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It began with a voicemail.
Detective Reyes’ voice, terse:
“Another one. Downtown. Female, late 20s. Same marks. You need to see this, Ella.”
By the time Ella arrived, there were two more. Then four.
And by Friday morning — five.
Five victims in five days. All strangled with a silk cord. All had their eyes gouged out postmortem. All had roses placed on their chests.
Eon’s signature.
Ella’s stomach coiled tighter with each new body bag. The city was beginning to panic. The media called it a spree. Ella knew better.
This wasn’t a burst.
It was a message.
She stared at the board in the precinct: five women, all with loosely similar features. Except one.
Anna Mercado.
Ella’s breath hitched.
That name she recognized. That face.
Her friend. Her colleague. The woman she’d trained with in her first year at the Behavioral Unit.
Ella’s hands trembled as she reached out, tracing Anna’s photo on the evidence board.
Her voice cracked. “She just texted me last week…”
“I'm sorry,” Reyes said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “We think she might’ve gotten too close.”
Ella staggered out of the precinct, heart in her throat.
This wasn’t just about rage or compulsion.
Eon was targeting people connected to her.
He was getting closer.
And Vinci... Vinci hadn’t left his apartment in days.
Or so she’d thought.
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