None of You Escape
The next day, the boy went missing.
I made it quick, then dismembered him, froze the pieces, and mailed them to her with a note: Returning whats yours.
She stormed into my place that night, pressing a cleaver to my neck. He was innocenttake your revenge on me!
I only smiled. Innocent? You and your lover threw my daughter Rosie into an industrial mixer alive. You had my parents killed for seeking justice and framed me for her murderlanding me seven years in hell.
Her face went white with terror.
I stepped closer, blood at my throat. Scared? The game has only just begun.
And none of you are getting away.
1
Clang.
The cleaver slipped from Veronica's numb fingers and crashed to the floor. She stumbled backward, collapsing into a heap on the ground. A flicker of somethingmaybe regretcrossed her face for a fraction of a second.
I watched her, my heart a barren wasteland. There was no victory, only a hollow emptiness.
It wasn't enough.
This was nowhere near enough.
Just then, the door flew open with a violent crash.
David stormed in, his face a mask of pure fury. He lunged, and his fist connected with my jaw with a sickening crack.
"Ethan, you son of a bitch!" he roared.
"Your daughter crawled into a mixer and got ground to pieces because she was stupid! She had it coming!"
"She went in there looking for you! What right do you have to hurt my Leo?"
"I'll kill you! I'll make you pay for what you did to my son!"
Hatred poured from David's eyes. In the next moment, he bent down, snatched the cleaver from the floor, and swung it straight at my head.
The blade stopped an inch from my eyebrow.
Veronica was clinging to David's waist, her eyes wide with alarm as she stared at me.
"David, don't! He wouldn't dare... He wouldn't kill Leo! He's bluffing! We'll call the police right now!"
"If you hadn't lied to Rosie, telling her I was hiding inside that machine, she never would have crawled in there," I spat, swallowing the metallic taste of blood rising in my throat. I stared him down. "If you hadn't flipped the switch, she wouldn't have been torn apart!"
"David," I said, my voice dangerously low. "Your son screamed so pitifully before he died."
"He kept crying 'Daddy, save me! Daddy, help me!'" I pretended to clean out my ear, as if annoyed by the memory. "He was making so much noise, so I cut out his tongue. It was much quieter after that."
Their faces twisted in horror. I started to laugh, a deep, shuddering sound that shook my entire body. But then, without warning, a single tear escaped and traced a cold path down my cheek, disappearing into the collar of my shirt.
"Let me go! Veronica, let go of me!"
"I'm going to kill him! I'm going to chop him into pieces!"
My words had pushed David over the edge. He thrashed wildly in Veronica's arms. Her eyes, too, now blazed with a murderous light.
But I just chuckled, pushing the blade away from my face before settling into an armchair. I even poured them both a cup of hot tea.
"By the way," I said conversationally. "You still haven't found his head, have you?"
"Where do you think I might have put it?"
I picked up the remote and turned on the projector.
An image flickered to life on the wall: Leo, his face streaked with tears, his small body trembling as he sobbed in terror.
David lunged at the wall, his hands shaking as he tried to touch the boy's face on the screen.
In the projection, the child's cries grew weaker... fainter... until they faded into absolute silence.
David trembled violently, unable to speak.
Veronica froze, looking as if shed been struck by lightning.
It was only in that moment that the reality finally crashed down on them.
Their son was never coming back.
I watched them, my expression cold as ice.
Does it hurt?
Every second of this agony... I lived through it once. Seven years ago. Without a single detail spared.
My Rosie... they shredded her, just like this.
And I, like them, had knelt in the depths of despair, with no one to hear my screams.
2
I looked at the couple, once so untouchable, and my mind drifted back to Rosies last birthday.
Ever since she was born, Veronica had never once celebrated with her. Rosie was always on her tiptoes with anticipation, just hoping her mom would be there to blow out the candles with her for once.
But David always found a way. A single phone call, one text message, and Veronica would be gone.
Until Rosie turned five.
She'd heard her mom was finally going to take her to the amusement park. She put on her favorite princess dress and twirled in front of the mirror, a radiant smile on her face.
As she left, she turned and waved to me. "Daddy, I'll save you the biggest piece of strawberry cake when I get home!"
She never came home.
She was dragged into a cold, merciless machine, reduced to a mess of blood and mangled flesh. That pink princess dress was soaked through, a horrifying, piercing red.
Three days after she died, Veronica herself put me on the witness stand. She pointed her finger at me and named me as her daughter's killer.
"Ethan, I'm warning you, don't be a fool. Rosie is gone. Leo and David are innocent."
Veronica's voice, sharp and laced with a threat, pulled me back to the present. "You have until 8 PM to bring Leo back. If you don't, I have no problem sending you back to prison for another decade."
Another decade?
I looked down and chuckled grimly.
Terminal stomach cancer. I didn't even have three months left.
Biting back the searing pain that twisted in my gut, I clenched my jaw. "You're still quite the powerful lawyer, aren't you, Veronica? Did you really think I'd fall for the same trick twice?"
She paused, her voice tinged with that familiar, weary annoyance. "Ethan, we're divorced! Stop using these games to get my attention!"
"Eight o'clock. If I don't see Leo, you will regret this."
With that, she bent down, helped the trembling David to his feet, and they left.
The moment they were gone, I couldn't hold on any longer. My body folded, and I collapsed onto the cold floor. A cold sweat soaked through my clothes, leaving me shivering and chilled to the bone.
I must have passed out. When I woke up, the room was shrouded in darkness. Trembling, I pushed myself up, fumbled in the back of a cabinet for my painkillers, and swallowed two pills dry.
Night had consumed the apartment.
I flicked a lighter. Click. A tiny flame leaped into existence. Click. Darkness swallowed it again.
In that fleeting glow, I thought I could almost hear the soft whoosh of Rosie blowing out birthday candles.
I went into the bedroom.
Her smiling face, forever captured in a photograph, hung in the center of the wall.
I lit a stick of incense with the lighter.
"Don't be scared, Rosie. Daddy just has one last thing to do. Then I'll come be with you."
Just then, my phone buzzed with a new text message:
"Everything's in place."
My fingers gently traced the smile on Rosie's face in the picture, and a faint smile touched my own lips.
The cancer was getting worse. The attacks of pain were coming more frequently.
My time was running out.
3
At eight o'clock sharp, I turned on the feed from the security cameras Id installed at Veronicas house.
"Vera, it's eight. Why isn't Leo back yet?" David's voice was thick with panic, his eyes red-rimmed. "He's never been away from me this long..."
Veronica patted his hand, about to speak, when the doorbell rang.
A massive cardboard box stood on their doorstep.
David shoved Veronica aside and tore at the box like a man possessed. The moment the flaps flew open, he froze.
Inside was a giant teddy bear.
Except its head had been replaced with Leo's.
His severed head had been crudely stitched onto the bear's furry neck. Fresh blood seeped from the seam, staining the soft fur and soaking into the cardboard, creating a dark, spreading stain that crept towards their feet.
"Aaaargh!"
David clamped a hand over his mouth, a strangled, agonized cry escaping him.
At that exact moment, his phone lit up with a new message.
Did you get my gift? Hope you like it.
Don't worry. You're next.
The instant he read it, David threw the phone against the wall as if it were electrified. His body shook uncontrollably before his eyes rolled back and he collapsed, unconscious.
Veronica, enraged, kicked furiously at the empty air. "Ethan, you psycho!" she screamed. "If you dare touch David, I swear I will kill you!"
Watching the two of them break down on the monitor, a low, dark laugh rumbled in my chest.
For the next few days, Veronica was a wreck. She spent her days arranging Leo's funeral and her nights watching over a catatonic David.
On the fourth afternoon, while she was out meeting with a psychiatrist, I used a burner phone to lure David out.
I know where the rest of Leo's body is.
Come alone. Call the cops, and you'll never find him.
The moment he saw me, his eyes went bloodshot with rage and he lunged.
The next thing he knew, a steel pipe slammed into the back of his neck.
The damp, metallic scent of the basement filled the air.
David was tied to a chair, deep purple bruises already forming around his wrists. He jerked awake with a violent shudder as the first steel nail pierced his shoulder blade.
"I told you," I said, my voice echoing in the gloom. "You're next."
I stood in the shadows, lighting a cigarette. Through the hazy smoke, I calmly observed the way his face twisted in agony as he struggled against his bonds.
David gasped for breath, then looked up and managed a twisted smile. "Ethan, Veronica will never let you get away with this! You're going to hell!"
I stepped forward into the light, where he could see me clearly.
"Did you really think," I began softly, "that I didn't know who was behind my parents' 'car accident'?"
David's pupils contracted. He had been so careful. Besides, I was already locked up back then. There was no way I could have known.
"So what if it was me?!" he suddenly roared after a moment of stunned silence, the veins in his neck bulging. "Those two old fools, your parents... they wouldn't stop trying to clear your name. I just... helped them on their way."
He writhed manically, ignoring the blood bubbling from the wound in his shoulder. "If you miss them so much, why don't you hurry up and join them for a little family reunion!"
"You don't need to worry about me. Right now, you should be worried about yourself."
"When it comes to you and your son, I believe in equal treatment."
With that, I pressed a green button on the control panel next to me. A low, grinding rumble started up, growing louder as it drew closer.
4
David's head snapped around.
Not far away, an industrial mixer was spinning at high speed. Anyone caught in it would be turned into a slurry of bone and flesh in seconds.
Just like my Rosie.
"No... please, no..." he whimpered, broken sounds escaping his throat as his body began to convulse uncontrollably.
"What's wrong?" I taunted, ignoring his trembling. "Scared now?"
"Ethan! It wasn't me who pushed Rosie in!!" he screamed. "It was Veronica! She said Rosie was being too noisy! She did it because Leo said he wanted to see what it looked like when someone got ground up in there... I can testify! I'll help you put her away!"
The chair rolled forward another foot. The foul wind whipped up by the mixer was already ruffling Davids hair.
He was sobbing hysterically now. "Please... I'll give you all my money! You can have Veronica back! Just let me go!"
I sat where I was, watching him with a blank expression, and began a silent countdown in my head.
Ten... nine... eight... seven... six...
BOOM!
The steel door to the basement was kicked open.
Veronica stood silhouetted in the doorway, her chest heaving.
"Ethan, if you want revenge, take it out on me! Let David go!" Her eyes were bloodshot, her face a mask of exhaustion and barely contained fury.
"I already told you my terms," I said, casually waving the remote control in my hand. "Agree, and I'll let him go immediately."
Three days earlier, she had received a text from me:
You want David to live? Tell the media the truth about what happened seven years ago.
Telling the truth meant her reputation, her career, everything she had built over the years, would be utterly destroyed.
"So, what's it going to be?" I rested my chin on my hand, watching the beads of cold sweat trickle down her forehead.
"Vera, save me! I don't want to die..." David shrieked. "He's insane! Ethan is really going to kill me!!"
The roar of the mixer grew louder, punctuated by David's terrified screams.
"I've already called the police, Ethan!" Veronica's face was ashen, but her fingers were trembling. "It's not too late to stop. The court already ruled you were mentally unstable when you killed Rosie! That's the official verdict!"
She was still trying to fight it.
"David," I said, turning to him, my voice clear and steady. "You see? She's not going to save you."
The chair lurched forward another few inches. The tips of David's shoes were now touching the edge of the rotating drum.
Pure, unadulterated terror finally shattered his sanity. "VERONICA!!" he shrieked. "YOU BITCH! IT WAS YOU! YOU THREW YOUR OWN DAUGHTER INTO THAT MIXER"
Love, reputation... none of it mattered in the face of death.
Hearing his words, Veronica's face contorted into a mask of pure hatred. She whipped her head around to glare at me. "This is all your fault, you animal! You're the one who should die!"
She lunged, grabbing me with surprising strength and trying to drag me towards the roaring machine. I was slammed hard against the cold edge of the control panel, a jolt of agony shooting up my spine.
But I smiled.
I lifted a hand and pointed to a small, blinking red light in the corner of the room.
"Veronica," I said, my voice calm. "I told you I wouldn't fall for the same trick twice."
"Smile for the camera. We're live."
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