A dark figure passed under a flickering streetlight, it was late enough that the streets were empty, a lone car passing by now and then.
Angelo tugged up his face mask, his hoodie pulled low over his head. Even a seedy motel would still have security cameras, he had to be careful.
There was a fat guard seated at the entrance to the motel, the guard was nearly bent in half, fast asleep at his post.
Angelo ducked into a dark corner, he could easily walk past the security guard and go through the lobby but he wanted to limit the number of people that would see him.
The target was on the second floor, he didn’t have a mental image of the interior of the motel so he would have to get up first and then figure out where to go from there.
Scaling up walls without equipment was easy, Angelo’s lithe form cutting through the darkness. He slipped into the motel through a hallway window, fortunate to come in at a time when the hallway was empty.
Finding the room was easy, a few turns and he was at the right destination. Angelo hesitated for the first time, it was pretty late, well past 1 AM but there was still a slim chance the person on the other side of the door was still wide awake.
He silently picked the lock, he would deal with that after he got in. He couldn’t let the target escape this time, he had been on his trail for well over a year.
Angelo slipped in, closing the door soundlessly behind him. He froze when he did, his obscured eyes going wide in surprise.
He hadn’t gotten the room wrong but there was an extra person he hadn’t accounted for. He watched as the woman dressed in nothing but her underwear frisked his sleeping target.
It was only a matter of time before she noticed him, Angelo had closed some distance between them by then, a hand to his masked face in a shushing motion.
Her eyes were wide in a panic but she didn’t make a sound, Angelo was satisfied with that, he had no interest in her. He took a few steps back and then gestured for her to finish up with what she had been doing - which was robbing her client.
She didn’t stay long after that, her things in her hand as she hurried out of the room, bleached blonde hair wild, her make-up a mess.
Angelo didn’t turn around when the door closed, leaving no witnesses was important but he was getting to the end of his journey. He had also been a witness to her crime so they had a notch on each other.
He tugged on the back of his gloves and got to work, moving with practiced ease. When he was done tying up the sleeping man, he crouched at the edge of the bed like a harbinger of death and shook him awake.
The sleeping man reeked of booze and cheap cologne, it made Angelo’s nose wrinkle. The man’s face was familiar, he had seen enough pictures of him to be able to recognize him at first glance.
Mason Peck. The last on his list. The only thing left to do after this was cut off the head.
Mason woke up slowly, groggy from the shit ton of alcohol he had consumed just a few hours before.
Angelo didn’t move, piercing pale green eyes focused on the tied-up man in front of him, red bleeding into the whites of his eyes.
Mason was startled when he noticed him, his curse coming out as garbled sounds because of the strip of duct tape across his mouth. He was trussed like like a Thanksgiving turkey, inebriation slowing down his movements.
Angelo pulled down his hood, long black hair framing his cold face. "You should have kept running, Mason."
Realization clicked in the man’s bloodshot eyes and he started to panic, his limbs jerking around as he tried to flail.
There had been six men on his list, and although it had taken him several years to begin his hunt, after he took down the first two, the news started to spread. It didn’t make a difference to Angelo, it just meant that it took him more time to find them.
But he didn’t stop, slowly encroaching until he snuffed their lights out.
Mason’s eyes bulged, his agitated noises getting louder.
Angelo already knew what he was saying, it was the same thing, murderer after murderer. They tried to convince him that he had the wrong person... Angelo couldn’t be wrong.
It had been years but their faces were burned into the surface of his brain. It had been years but the nightmares still clung to him from his old home.
Angelo flipped a sharp pocket knife between deft gloved fingers, his eyes frighteningly empty. Mason was fortunate to be the last to go, after all the years, his acrid anger was gone, it had burnt him down and left nothing behind.
He put the sharp tip of the knife up to Mason’s face, his expression not changing as a drop of red blood formed beneath the glinting tip.
Mason started screaming beneath his duct tape but Angelo had taped his mouth close so even his horrified screams were muffled.
His antics didn’t seem to affect Angelo, he didn’t pick up the pace, slowly dragging down the knife from right under Mason’s eye to his jaw, a thin line of blood forming on the knife trail, giving the illusion of bloody tears.
Mason’s screaming had changed to muffled pleas as Angelo switched to his left hand and slowly dragged his knife down the other side of his face, the sharp knife effortlessly cutting into his skin.
It had barely taken twenty minutes but it must have felt like an eternity to Mason. Angelo got off the bed, blood splatters on his face, Behind him on the bed, Mason had gone quiet, his empty, bloody eye sockets staring into nothingness, his entire body a mess of blood, guts, and broken bones.
Angelo slipped into the bathroom to wash the blood off his gloved hands, the grainy mirror above the sink had cobwebbed cracks. It distorted his image, the blood on his face standing out in stark relief against his pale skin.