Prologue

 

I was never really insane except upon occasions when my heart was touched ~ Edgar Allan Poe

 

Joshua

Ever since mankind first learned to bang rocks together and spark fire, people have been driven to define themselves, to build neat little boxes and climb inside.

They divide themselves up by religion, race, nationality. And even that’s not enough. They make the boxes smaller and smaller. They come up with all kinds of bullshit ways to categorize themselves. Introverts, extroverts. Leaders, followers. Morning people, night owls.

It’s part of the human condition—the desperate desire to figure out where you belong. To know the truth of who you are, what you are.

Me? I’d kill anyone who tried to put me in a box. And I learned the only two important distinctions very early on.

Predators, or prey.

Eat, or be eaten.

What difference does it make if you’re an introverted morning person…if you’re gurgling your last breaths through the wide-open smile that I’ve carved in your throat?

Are you strong enough to survive an encounter with a predator? Do you deserve to survive?

Those of us who are worthy, we take what we want and crush those who oppose us. Money, power, prestige, women—we steal them away and use them as we wish.

We live on a different plane of existence. Our lives are both richer and more dangerous. We constantly seek new sensation. Our Everest-level craving for stimulation drives us to take mad risks.

These days, there are other names for us besides predator—more civilized ways to describe us. More scientific. The one that fits me the best is a name that’s flung about far too casually these days, but it’s accurate in my case.

Psychopath.

I’ve taken all the major tests for psychopathy, including the PCL-R. I tick off all the boxes.

Grandiose sense of self-worth? Manipulative? Surface-level charm? Ruthless? Lack of remorse?

Check, check, check, check, check. Although I think “grandiose” is a little unfair. I’d say “accurate”. The things I’ve accomplished, the billions I’ve earned, the heights I’ve scaled, the murders I’ve gotten away with again and again—my sense of self-worth is certainly quite healthy, but it’s not grandiose. It’s well-earned. I don’t even understand why they ask some of the questions. “I manipulate others to get what I want.” Well, obviously. How else would you get what you want? By saying pretty please?

So how does one become something like me? A designer suit wrapped around a piranha? Well, my father was a monster, and I am the clay he molded. Is that nature or nurture? Would I have been capable of empathy and self-restraint if I’d been stolen as an infant and given to normal humans? I guess we’ll never know.

I watched my brothers, both older and younger, those less worthy, fall one by one. Did I feel anything as I watched them gasp their final breaths? I don’t know anymore. I don’t remember what feelings feel like. They’re not useful to predators.

With each death, my father’s gaze burned with scorn. My mother’s lips quivered, and tears shimmered in her eyes, but she didn’t shed a single one. My father was a predator. She didn’t want him to devour her.

I learned the lessons my father taught us, and I adapted, and I alone survived.

A predator doesn’t ask. He takes.

A predator knows no fear.

A predator is a hunter, and a hunter needs prey.

A predator can only win if someone else loses.

But as the years went by, I grew bored, because it was impossible for me to find a real challenge. I became a corporate raider; I devoured companies and shredded them for profit. Money rained down on me from the sky. I destroyed everyone who resisted me, both personally and professionally. After I got tired of tying up and whipping every beautiful masochist on the East Coast, I started hunting. Not animals; they pose no challenge. I hunted humans who were like me, or rather, humans who thought they were like me. Humans who thought of themselves as apex predators.

But I never lost. Never. I suffered the dilemma of Alexander the Great, the mighty Greek military commander. As Plutarch said of him, “When Alexander saw the breadth of his domain, he wept, for there were no more worlds to conquer.”

Color and taste started to fade. I gulped down ghost peppers and threw myself into brutal cage fights with men twice my size, just so I could feel something…anything at all. The fierce joy I experienced when I cut down my human prey faded almost instantly. I went from killing once every year or two to needing it every few months, and it seemed as if even that wouldn’t be enough.

But then I received an amazing gift.

Tamara.

She stumbled right into my path. Staring up at me with those huge, frightened eyes. The ultimate prey. The ultimate prize.

I knew I’d take her. I knew she’d fight me. I knew I’d win.