Final Kill (IKK Crime Series #3)

by S.T. Ashman

“One of your kind has broken the pact of evil and turned on her own,” the letter read.

“I hope so. Because God be my witness, I won’t be some forgiving, sweet old lady if we find my little girl dead in some ditch.” Her voice quivered. Her eyes met mine again as tears streamed down her face. “I’ll carry hatred and rage in my heart until the very last breath I take. And I’ll pray to God, Satan, or anybody else who’ll listen to bring nothing but pain and misery to whoever did this to my daughter.”

Many people judged a parent’s abilities by their financial success or educational background. But from what I’d seen on the job, real love wasn’t reserved for parents with material wealth or a polished resume. It was also in the mom who played Uno with one hand while holding a cigarette in the other, or the mom who lost her temper during her kid’s tantrum in the parking lot but covered them with kisses and hugs before bed.

“You really believe that out of the two criminals in this room, I’m the evil one, don’t you? Meanwhile, you robbed hardworking families of the roofs over their heads for your own gain. You took the little they had to feed their children because towers of gold weren’t enough for you. I stayed in the shadows where I belong. But you, my friend—you feasted on women and children and honest men.”

I was dancing with the devil now, fully caught in the tango. And the thing about dancing with the devil was that once you started, you didn’t get to decide when the music stopped.

You’re a monster from pure darkness. I’m a monster walking in the light.”

That’s the nature of human potential. It’s capable of both brilliance and horror.”

“Some women find men who carry the world attractive. I think they call them ‘well-seasoned.’”

“And the doctrine is flawed because it lets people justify morally questionable actions just because they claim good intentions. The harm is the same, whether it’s deliberate or not. Richter and I live by a much simpler doctrine: the one where monsters are taken out, no innocents harmed. Smaller-scale justice. But even a bathtub fills if the drops keep coming.”

“He does what’s right for others, always. He’s working himself into an early grave to make a tiny difference. That’s a unicorn right there.”

The feelings I’d been searching for since I was a little girl weren’t about justice at all. It dawned on me that killing killers—this relentless pursuit—had just been a distraction from my own lonely, pathetic life. A desperate way to make myself feel something. Anything. In helping people, even through dark means, I’d found just enough to force myself out of bed each day.

That little girl from the psych ward had finally found what she’d been searching for her whole life—only to destroy it. To destroy him.

But hope in itself wasn’t enough. Not without fuel. It had to be fed and sustained, like everything else in life.

“No,” I said. “I don’t want to go anywhere. I hope there’s nothing after this. No smiles. No tears. No love. No hate. No afterlife. No rebirth. Just … nothingness.” I felt a sharp ache in my chest as the weight of my lifelong loneliness pressed in from all sides. “I’m not sure I could bear to live another life as lonely as this one.”

Never forget what we're capable of when we truly want something, whether out of love or hate. Nothing compares to the sheer will we carry inside us. The ankh… you'll understand it in time.”

I was a killer of killers. And on a killer’s playground, there was only one rule. Win and live, or lose and die.