Page 60 of The Madness Within

Not in the alley. Not in the shadows. They happened under chandeliers and legal jargon. Twenty-seven innocent lives destroyed by the stroke of his pen. Children buried under fabricated evidence. Survivors silenced with loopholes.

He represented murderers, rapists, human traffickers, and helped them walk free. Not because he believed in justice. But because the money was too good.

The worst part?

He fed off it. Literally.

Gregory was a vampire, old, clever, with a taste for courtroom blood. And his feeding grounds were clean, documented, legal.

Until me.

Once I got him off, the hunt began.

Day One.

I followed him from court to his penthouse on Fifth. He had security, enchanted, blood-bound, well-paid. I slipped past them like smoke. Left a scale on his balcony. Watched him stare at it for two full minutes. He knew. He just didn’t know how close I already was.

Day Two.

I broke into his private chambers while he bathed in virgin blood. Literally. A girl’s necklace sat beside his tub. She couldn’t have been more than fifteen. I replaced the necklace with one of my own, studded with iron and salt. He didn’t bathe the next night. Good.

Day Three.

I showed up to his office. Unannounced. He smiled when he saw me, tight, stretched, like skin over bone.

“Dorian,” he said, voice smooth with false warmth, “I didn’t think you’d be interested in this case.”

I sat down across from him. Slowly. Calmly. Like we weren’t two apex predators circling a single battlefield.

“I take what I want, Gregory,” I replied, voice quiet. “And I’ve taken an interest in you.”

He stiffened, still posturing. “You and I, we’re on the same side. We defend the dirt and the damned. It’s just business.”

I tilted my head. “You feed on innocence. I feed on guilt. That’s the difference.”

I stood and reached into my coat. Not for a weapon. Just for time. Because time slows when death is in the room.

The shadows answered before I spoke.

They poured in through vents, outlets, the cracks between the baseboards. Silent. Hungry. Loyal.

Gregory shot to his feet. “You have no idea who you’re threatening. I’m protected. Blood-bound. Connected. If anything happens to me—”

“Nothing will happen,” I said softly. “It’s already happening.”

He reached for the panic button beneath his desk.

But his fingers were gone before he could press it. Snapped clean by the shadows, one knuckle at a time.

He screamed.

Good. Screaming meant the magic worked.

I walked around him, slow, deliberate, as his limbs were pinned to the leather chair. The shadows dug into his skin, notto cut. To remember. Every scream, every lie, every child he betrayed. Etched into the marrow of his bones.

“You defended monsters,” I said. “Now you die like one.”

His heart pounded in his chest. I felt it. Like war drums under silk.

---