Page 6 of The Arbiter
Now the camera feeds, loop silently on the large monitor mounted opposite my bed. Black and white footage. Sterile corridor. Her office. The autopsy room.
I don't watch constantly. That would imply obsession. If I watched her every move. I would already be there. I observe when necessary. When she arrives. When she leaves. When someone lingers too long outside the back door.
Control is proximity. Control is access. I'm protecting something dangerous. She isn't fragile. She can protect herself. But like I said. I deal in certainty.
I know her full name by now. "Madeline Emerson."
Her name slips so easily from my tongue. As if it was made for me to say. Her academic history. Top of her class. Surgical pathology fellowship. Published twice.
There are interviews archived online. Conference panels. A hospital gala photo from two years ago. She's smiling in it, but not fully. As if she already knows something the rest of them don't.
Her date of birth. She's 26. Four years younger than me.
Her registered address. The car she drives. All public. All obtainable. I stopped there. The rest, I prefer to discover myself.
The way her voice lowers when she's irritated. The way she tilts her head when she concentrates. The exact shade her eyes turn under the sterile lighting. Some things shouldn't be downloaded.
They should be earned.
The apartment I own is immaculate. Italian marble floors. Dark oak paneling. Custom recessed lighting that mimics a constellation across the ceiling. Every piece of furniture is chosen for symmetry. No windows. I prefer it that way.
I stand before the mirror mounted against the black wall, already dressed entirely in shadow. Tailored shirt. Fitted trousers. Polished boots.
I slide the gloves on slowly, adjusting the leather over each finger. Ritual before ruin. My gaze lifts. The white strand cutting through the side of my dark hair, like a scar I never earned. I was born with it. I brush it back.
Madeline’s platinum hair catches light the same way. A grin appears before I can stop it. Like a contrast was designed with intention. Too precise to be a coincidence. If someone believed in fate, they would call it poetic. I don’t believe in fate. I believe in choices. And tonight I’m choosing to be found.
My hair is precisely styled back, exposing the tattoos along my temples. They’re shaped like claws, stretching down and connecting the ink that covers my whole neck. I’m not the face-ink kind of man, but this fits. The rest of my tattoos stay hidden beneath tailored fabric. They cover most of my body. Stories too disturbing to show the outside world.
My fingers brush against the necklace at my throat. The cross. And memories I would gladly burn, along with half of the men I’ve killed, rise without permission.
Is she the light you were talking about, mother?
She made this cross before she died, and the words she left me still echo.
“Worship only those who show you the light. The ones who break the darkness you carry because of your father.”
She was fanatically religious, and I don’t blame her. A cruel marriage will fracture anyone’s mind. She ended up dead under his hands. His wife. My mother.
Rage moves through me like a poison. I’ll never forgive that man. I know he’s still alive. I hear his name whispered in the highest circles of the Elite I currently work for, but we haven’t stood in the same room for years. I severed our contact long ago, vanishing into the underworld to build my own throne of bones.
He thinks I’m just another asset, another shadow in the distance. He doesn’t realize I’m the monster he created, coming back to finish what I started.
Many of my clients are part of the fucked up cults built on rape, torture and violence. Even on children. Not a single member of the Elite is innocent. And I plan to bathe in their blood. Including his. Soon enough.
I didn’t choose to work for these monsters voluntarily. To do their dirty work, I had to earn their trust. In a world like this, trust is currency. It took years to get close. Still not close enough for my plan. Years of obedience, patience, pretending. But I’ll end it. And no one will see it coming.
Tonight’s assignment is simple. A politician’s son with gambling debts and a mouth too loose for his own survival. The client requested discretion. Clean. Quiet. Untraceable. I slide the blade into the holster at my side. Clean is easy. Quiet is instinct. Untraceable is optional. This one won’t disappear. He will be found. Not immediately. Eventually. I smooth the cuff of my sleeve and allow the corner of my mouth to lift.She will get him.
When I work, I don’t rush. The incision is deliberate. The damage is focused. He doesn’t beg. He doesn’t scream for long. Most of them don’t once they understand there will be no negotiation. I clean the blade carefully before switching instruments.
When the cavity opens, I pause. The heart is a fragile thing. It sits protected behind bone and muscle, arrogant in its assumption of permanence.
I take a small folded piece of paper from my inner pocket. It’s protected inside a thin plastic sleeve. I slide it carefully into the hollow I’ve carved. Not shoved. Placed. Deliberate. Inside the main organ that’s no longer useful. No longer beating.
Then I close the body just enough to delay discovery, not prevent it. She will have to look. And she will find it herself. Because she always goes deeper than protocol requires. That’s what makes her different. Dangerous. And that’s what makes this necessary.
The client wanted a disappearance. No body. No evidence. No noise. Instead, I leave the body where it will be found within hours. Public enough to draw attention. Clean enough to suggest precision. Disturbed enough to raise questions.
