the white fabric. A souvenir to stash with the rest. He was still high on the kill, on the chase, on her desecrated body exposed to the elements. The incoming rain would wash away all evidence. The cops would never give a shit about another missing whore. And the one man who owned the city would take the fall, framed for the crimes.

Then the butcher would become the entire city's god.

It was the perfect plan.

A movement in the shadows at the end of the street made him freeze. He squinted, trying to pierce the thick air, and saw a silhouette leaning against the wall. The same silhouette he had seen at every kill for the last two weeks.

A sound pierced the silence. A lighter flicked open. A flame bloomed, barely illuminating a hand, before being extinguished.

The same.

Fear wasn't an emotion he was familiar with. But watching that silhouette in the dark—uncaring, unmoving, observing him, stalking him for two weeks—a frisson crawled down his spine.

No, it couldn't be the myth.

He told himself that every time. A myth to many, a truth to some who never lived to tell the tale. The name everyone deep in the underworld knew to fear. Was that him? No. No way. The man wasn't real. It was possibly just a homeless guy who had seen everything and was too scared to come out. Or maybe even an undercover cop. Nothing else.

"Get lost before I cut you open," the butcher called out, glad his voice lacked the tremor he felt inside.

No sound. No movement. Nothing but eyes watching him quietly.

It scared him. Emasculated him. He didn't like that. He, who had terrorized and killed over fifty women, felt fear watching a silhouette in the shadows because of some fucking underworld myth.

Sirens wailed somewhere in the city, distant in the dead of night. A nightclub down the block pounded with music as its door opened and closed.

He heard only his own breathing, angry at being afraid, angry at feeling hunted.

He took a step back.

The silhouette didn't move. Just kept watching.

Just a scared homeless guy. That was all.

He pocketed his knife and backed out of the alley, scanning slowly to ensure no one else saw him, then broke into a sprint away from the crime scene. But just before he turned off the block, paranoia got the better of him. He looked back at the mouth of the alley, like he did every time.

And like each time, a man in dark clothes stood in the shadows, leaning against the wall, flicking a lighter, watching him run like a coward into the night.

The Shadow Man. A bigger monster than he. Was real.