The Broken & The Punisher

Chapter 2. Theo Oliver

2 years later:-

THEO'S POV:

Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap.

I concentrated on the pen that was hitting the documents in front of me instead of the man droning on. It was Mr. Vaun, and hurray for him, he was getting married… again. I considered throwing the documents at his mouth that wouldn’t stop twisting with whatever words he spewed. He could get a new estate attorney.

I didn’t care.

I had enough of my own problems.

A few of his words registered and I craned my neck as I loosened my tie. Sweat coated my fingertips as I touched my skin.

“I’m not a prenuptial lawyer, Mr. Vaun. I’m an estate attorney. In the state of Florida, a spouse cannot be disinherited. We can put whatever you’d like in the will, but upon your passing, your wife will be entitled to a minimum of one-third of the estate.”

He stopped breathing long enough for his face to go red. What the f**k was wrong with these kinds of men and their trophy wives? If you don’t want her taking your sh*t, don’t marry her.

“I see.” He straightened his lapels before standing. “I’ll have a talk with the prenuptial lawyer and get back to you, then.” He had a stammer that made me wonder what sort of vibe I was putting off. Could he tell?

“Of course.” I stood and extended my hand, studying him as we shook. Yes, he was nervous, but it could’ve had more to do with his not being able to remove his new lover from his assets than me.

“Good day, Mr. Oliver.” He nodded before leaving my office.

As the door clicked shut behind him, I sighed. It was only two o’clock, which meant I had three and a half hours before I could go home. I deflated into my chair and closed my eyes. A bead of sweat collected on my forehead and traveled down the bridge of my nose until it dropped onto my button-down. The back of the shirt was drenched, so I kept the suit jacket on to hide it. Not that it was abnormal to sweat with how humid it was in this fu*king swamp.

“Mr. Oliver?”

I opened my eyes and jerked upright. Teresa, my secretary, stood in my office entryway.

“Yes, Teresa?” I asked, trying to appear as put-together as I could. I don’t think I could have fooled her. I was a mess and had been since the past week. I’d waited too long between purges.

“Judge Oliver called, sir. He wants to know about dinner.”

Judge Oliver, my grandfather. We had dinner at his house, my childhood home, at the same time every week, yet he still felt the need to call my secretary to confirm. This time I was glad he did. My mind was too jumbled to call myself and cancel.

“Tell him I won’t be able to make it.” I went back to tapping my pen. “I have some work to do this evening.”

Teresa raised her brows in surprise, but then collected herself and nodded. She gave a tight smile before closing the door. I wondered what demons she had been dealing with. She appeared so normal. Like tonight she would go home, cook a turkey for her family, and subtly b***h about her lunatic boss. But maybe not… we all had our vices, didn’t we?

Just some are more unusual than others.

My heart rate picked up as the memories replayed in my head. Screams; they were always screams, but this particular one was unwelcome. My head clouded as the voice grew louder, taunting me, begging me, until the tapping of my pen no longer registered, and my arms went numb.

“Stop!” I yelled, pounding my fist on my desk with a force that tipped my pen holder over. Five black, ballpoint pens with my initials engraved on the side rolled from my desk and dropped to the floor one by one, and to my relief, the screams ceased.

But… they would be back.

I jerked up from my chair and stormed from the office. Teresa glanced up as I exited, the question obvious in her expression.

“I have to leave for the day. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Of course, sir,” she said, again with that tight smile.

Maybe I was wrong, maybe we didn’t all have demons.

Maybe it was just me.

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I rolled my shoulders and took a deep breath as I stood outside my vault. Titanium steel surrounded its walls, making it soundproof, but it didn’t stop me from imagining the noise that went on inside. A delicious shudder ran over the back of my neck.

I punched in the code for the door, unable to contain my excitement any longer. It creaked as I pushed it open and stepped into the room, locking eyes with the man strapped to the metal table. His shirt was ripped open and dried blood coated his midsection from our last session. Normally, it was enough to hold me over, but I’d gone four months thinking that if I held out long enough, the darkness would go away. I had been wrong, and now it was insatiable.

“Hello, George,” I said, stepping into the room and allowing the heavy door to clang shut behind me. “How are you today?”

The man yelled past the gag, and a tingling sensation ran through me. It started at my neck and traveled to the tips of my fingers before lowering to my feet.

“My apologies.” I removed his gag. “You were saying?”

“You sick moth*rfu*ker!” George seethed. He writhed on the table, pulling at the rope that secured his purpling hands and feet. “I will fu*king kill you, do you hear me?”

My brow furrowed as I watched him. They had this reaction sometimes, and it was understandable. But it wouldn’t do him any good.

I traipsed over to my apron that hung on a hook in the wall.

“No, wait!” George said as I gingerly lifted the rubber apron over my head and fastened it around my waist. “Just fu*king wait.”

I studied the instruments that sat on the lone counter in the room. Normally, I would go for a blade, but something about the blowtorch called me. I picked it up and examined it. “What do you think, George?” I held the torch out for him to see.

He shook his head and began blubbering. He might’ve been trying to say something, but it was hard to tell. The pounding in my head became louder, urging me to do it and do it now.

I ignited the torch and closed my eyes as I concentrated on the whooshing of the flame. This was the one.

I dug my iPod from my pocket and hit play on the classic soul song I had on repeat. The Bluetooth speakers blared the opening harmony, and the man’s helpless screams mixed with it. That tingling sensation spread again, and I smiled as I inhaled deeply. Blood, metal, and CO2 from the torch wafted into my nose.

“Can you feel it?” I asked, stepping up to the table, the torch hovering above him.

“Please, no!” he yelled over the music.

His face contorted with his begging, but there was a distinct difference between screams of fear and screams of agony. The latter is what I was after. I touched the flame to his skin and observed the shift in his pitch. It raised several octaves, and I closed my eyes for a moment as I allowed the sensations to overtake me.

I began marking his skin with the torch, making curls of scorched flesh and concentrating as if I were a skilled artist. George was my canvas. Anger fueled my veins as I had to pause in order to violently yank his pants down to his ankles, but he never stopped screaming. The beast in me began to calm.

I carried on with my work, breathing in the smell of burning flesh. George’s voice seared into my memory as much as the flame seared his skin. Tomorrow I may feel shame, doubt, or guilt, but I was too consumed in the beauty of the moment to care. It was as if I fed a beast inside of me that was starved, and only now would it stop trying to claw its way from my insides.

I was at peace.

When George’s screams began to fade, I turned off the flame and sat the blowtorch down before pausing the song. His wheezing echoed along the walls as his chest lifted and fell, and if he could have talked, he would have begged for death. They all did. His skin was charred in intricate patterns from the middle of his chest all the way to his feet. I picked up a nearby blade only after I had allowed myself a few more moments to admire my work, raking my gaze up and down his body.

“Are you sorry, George? Are you sorry for what you did to that little boy?”

I really did want to know, and a part of me was annoyed that we had passed the point of him being able to answer. His eyes were closed and soon his wheezing would cease on its own if I didn’t end it.

I sighed before pressing the scalpel to his throat. “I don’t know if he forgives you,” I whispered. “But I don’t.”

I brought the blade to his jugular, silencing him forever. Blood oozed from the opening, spilling onto the table before flowing to the floor in one thick trail.

George didn’t matter. He was nothing but a piece of scum the world needed to get rid of. This wasn’t a case of predator versus prey—more like predator versus predator.

I wasn’t some psychopath kidnapping girls off the street and chopping their heads off. Maybe I had the same darkness inside me, but the people I killed were killers themselves, or in George’s case, a killer of innocence. He was a pedophile. I needed to purge, and people like him needed to be purged from existence. The world was a better place for all… except maybe for George.

I hung up the apron and wiped my sweaty hands on my slacks. The vault was a mess, but I would clean it later. It had been months since I had gotten a good night’s sleep, and I was exhausted from it. Tonight, I would rest well, and I wouldn’t wait so long for the next purge.

When I left the vault, I headed straight for my study. I had to choose my next target that night before the high wore off. My veins were already heated with excitement as I unlocked the bottom drawer of my desk and pulled out the photo album.

George’s information was on the first page, and I would need to dispose of it when I took care of the body. I never kept the information on the people I killed, no trophies of the act. The only thing I allowed myself was the memory of their screams… almost.

But there was one souvenir that I had kept from over a decade ago—a driver’s license of a particularly horrid man. At the time, it had been so that I could never forget his face. My blood boiled just thinking about him. I could never bring myself to get rid of it, but he had been missing for over a decade. No one was looking for him.

I learned better after law school. It taught me not to be stupid when it came to disposing of the evidence. They would need to catch me in the act if they wanted to put me away, but I suspected they didn’t care. No one cared about my victims or as I called them subjects.

I turned to the second page where there was a newspaper clipping of an obituary. Richard Kirk, some fifty-year-old rich dude, but it wasn’t him that had interested me. I had highlighted the name of his widow. It took me a moment, but then I remembered why I had kept the clipping.

Mary Kirk, fondly known as Rose. She was only twenty-four at the time, and Richard had been in nearly perfect health for his age when he had supposedly died of a heart attack. As an attorney, I had learned to raise a brow at these sorts of scenarios. And apparently, so did Richard’s children. After some mild digging, I found out that they had hired an investigator to look into their father’s death, suspecting foul play. I wasn’t certain the woman, the widow was guilty, but it had been suspicious enough to keep for a later date. That date was now. It would take some looking into, but I was proficient at finding out the truth.

And if she was guilty, then I had found my next subject.

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