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I’d asked if she trusted me, and she’d said yes. And this street went both ways. I trusted not only her judgment but my own gut feeling. I’d seen something in his eyes the night I’d dropped off Leah at his fancy mansion. Something that told me, as clear as the blue sky, that Jan Novak was the Train Track Killer.
So if I go down for taking out another sick fuck that these dirtbags are trying to protect, at least I’ll go out with a big fucking smile on my face.”
“But here’s the deal. You’re going to stay quiet and play along like a good boy. And if this mission goes south, you’re taking the fall right beside me. Got it?” Shock flickered across his face, his sass crumbling. “Because if you don’t,” I continued, “I’ll make it look like you were the grandmaster behind everything with Leah. Hell, I’ll make you the mastermind behind all the shit that went down with Larsen too. I’ll testify that I was just following your orders. I’ll have Rose testify about you blackmailing her.”
Okay Liam is so bad ass right here LOL *applauds*
Mission Career Wreckage was officially in motion.
“FBI! Open the fucking gate!” I barked, leaving no room for hesitation.
Yes sir . Who's gonna argue with that? LOL
If you cannot afford an attorney, which I fucking doubt, one will be appointed to you.”
“Is that the fucking U.S. military?” Wheezer shouted, his voice cracking with disbelief. “Our military?” I couldn’t help but grin as I caught Chief Murray’s eye. Satisfaction lit up his wrinkled face. “For the record, I know exactly who you are,” I yelled over to Senator Wheezer, who was now crouched like a scared child, hands over his head. “But you forgot who we are. We’re the people who put you in power to serve us—not
This was probably my last day as an FBI agent. Especially given that Rose, Leah, and I had agreed to interrogate Novak at Leah’s factory—far from government eyes. That decision alone would bury my career. Taking a suspect to private property instead of a federal facility or FBI headquarters? There was no coming back from that. My career was over.
What that arrogant bastard didn’t know was that it wasn’t me he’d be up against. It would be someone far more persuasive. The only person on this planet who could break him.
Even if I told myself that I was different from Carl Carr or Jan Novak, I was still a killer. And today, I realized just how tired I was—tired of the hunt, tired of the games.
“This is all the proof I need,” he muttered, aiming at Novak. “If you don’t do it, Leah, I will. I can’t let him hire some top-notch lawyer and walk.
Deep down, something told me the real enemy in this room wasn’t Jan Novak—it was whatever waited for me on that phone.
The world I thought I knew was ending right in front of me, crumbling into chaos I couldn’t escape.
“What about Emanuel?” My voice was level, controlled. “Why did you kill him? What could he possibly have done to deserve that death on the tracks?” Novak’s eyes locked onto mine. “That,” he said, “is a question you’ll need to ask someone else.” His words hit me like a gut punch. Novak hadn’t killed Emanuel? But if he hadn’t, who had?
How could I justify protecting Leah after she’d taken down the Night Stalker but condemn Novak for doing something eerily similar?
Jan Novak had changed everything. He’d made me question my partnership with Leah. Question myself. And that scared the hell out of me.
“What are we supposed to do now, Leah?” Richter finally asked, his voice low. “Keep going like nothing’s changed? Take him out? Or worse … join him?”
As if my body weren’t my own, my hand moved, resting on top of his. The warmth of his skin sent a toxic rush of excitement through me. The realization struck me like a live wire: I cared for Agent Liam Richter.
Liam placed his hand over mine. There was nothing romantic or sexual about it—at least not on his end. It was a gesture of understanding, sympathy, friendship, and support. It meant a great deal to me when almost nothing else in my life mattered.
Novak. Good. Evil. Me. None of it mattered. Not as long as Richter was guiding me through the shadows like the first light at dawn.
“Not everything,” Cowboy muttered, locking eyes with me. I knew what he meant. “If that woman in the park had just kill—” “Stop it,” Rose snapped. Silence fell between us.
“Don’t tell me you’re starting to like me, boss.” “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves,” I joked, but everyone at headquarters, including Cowboy, knew how fond I’d become of the little prick.
And so have I lol
Honestly, part of me wants you to walk away, Rose. Save yourself. One more life saved.” “No.” The answer came sharp, with no hesitation. “You can count on me.”
The world wasn’t just upside down anymore. It was twisted beyond repair. Chaos had become the new baseline, and insanity was its weapon of choice.
“Novak,” he finally said. “What about him?” “I heard he’s the one who saved our asses.”
I could have told them that.
“Yeah … sorry for calling you like this, but I just wanted to say, well, thank you for the other day.” My alarm bells went off. I’d been on this job long enough to hear the weight behind those words. I could feel the crisis hiding in her tone.
She under duress or about to kill herself
A pang of disappointment hit me. Why wasn’t he here? I caught myself overthinking it, telling myself it didn’t matter. But it did. It was ridiculous how much it bothered me.
“How long have you been entertaining your … hobby?” He frowned, thinking. “About fifteen years now.”
“I’ve always had this feeling of disgust,” he continued, “this rage toward people who do wrong.”
I couldn’t help but feel a strange sense of admiration. The cold-blooded monster I’d always thought Jan Novak to be didn’t exist.
“You fed him targets from your system?” I asked. “I did. Every one of those targets deserved it in one way or another.
“The difference between my scorched path and yours,” I said, turning to face him, “is that what I burn to ash never deserved to exist in this world. You, on the other hand, are a wildfire—swallowing everything in your path without mercy.”
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.
“How much longer will you lie to yourself?” Jan pressed. “This hope that you and Richter are meant to be? I get it—creatures of the dark crave the light. But night is night, and day is day. You can’t change that.”
Richter. His name tore through my mind, and a sharp sting of loss stabbed deep into my chest. I hurt. Real pain. Shocked by the intensity of the emotion, I almost checked for a blade.
In the end, Richter had failed to save me. I’d become the monster I’d always been.
This had emerged shortly after Jan Novak had picked up Leah from a concert. Rose pointed at the folders. “I think they did this. Together.”
let Leah and Novak do their thing. Like some twisted couple from hell. And you and I … we go back to being agents, ignoring the occasional weird cases with their signatures all over them. Nobody will question a thing. They don’t know what we know.”
Maybe we could exist with similar missions but in different ways.
I saw flashes of Larsen yelling at me for prying into Leah Nachtnebel. Right here, in this same damn chair. Only back then, she was the bad guy, and I was the good guy. Right?
“No way. I’m not buying into that rip-off. Told him I wanted a pretzel, not a share in the pretzel company.”
Lmao she's her father's daughter
He’d finally see me for what I really was. And that look would haunt me forever.
In those dark woods, Jan Novak had handed me an opportunity, a way to truly make a difference in this twisted world. But it had also taken something from me, something I hadn’t realized I held more dear than my thirst for justice. Richter.
“Anton, the older one, he could’ve escaped. He was smart and kind. Had that rare something about him that drew people in. He could’ve run off and started a better life. But he stayed. For Mojca. He took care of his little brother.
What if this is Jan? We assume he's the younger bro who lost his brother to a seizure on the train tracks, but what if something unexpected happened?
“When the train hit, only one boy survived. The boy and his brother’s favorite possession.”
Oh ok nevermind maybe??
It’s horrific what a train does to the human body. Especially one so small,”
This line struck me when I read it before. Cuz this was another clue that it was the younger brother who died. He said the body was small.
