TW: Violence, domestic abuse, mentions of rape
"Pick up the gun and shoot him, Mariah," Mr. Woods yelled, belligerent with his rage. Mariah Woods trembled beside him, sweat dripping from her heavily concealed skin and salty beads forming around her perfectly sculpted brows. She moved to fix her blonde wig as if that mattered right now. She stared at the quaking man in front of her, begging for his life. His skin was covered in a thick layer of dirt, courtesy of his transportation to the location. Underneath the onyx night, the only thing that Mariah could make out was the whites of the man's eyes which were coated with tears and regret. Mariah didn't remember why her husband had brought him here. All she knew was that she was the one who had to kill him.
The room smelled like blood and sweat. Outside was pitch black. Not even the moon in the sky dared to purify this poisonous night. The only light source in the room was coming from a dirty light bulb hanging from the ceiling.
"Are you sure Stephanie should be around this? Isn't she too young?" Mariah queried, gesturing to their child who was standing behind them, looking calmer than anyone else in the room. In her pink overalls and Care Bear sparkly rainbow t-shirt, she looked like she had been photoshopped into the area. Her assumed purity didn't belong in the evil darkness.
"She wouldn't have to be around this for too long if you would just hurry up and shoot this bastard," Mr. Woods spat, shoving the revolver into her manicured hands.
"Daddy," Stephanie inquired, tugging at his long trench coat, "I thought you said torturing was the best."
The man's veins shriveled up, realizing that everyone in this room was under the control of the man he had wronged. He had no way out.
Mr. Woods turned to his prodigy with a smile. "Yes, that is the best method, but this man isn't even worth my time for that. He needs to disappear."
"You all are crazy," the man breathed shakily, moving against his restraints. "I can't believe you brainwashed your own daughter into thinking that this kind of behavior is okay. Pathetic."
"Kill him! Coat his worthless brain matter on the walls! Listen to him mouthing off on our family! Are you going to allow him to get away with that? Talking about our beautiful Stephanie like that?" Mr. Woods shouted. "I'm running out of patience, Mariah. You know what happens when I get angry. You don't want me to get angry, do you?"
Mariah whimpered before leveling her revolver with the man's forehead. His eyes seemed to swirl with sadness as he realized he wasn't going to be leaving here alive. Tears ran down his cheeks, and she could hear him desperately whispering the Lord's Prayer under his breath.
Mr. Woods chuckled at the man's desperation. "See? This is your problem. You never realized I am your God. I am the ruler of your destiny. Maybe if you remembered that, you wouldn't be in this position."
Mariah took deep breaths, trying to focus on the task at hand. She steadied her hand and pulled the trigger, brain, and flesh spraying on the walls and the couple. The man's body slumped forward and made a satisfying thud on the concrete floor.
Mr. Woods grinned with relish and kissed his wife's cheek, blood lingering on her skin like ink on paper. She was shaking so hard that she dropped the gun, causing more blood to splatter on her clothes. "You were perfect. Now, was that so hard?" He turned to his daughter and ruffled her hair. "Daddy is going to get someone to clean up this mess. You stay here with Mommy for now, okay?"
She nodded with a smile. "Yes, Daddy."
"Good girl." He left the room promptly, not missing a beat.
The moment he was out of the door, Mariah dropped to her knees and tears began dripping down her face, but she did not make a single sound. Stephanie stood next to her awkwardly, confused at the events of the past few minutes.
"Why does Daddy force you to kill people when he knows that you don't like to do it? Isn't he a king or something? Can't he get someone else?" Stephanie asked.
Mariah swallowed loudly and attempted to steady her voice before responding. "Sometimes you have to make sacrifices for the one you love." Stephanie wasn't sure if she was talking to her or if she was trying to convince herself. "Sometimes that includes getting your hands dirty. It can't be helped."
"But in school, they say killing is bad. It's illegal, whatever that means. Won't you and Daddy get in trouble for all the people that you've hurt?"
To this question, Mariah smiled. "We're Woods. We are at a different level than most people. Those primitive rules do not apply to us. If someone is giving us a problem, they will have to answer to us. We are the ones who carry out justice for ourselves. That is not an option. If we don't, who will? This world is a cold place."
"I don't have to listen to laws or rules?" Stephanie grinned. "So that means I'm like a princess! And you're a queen, Mommy!"
Mariah's eyes softened at the sight of her beaming daughter. Stephanie was often the only ray of light in her violence filled world. "Whatever you say, sweetie pie."
Stephanie put her hands on her hips and stood before the body of the dead man with purpose. "I am Princess Stephanie, and everyone will listen to me, or I'll blow their heads off. Bow before me."
She and her mother both looked at the face-down body of Mariah's victim and burst into a fit of giggles, almost unable to breathe.
"Seems you already have quite the talent for getting people to obey you, my princess," Mariah teased, pulling her daughter in for a kiss and close embrace.
"Mom," she whined, "you're getting his peasant blood all over me. I don't want to be poor!"
Mariah laughed. "That's not how it works, darling. You'll still be rich by the end of this, I promise."
❦
Virginie was confused when her phone went off in the middle of the night. She groaned and rubbed some of the crust off of her eyes before checking it. She was surprised to see who was calling.
She answered groggily. "Hello?"
"Virginie," Alex answered, breathing heavily. "Thank God you answered. I desperately need your help."
She snapped out of her sleepiness in seconds, alert and ready. "What do you need?'
She could hear him hesitating. "I need you to send someone from the Agency to my location."
"Huh? Isn't that what I'm for? Why can't I come?"
He muttered something under his breath.
"Alex! This isn't something to play with!"
"I don't want you to see what I did."
"You idiot, I already told you that I don't care," she reassured, already changing into her covert operation clothes. The thick black turtleneck reminded her of the first time that she met Alex. "I'm on my way."
"Please don't―" But Virginie had already hung up and was out the door.
✕
"This is what you wanted to keep from me?"
Alex looked down at the floor sheepishly, not answering Virginie's question as she assessed the scene before her.
Stephanie's body was sprawled out on the floor in expensive looking red lingerie. Her long, shiny, chestnut hair, blanketed her body. Her eyes were still wide open in fear. Her neck had snapped at an odd angle, giving her a bobblehead like look in death. The room smelled heavily like vanilla and was decorated with rose petals and candles.
Am I interrupting something? What went wrong here? She tried to lighten the mood a little bit. "You couldn't have chosen a less obvious time to kill her? She basically wrote on the walls that you were supposed to be visiting her today. Hopefully, she didn't tell her father that you were coming here. He probably advised against it."
"She was the one who ordered the hit to kill you," Alex divulged, not looking up from the floor.
Virginie sighed. "Yes, I know."
He looked up at her with angry eyes. "You knew, and you didn't tell me?"
"I had my suspicions, but I wanted to do more research before coming to you. I also thought it was Stephanie's place to tell you what she had done." She shook her head rapidly. "Is that why you did this? In retaliation?"
"I couldn't listen to her anymore. The way she was talking about you and the way she was trying to justify it...Something just came over me. But I would do it again."
She rolled her eyes. "Don't say that. I never asked you to protect me." She put a hand to her forehead in frustration. "This is my fault. I let you get too close."
Alex looked at her furiously. "Shut up. You were kidnapped and almost tortured to death because of me. You're willing to do anything for me, but I can't do the same? If there's anyone who should be feeling guilty, it's me. I let this monster into your life and look at what happened to you! You expect me to just sit there and take it? Too bad." He looked down at Stephanie's body with a strange expression on his face. "The thing is...I don't feel anything. I don't feel bad."
"That's different. It's my job to do those things. You don't have to get your hands dirty. It's not necessary." Alex opened his mouth to respond, but Virginie put up a hand to stop him. "The cleaners are here. We can continue this conversation later."
Virginie went to go answer the door like it was her own apartment, ignoring the frustrated look on Alex's face. They could argue later. There were more pressing matters to worry about at the moment. She smiled at the two people at the door as they made their way in without a word.
Fuuka Ooki and Jose Barros. They were both dressed in plastic suits to prevent any evidence of their presence being left at the scene. Fuuka was tall with the physique of a model. Her arms and legs were long and thin. Her bone structure was sharp and defined. Her pale features never betrayed any emotion. She had soft mahogany eyes and a medium length onyx bob. She had pouty, flowery pink lips that gave her a kind smile on the rare occasion that she did let her emotions show. She was known as one of the best cleaners in the Agency because of her creativity and efficiency. She never created the same story twice and could clean up a scene within a half hour. She didn't work well with other people, but when she did want a partner, she went with Jose.
Jose was short, but that was the only thing about him that was less than remarkable. He always had a goofy grin on his face with eyes that were mixed with the colors of milky iced coffee and emeralds. Shiny brown curls were piled on top of his head, and a thick beard graced his jawline. He was a brilliant cleaner who was known for being able to measure rooms with extreme accuracy without a ruler or measuring tape. He had a photographic memory which came in handy for constructing crime scenes.
Fuuka gave Virginie one of her rare, genuine smiles as she began unpacking her laptop. "Nice to see you again."
"It's always a pleasure to see your glorious face, Fuuka," Virginie proclaimed. "No matter what the circumstances."
Fuuka rolled her eyes, trying to keep the smile off of her face as she started up her computer. Her face was flushed with the color of the cherry blossoms of her native country. "Always the charmer."
Virginie winked. "How can I not when you look like that?"
"You couldn't have held off your anger, buddy? This place practically screams romantic night together." Jose had already begun throwing the rose petals into a trash bag and placed the champagne into a freezer.
"I wasn't thinking," Alex muttered.
Jose snorted. "As if I didn't know that already."
"Hey!" Virginie chided. "Take it easy on him, okay? He was angry and made a mistake."
Jose nodded without another word and went to go examine the body. "Here's what we're working with, Fuuka. The neck is snapped from pressure on it from the back. Do you have anything that could cover that?"
Fuuka nodded, her fingers going the speed of a thousand miles a minute. "It looks like there has been a string of unsolved break-ins in this area. The perp has been going into women's homes to burglarize and sometimes rape. His ruse for getting into the apartment without force is that he has flowers for them from a lover. Sounds perfect for our little Stephanie here."
Jose furrowed his brows. "How are we going to fake a rape though? The M.E. is going to notice the discrepancies if we try to fake a rape post mortem. Flesh doesn't act the same once it's been dead. Such a shame. Would make our job a lot easier."
"What's the fun in that?" Fuuka smiled. "We don't need to penetrate her. We just need to mess up her clothes to make it look like he attempted to rape her but then he accidentally snapped her neck while trying to keep her face down. He stopped after that. I doubt a cadaver would be able to do it for him. He needs them kicking and screaming. That's how he gets off."
Jose looked spaced out, his brain trying to figure out how to make this come together completely. "Okay, so we're going to change her into some pajamas, put on the TV, and place a glass of wine out like she was going to have a nice night to herself. She answered the door at the wrong time and ended up dead."
"She was actually drinking some wine before I...uh―"
"Great!" Jose didn't wait for the sound of approval that came from Fuuka's mouth. He went to find Stephanie's room to get some clothes for her to change into.
"But won't the perp not admit to killing Stephanie since he actually didn't do it?" Alex interjected. "What will I do then?"
"I doubt that he won't take credit for it. It's obvious that he wants attention by attacking these high-end homes. Bagging the daughter of a crime lord would be a huge notch in this belt. Since he's serial, I don't think they'll think twice about it." Fuuka sniffed. "But that's not your problem. That's the police's problem. Do you know how many people try to copy crimes that they see in the newspaper for recognition? The worst thing that could happen is that it becomes a cold case. What's important is that it doesn't trace back to you or the Agency. That means that we have to do everything perfectly. Nothing can stray from the original M.O. or else they're going to start looking at people in her life as suspects."
Virginie smiled to herself. This is what she liked about the Agency's cleaners. They didn't just remove the traces of the crime from the scene and dissolve the body in acid. When cleaning was done that way, it was obvious it was done by professionals and retaliation would come soon after. They recreated actual crime scenes to help cops catch the real bad guys.
Fuuka sniffed the air. "We're going to have to leave some of those candles burning because they've permeated the air too much. The absence of them would be suspicious." She pointed at Alex. "You! What time did you get here, approximately?"
Alex shrugged. "I don't know...maybe about 11:30?"
Fuuka nodded. "I'm going to delete the video of you coming into the building. I already hacked into the security system. I'm going to rewrite it with some old footage. Luckily, no one came in with you, and the doorman wasn't awake to see you come in. I'll overwrite the footage with some of the doorman sleeping which there is a lot of. I'll try to make sure the footage of you walking in matches up to a couple of minutes before you call the police after we all leave."
Jose had returned from his trip to Stephanie's bedroom. He was holding the same pair of silk pajamas that she wore in Jamaica when she answered the door after the club. The whole situation was funny now knowing that it was she who orchestrated the whole thing back then. Only she could've thought of something so childish and annoying. Virginie felt bad for whoever had been contracted to do her work. They probably wanted to kill themselves the whole time.
"I'm studying the crime scenes," Fuuka announced. "Did you trash the bedroom? We're going to have to trash the living room, too. It seems this guy looks in every nook and cranny for all the goodies he can get."
"Way ahead of you." Jose turned on the TV which had been on Lifetime, Stephanie's favorite channel. He knelt down near Stephanie's body and carefully dressed her, doing his best not to disturb her body too much. He wiped down the area around her neck to remove any DNA or fingerprints that were left there. He used a knife to rip her clothes to make it even more believable.
"Good. Do you have any flowers and a vase in your bag of wonders? The perp leaves the flowers on the dining room table before he leaves. It's a different arrangement every time so give me whatever you've got. The card always says 'To my greatest love.'"
"How poetic." Jose dug through his many bags to find a preserved bouquet of flowers. He had taken them from another crime scene and had been saving them to give to Fuuka when he got the balls to ask her out. He sighed sadly as he arranged them in a vase. He used an ink stamp to copy the card.
He then looked around the apartment searching for things of value. He grabbed her Burberry and Celine purses and Louboutin's from the living room area. He had already taken a decent amount of jewelry when he went inside the bedroom. He tore apart her bed, ripped her clothes off the hangers, and removed all of her drawers.
"How did you get here, Alex?" Fuuka asked.
"I took one of Virginie's cars."
"What route did you take? Because there are cameras all over this city. The cops can use that to chop your alibi into pieces. See if you can draw it out so I can check all of the camera feeds in that area to see if any of them caught you."
"I'll give you the GPS directions." Alex pulled out his phone and AirDropped a screenshot of them to her.
Fuuka gave him a thumbs up. "Thank you. Okay, next thing. Have you made or received any phone calls since you arrived in this area?"
"Yeah, to get Virginie to come to help me," he offered.
Fuuka groaned. "You couldn't have sent a text? Those are so much easier to explain. Now I have to see if I can change where the phone signal is from."
Alex rolled his eyes. "I'm sorry that I wasn't thinking about how to cover up a murder after I accidentally snapped my ex-girlfriend's neck."
"Then what were you thinking about?"
Alex said nothing.
"It was a FaceTime audio call though. That's not going to show up in the phone records or bounce off of the cell towers," Virginie interjected. She smiled approvingly at him. "He did think about how this would all look."
"We need to formulate an alibi," Fuuka thought aloud. "Virginie?"
"I can provide you with three witnesses. Corey, Colette, and I can say he was at our apartment. We were watching a movie."
"What movie?"
"Kill Bill."
Fuuka nodded. "Good movie." She turned to Alex again. "You're going to be the one to 'discover the body,' okay? Do you have a key?"
Alex shook his head. "I never wanted to take it to that level. I don't know if Virginie told you, but we had an interesting relationship."
Virginie rolled her eyes. "That's an understatement."
"Enlighten me," Fuuka insisted.
Before Alex could open his dumbass mouth, Virginie responded. "He took her on one date, and she proposed that they pretend to be in a relationship. Alex only agreed because he found
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