James's arrogance clouded his judgement, preventing him from seeing the ice-cold calculation hidden behind the killer's mask of fear. He was so consumed by his own ego that he couldn't comprehend the killer was playing a long game, setting a trap he was too self-absorbed to notice. The arrogance reached to the new level, he speaks slowly as if explaining something simple to a child. "Look we both know whose fault it was," He says. "It's much simpler if you just give me your Lambo. Otherwise you know the consequences." His tone simply implied that the killer is too simple to grasp this "obvious" solution.
The killer, however, didn't move, but a shift occured in his face, a settling of his features into something cold and still. The faint crinkles around his eyes disappeared, and they were as hard and vacant as polished stone. A flicker of some dark thought passed through his gaze, so brief it was almost missed. But the air thickened around him, the casual posture becoming unnervingly rigid. James felt the easy confidence evaporate from his own body, suddenly aware that he was standing too close.
***
The killer feels the rage as a low, humming vibration in his chest, a darker twin to the engine's purr. His knuckles turn white as he clenches his fists deep within his pocket. The blood pours in his ears, a rhythm that drowns out the inside chatter of the fool who dared to ask. He thinks to himself almost scoffing at this person's next level arrogancy "Does he know? That every weld, every stitch, every drop of oil is a part of me? I gave myself to this machine. And he wants to simply take it, to own it with his filthy words. He thinks it's that simple. He doesn't even know who is he messing with."
***
The killer takes off his glasses and begins to clean the lenses with deliberate slowness. The action is a nervous tic, a moment to delay the inevitable or to compose himself. But as he cleans them, his gaze never leaves the victim. It's an unnerving action, full of cold calculation.
James's eyes drop to the killer's hand-the same hands that, just moments ago, were trembling with fear or so he thought. He suddenly remembers with cold realisation, a single icy bead rolls down his temple, tracing a path over his iron-jawed face. He doesn't wipe it. He can't. He ran the last two years through his mind like a black-and-white filmstrip. The "bad luck" that befall his competitors. The way his organization had prospered while others collapsed. It wasn't luck at all. It was engineered. Vincenzo, the name everyone whispered in fear around him, had been planning all this from the start, a silent intervention he never knew he had.
Vincenzo hadn't just been eliminating threats- he had been consolidating power, clearing a path. Not for James, but for himself. The realization didn't come with a flash of rage. It came with the quiet, numbing finality of a prison sentence. The most dangerous man known in the Underworld, was standing right infront of him.
This whole time. The words echo through James's mind, and the memory of every unnervingly casual laugh, every cold, clinical observation, now sounds like the chime of a death knell.
***
Vincenzo's smile widens just slightly, the way a cat's does when it sees a mouse finally realize it's been caught. He sees the fear, and he savors it. His voice turns from "friendly" persona to a more cold, flat "You figured it out, that's a shame. The look on your face-it's everything I imagined." He reached inside his jacket, his movement as smooth as a cat. Not the frantic motion of a desperate man, but the practiced, deliberate unholstering of a professional.
James watched, frozen, as the dark shape of gun emerged, slowly, deliberately. Each inch of polished steel felt like a mile, a creeping horror that stole the breath from his lungs. A cold dread, deeper than any chill, settled into his bones. Vincenzo wasn't rushing. That was the most frightening thing of all. His eyes were utterly still as the gun came up.
The muzzle blast echoed on the empty highway, followed by a sickening thud of the body hitting the pavement. A fine, high-velocity spray of blood misted back from James's head, settling over Vincenzo's face. Small red beads clung to his eyebrows and the fine hair on his forearm. One larger bead traced a path down his cheek, past his ear, and disappeared into his collar. He simply stood, a statue framed by the aftermath, allowing his first victim's blood to mark him without a hint of concern.
***
The air turned thick with the smell of cordite. James's right hand man's hand moved to the pistol, but it felt like a stranger's hand-slow and clumsy. He stared at the boss's slumped body, at the spreading stain, and found his thoughts tripping over each other. How? Why? He saw Vincenzo turn toward him, and suddenly, his legs didn't want to be legs anymore. They just wanted to run. "You're next". Not in words, but in the casual, devastating way he held my gaze before moving onto the next men, a simple act of ticking off the box off his list.
***
Vincenzo watched each men scatter like disturbed ants, their panic a predictable and pathetic tremor. The gun in his hand felt less like a weapon and more like a tool. He didn't rush. The outcome was already certain, the ending already written. They believed they were fleeing, but they were simply moving through the final paces of a dance he had choreographed long ago. A slight, almost imperceptible smile touched the corner of his mouth-not from cruelty, but from the satisfaction of observing a perfectly executed plan.
There was no need to track them with his eyes. Vincenzo relied on his instinct, on muscle memory honed to a terrifying art. Each squeeze of the trigger was a certainty, a foregone conclusion. He fired, not at the men, but at the empty spaces they were about to occupy. The terrified men saw a flash and then felt hammer blow, their fate sealed by a shooter who didn't event grant them the dignity of a direct gaze. His mercilessness was proven not by anger, but by his sheer, effortless skill.
To be continued...🤍