Page 38 of The Madness Within

And Dorian still got him off.

I watched him walk out of that courtroom unfazed, unbothered, untouched by shame. Like justice was something you could bend if you wore enough cologne and spoke in Latin.

He didn’t celebrate. No post-verdict dinner, no champagne. He just disappeared. That’s how I knew.

Hewaswaiting.For the right time. For the rightkill.So I followed him.

For days.

He barely left his house. A mansion surrounded by woods like a crown of glass and quiet judgment.

Until tonight.

He left just past midnight, black coat, black gloves, walking like death dressed in designer clothes.

I followed him to the edge of the city. To the place where the buildings rotted and the ghosts learned how to scream again.

The old meatpacking plant. It smelled like iron and rot the moment I stepped inside. I pressed record on my mic, whispering into my phone.

“Dead Wrong, entry seventy-nine. I followed my own hunch about the defense attorney who’s never lost a case, Dorian Vale. Bodies appear after his trials. Always acquitted. Always carved.”

A shadow flickered across a broken window pane. I ducked lower behind a rusted rack of chains, stomach coiled tight.

Then, a scream. Raw. Wet. Cut short by something sharp. My heart kicked into overdrive. I creeped forward. Quiet. Careful. And then… I saw him.

Dorian Vale.

Kneeling beside a man half-flayed, blood glistening on his hands like red, silk gloves. The corpse’s chest was split wide, organs arranged with surgical reverence. Symbols burned along his ribs, glowing, faintly alive, as if the blood was speaking.

And theshadows… they moved for him. Wrapped around his legs like worshippers. Curled into his coat like lovers.

He hummed to himself. Classical. Chopin.A lullaby for the damned.

My hand shook. I wanted to run. I wanted to scream. But I couldn’t look away.

“I knew you were interesting,” I said, forcing the words out. “But I didn’t realize you moonlighted as Satan’s butcher.”

He didn’t flinch. Just lifted his head. Calm. Composed.

The elegance of his defense… the cold precision… I didn’t know why he stood out.

Not at first.

But the moment he lifted his head, suddenly, I understood.

He wasn’t just beautiful. He was sculpted, designed by something cruel and divine in equal measure. Skin like warm, burnished gold, too tanned for a man who seems to belong to the night. It made no sense, but nothing about him did.

High cheekbones cut like marble. A nose too perfect to have ever been broken. Dark brown hair fell in effortless waves, just long enough to tempt fingers into it. And those lips, God, thin, kissable, shaped like sin whispered against skin.

But it was his eyes that undid me.

Hazel green. Not soft. Not kind. Shattered glass under moonlight. Beautiful, but lethal.

He carried himself like a god forced to walk amongst mortals, broad shoulders beneath tailored suits, a body that promised power with every silent step. And yet, somehow, it wasn’t his strength that terrified me.

It was the silence.

He didn’t need to speak to command the room. He didn’t need to smile to seduce. He didn’t need to move to make you fall.

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