Page 40 of Sweet Venom

“Yeah… me too.” I’m not a man of many words, but he knew. They knew I loved them. I more than love them because love felt so simple and not enough for how I truly felt about them. My family.

After that, I hung up and as I sat in the dark, I couldn’t help but think that maybe he was right. Maybe there’s more than darkness and pain for me.

Maybe I can have more.

Maybe I can have her.

Blue.

Now

Pullingthe black hoodie over my head, I hid my face from view—a ghost swallowed by darkness. I took a long drag from the cigarette, the bitter smoke filling my lungs before I exhaled it toward the empty sky. The night was a void, suffocating and silent, without a single star to break the darkness. The air reeked of rot, decay, and death. It was the kind of poison that seeped into your lungs and stained your soul, but it didn’t faze me. Itnever had. It was the scent of this place—the scent of what I have become.

A monster.

The building was a carcass of its former self, a plastic factory long abandoned after bankruptcy gutted the lives of thousands—courtesy of a group of greedy, brain-dead men who couldn’t manage a lemonade stand, let alone a business. They drove it into the ground, too busy lining their pockets to notice the whole operation was going to shit. The whole thing collapsed like a bad joke, but no one was laughing. The despair still lingers in the air, thick and suffocating, as undeniable as the foul stench of the people I bring here.People who never make it out.

I walked, whistling the tune of my mother’s favorite lullaby, the haunting melody always soothing amidst the eerie silence. I saw everything around me, even in the blackest shadows. The filthy, decaying walls groaned like rotting flesh, while the shattered windows gaped open like dead eyes, staring into nothingness. The cold air seeped through the broken glass, chilling the space until it felt just as cold inside as it did outside.

I pushed open a rusted metal door that creaked in protest, stepping into more darkness. I’ve walked through these dark halls so many times that the silence felt like an old friend. The hum of the city was distant, barely a murmur against the cold, suffocating atmosphere of my playground. Here, there was nothing but darkness and madness, and I felt perfectly at home in it. I knew this place like the palm of my hand. The rusted doors and peeling beige walls were just remnants now, ghostly decorations of lives that once thrived within these crumbling ruins. As for the shadows? They belonged to me. They moved with me, bending, stretching, coiling like obedient hellhounds at my heels.

I am a predator here. Every inch of this building reeked of retribution and death, and I’m the one who delivered it. In thisplace, I was the product of the pain that shaped me at a young age. Here, I wasn’t just a number or the son of two powerful criminals. Here, I was the one holding the knife, ending the lives of those who slipped through the cracks of a fucked-up system. I did what the police failed to do. I punished. I was the one handing out the judgment.

I’m like Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, except I didn’t have the decency to even pretend to be good. One side of me was the polished, well-mannered billionaire. It was somewhat charming, respected, and admired. The other side was the cold, calculating predator who watched, waited, and struck with precision. But here’s the fucked-up twist…I didn’t struggle between the two. I didn’t feel any conflict. They were both me. The mask and the monster were the same face. And no one knew. I’m the perfect predator, the one who slips through the cracks without leaving a trace. The perfect blend of civility and madness, a deadly combination that no one saw coming. I punished those the system can’t touch, and I did it with a smile on my face and blood on my teeth. After all, no one noticed a thing when the killer was wrapped in an expensive suit, casually mingling among them.

No one suspects a thing. They were too busy kissing my ass to notice the devil walking among them.

I stopped before a door, its metal surface streaked with grime, the handle even had dried blood on it. The air was thick with the scent of old blood. Dried, stale, and clinging to the cracked wood, a reminder of the hell my victims go through. Sweat and iron hung in the air, suffocating, as if the very walls didn’t forget.

I pushed it open, the old hinges groaning in protest. The sound echoed like something long forgotten. It’s the sound of a door that had seen too much shit and one that was never meant to open again. No one who entered should ever leave alive.

“Honey, I’m home.” I whispered darkly as I stepped further inside. The stench hit me harder the deeper I go— sweat, piss, fear, blood and shit— twisted together into a putrid blend that clung to the air.

I stopped, my movements deliberate, as I reached into my black jeans and pulled out the black gloves—my mother’s gift on my 10th birthday. I slipped them on slowly, the leather cool against my skin. Then, with a flick of my wrist, I turned on the lights. One by one, they flickered to life, casting a sharp, unforgiving red glow over the room.

I saw the old cunt before he saw me. Tilting my head, I almost smiled when the fat fuck whimpered clearly afraid out of his goddamn mind.

Lupe Mendes.

Oh, how the mighty have fallen.

The coward had his back to me, bound by his wrists and ankles to an old chair that looked like it could crumble at any moment. I watched him closely, noting the rawness of his wrists, the skin broken and angry where the rope dug into his flesh. His knuckles were white, desperately clutching at nothing, his body trembling in the stillness, as if he knew what’s coming but couldn’t escape it. His skin was pallid, his breath quick and shallow, hitching in his throat as if he could already sense me. The scent of his fear flooded me, and it made my smile widen.

Only here did I smile.

As if sensing me, the fucker jerked his head up, his breath caught in his throat. “Oh, God. Please…” he croaked, his voice trembling. “Whatever you think I did. I didn’t… I didn’t do it. I swear to God, I didn’t?—”

It’s almost laughable how these motherfuckers always reach for their God when they’re desperate for saving. Funny thing is, they never called out to Him when they’re knee-deep in theirfilthy sins. When little kids begged them to stop, when their cries tore through the air, their pleas fell on deaf ears.

Just like their own cries, when they begged for my mercy.

I cut him off with a single, icy stare. I didn’t give one single fuck about what he had to say. I had already read him, dissected him, stripped him bare with nothing but silence. There was nothing he could say that would make a difference. The shit I pulled from his computer was enough proof of this man’s depravity. The shit he had gotten away with doing for decades in the name of his false God earned his seat in my hell.

The fucker’s voice died in his throat as I circled around him, drawing closer until he was able to see me. I pulled my hood down slowly, letting him get a good fucking look. My face will be the last thing he saw, the last thing he remembered before his disgusting heart stopped beating. I watched with giddiness as fear started to creep into his eyes. It was like the final piece falling into place. I enjoyed it more than the kill. When they realized there was no saving them. That was my favorite part.

“Save your lies and your pleas,” I told him, my voice low, smooth, like a serpent coiling in the dark ready to strike. “You know why you’re here.”

His eyes darted around the room like a cornered animal, desperate for an escape that he wouldn’t find. This place is a labyrinth of old stone and iron. There was no way out. Not for him at least.

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