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.

I’m serious. I didn’t sign up to be Robin to your serial killer Batman.”

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.

“Turned on my own? Ridiculous. You’re not my kind. You’re a monster from pure darkness. I’m a monster walking in the

There’s no manual on how to operate in an office with serial killer coworkers, okay? But I’m still here, no?”

“I’m not religious,” she said. “In fact, I don’t put my faith in anything beyond the immense strength we all possess—the strength to achieve extraordinary things. But as you know all too well, some of those things can descend into pitch-black darkness. That’s the nature of human potential. It’s capable of both brilliance and horror.”

“Maybe so, but you see, in this case, Novak is messing with the wrong peasant. With enough public involvement, even a commoner like me can make quite a fuss. And as fate would have it, something more powerful than kings and queens has formed in this world. Social media. A direct voice to the people. If you gather enough of us, even kings have to care about the laws again.”

And just like that, Mission Career Wreckage was officially in motion.

“It’s not you. Really,” I said. “I’m busy at work right now. Please don’t take this personally. Karma treats me like shit sometimes. I’m not one of her favorites. Never was, never will be.” She smiled faintly. “I know all about that. Karma don’t like me too. She’s a sneaky bitch, that one.”

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.

“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.”

“They drill it into your head that suicide is a permanent solution to—” “Temporary problems,”

I was about to make a joke when Josie stomped back, her face red with frustration. “Fifteen bucks!” she fumed. “He wants fifteen bucks for a pretzel.” The ten I’d given her trembled in her hand. “Fifteen, Dad!” “Jesus,” I muttered, reaching for my wallet to hand her another five. She pushed the ten back at me. “No way. I’m not buying into that rip-off. Told him I wanted a pretzel, not a share in the pretzel company.”

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

The life of a billionaire. As beautiful as it was absurd.

“Most great men’s downfall is a woman,” Jan joked softly. “Most great men’s downfall is the man himself,” I countered.

“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.”

“Jesus, Allah, Buddha, or even the goddamn devil … I’ll offer my soul in exchange for this being the fucking end of it all. The end and nothing else.”

He finally understood the difference between the two. Monsters and villains. One you had to kill. The other… was a bit more complicated.

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