* * *

She didn’t deserve to die.

She was a nice person.

Merissa.

Her family would be devastated. He could just imagine the tears and the heartbreak. They may never get over her death.

He understood. He’d never been able to get over his mother’s death.

Time never healed him; it only made his loss feel worse. Every day was worse. Maybe it would have been different if his mother had died of natural causes. Maybe he could have accepted that and tried to move on.

But murder…

Murder was different; it meant she had a chance to live, but someone else took it from her.

They called him a psycho. Maybe he was. He certainly thought like one, but they made him that way. Benjamin Vanderville made him this way, so they could all thank him.

Admittedly he no longer saw the boundaries that existed to keep right and wrong separated. He just saw revenge; everything else was details. However, he did feel for Merissa because of all she’d been through with her involvement with Wade Vanderville and the loss of their baby.

He’d been on the fence for a long time on her part in this game. In the end he’d decided that her death was necessary.

Merissa was a sacrifice for a cause. A necessary sacrifice.

His cause might not have been her cause, but she served her purpose well.

It was time to speed things along and really get his plan in motion. It was time to get serious and up the game.

The time for simply scaring them all was over.

He answered his phone and pressed it to his ear as it rang.

“What’s next boss?” said his truly psychotic partner in crime.

If people thought he was a psycho he wondered what they would think of his friend. This man had no heart and could kill without blinking an eye, or having any form of afterthought. Life and death were nothing to him.

Their stories were similar: both were products of revenge. Merissa’s was, too. Revenge was the essence they had in common. That was why they were so easy to recruit for this grand scheme.

However, only this guy could have killed Merissa so effortlessly. There was something soulless about him that didn’t care about right and wrong. He’d offered straightaway to kill her without any thought to it at all.

“Come back here, we have things to do,” he said into the phone and lowered it back to the table when his friend hung up.

On the flat screen TV before him the press were having a field day.

Wade Vanderville arrested for murder.

That was the headline, and boy was it on every single channel. He’d flicked through a few minutes ago and yes, every channel was reporting the latest Vanderville scandal.

He’d timed it perfectly with Taylor’s little tryst a few days ago. That had been for fun more than anything, but still timed perfectly. People like them did themselves in. He’d gotten to know their personalities and behavior over the time he’d watched them so knew what they were likely to do even before they thought about their actions.

That made him one step ahead of the game. Admittedly, Wade was a wild card because he never anticipated his return and that everything would play out so well.

He wondered what they’d all think now. Their precious Wade, arrested for murder. The guy had no alibi, no witnesses, nothing. His friend had left the knife right by Wade after he covered the thing with Wade’s fingerprints.

It was funny. And comforting. This plan couldn’t have gone better, even their mishaps were working in their favor.

His years of waiting were paying off dramatically, and finally he was beginning to feel some form of justice. It would never help with his loss, but it was something.

He could still remember the day when his mother was taken away from him.

That was always clear in his mind, as if it had only just happened.

He sat back in his chair and rested his head against the padded leather of its back. Images of his mother flooded his mind. Images of her life. Images of her death.

Next month would be twenty years since she was taken from him. Twenty long years.

She’d never had justice, never even had a proper funeral. Her family never got the chance to lay her to rest properly and say their goodbyes. She deserved so much more than that.

The day she died would always be burned in his memory.

He’d just turned seventeen and was studying extremely hard for his SATs. He was en route to going to Harvard to study medicine. He wanted to be a surgeon.

That day she came home in a heated fluster. He was in his room going over some mathematical equations when he heard her come home. She would normally call out to him when she arrived but that time she didn’t. It was him that had to go to her. He found her in her room packing.

“Aaron, pack a bag quickly.” she stuttered when she saw him.

Aaron. That was his name. He’d gone by so many names since then that Aaron just seemed like another alias. Another alias for that time in his life when he’d been the talented son of Rachel Dean and fallen marine Kennedy Bryce.

“We going on holiday?” he’d responded with narrowed his eyes, looking at her as if she’d cracked a joke.

He remembered the deathly look of fear on her face as she looked back at him. That image of her piercing blue eyes and ashen skin would always be burnt into his memory.

“Please, son, pack a bag. We need to leave.”

“Where are we going?”

“I… Aaron, just pack. Pack quickly.” There was a knock on their apartment door and she froze. He made a move to go open the door but she held up her hand and stopped him.

She shook as she stood before him, and shook even more when the person started pounding on the door.

“Rachel, open up. I know you’re in there.” It was Ben Vanderville. He’d met him a few times. Back then he was a powerful district attorney, trying to climb even higher up the ladder of power. His mother had been his secretary for over five years.

“Come. It’s too late,” his mother said, beckoning to him.

Like a child she grabbed his hand and swung her bag over her shoulder. They went to the back exit that led to the fire escape and practically ran down the stairs. He didn’t talk again until they were in the parking lot rushing towards his mother’s SUV.

“What’s going on, Mom?”

“Quickly, let’s get in the car.” She hurried him along. They managed to get into the car and pulled out of the complex. It was only then that her fear subsided. “Aaron, I need you to go to your grandmother’s and stay there.”

His grandmother lived in Washington and they were in L.A. She’d never sent him to his grandmother’s house by himself before. “Mom, what the hell is going on?”

“It’s complicated,” she’d answered, keeping her eyes on the road.

“What is? You just drag me out and tell me to go to Gram’s without an explanation? That makes no sense. I was busy studying.”

She glanced over at him and shook her head. “I’m so sorry, my boy, but please, you must go to your grandmother’s house.”

He remembered that look of fear in her eyes, which increased tenfold, along with panic, as she looked up at the rearview mirror and saw a black Porsche following them.

That was when she started shaking and crying. That was the first time that he’d ever felt terrified, and the first time that he’d ever seen her look scared. His mother was a strong woman who wasn’t normally scared of anything.

“Mom, please, tell me what’s going on,” he’d attempted.

“I found something, came across a few things I shouldn’t have, and I got caught,” she explained through her tears.

“What did you find out?”

“I can’t, son, let’s just get away. That car is following us.” She winced.

The car followed them all the way to the highway and even as they branched off on to the country road. It was getting dark, at that in-between stage of afternoon and evening.

With panic rippling through her, his mother tried to lose the car at a grade crossing and drove down to an abandoned barn in Palmdale.

“What’s here?”

“Stay here. Wait an hour and then call a Taxi.”

“What about you?”

She never answered. They pulled up at the barn and she practically dragged him out.

She looked like she was familiar with the place because she knew exactly where to go and where to find the key to open the barn’s wooden door.

She led him deep inside and stopped at the farthest corner of the room. The place looked like they used to keep horses here. He’d only thought that because he used to ride horses a lot when his father was alive. They’d go to the family ranch in Montana every summer and go wild.

His mother lowered to her knees and pushed a bale of hay to reveal a door in the floor. She opened it.

“Get inside,” she managed to speak through her tears.

“What? No, let’s both go in.”

“No.” She shook her head. “I have to lead them away. Please, Aaron, go inside. Take this.” She handed him her bag.

He took it from her and stared at her wide-eyed, determined not to allow her to face these people by herself. “Is it Ben Vanderville? Don’t be scared of him, Mom. I can handle him.”

“You can’t, my love. Please. Please go in the basement and stay there. Wait an hour then head to your grandmother’s. I’ll meet you there in a day or so.”

The sound of a screeching car stopped his next words. She practically shoved him down the steps leading to the basement.

“Mom!” he shrieked.

“Please, stay there and be quiet,” she hissed.

“But Mom—”

“Aaron. Please,” she begged. “Promise me that you’ll do this. Go in, stay there, and whatever happens, for God’s sake don’t come out.”

A lone tear ran down her cheek. That got to him.

“Promise me, promise me.” It was the fear in her voice and the terror in her eyes that gripped him.

“Okay,” he agreed, although he didn’t want to leave her to face those people by herself.

He’d promised his father he’d always take care of her. That was the only thing in life he lived to do. Only a coward would hide in a situation like this, but she was making him promise and right now he could see the seriousness in the situation.

“Please go,” she begged again with insistence when they heard hurried footsteps.

He did as she instructed.

“I love you,” she told him as he went down.

“I love you, too,” he replied, but she was already closing the hatch and sealing it shut. She didn’t see him.

He went right inside but stayed close to the entrance. It was dark, but the remains of daylight gave the him just enough light to see around. He set the bag down and positioned himself on the steps so he could see through the crevice in the door.

He could see her. She’d arranged the hay above to hide him but he could still see.

Just as she rushed back towards the main doors to make her escape, they busted in. Ben Vanderville and Jackson Donovan.

He’d seen Jackson a few times, too, at the state’s attorney’s office. The man had never acknowledged him. Ever. He just had that look—a creepy look that said don’t even say hello.

Ben grabbed his mother and she screamed.

“Who did you tell?” he demanded.

“No one, I swear. I told no one,” she cried.

“You threatened to go to the press,” Ben snarled. “You must have told someone.”

“I didn’t.”

When Ben shoved his mother to the floor, Aaron wanted to jump out of hiding and defend her, but he restrained himself, remembering his promise.

Aaron had never really spoken to Ben, but when he had the man had always been pleasant. He’d asked him how he was getting on in school, how he was coping since his father died. It was the usual stuff people asked. All friendly and sociable. He’d never taken him to be the kind of man to push a woman around, especially one that had worked so hard for him, and for so many years.

“Jackson, I think she’s lying,” Ben said in a singsong voice.

All this time Jackson never said a word. He had something in his hands that Aaron couldn’t quite see. It was a small metal object that made a clicking noise.

“I’m not lying,” his mother cried, shaking with terror.

Ben lowered to one knee and held her gaze. “Rachel, you took copies of something, you downloaded files. All so quickly. Like you were in a hurry to tell someone.”

“But I didn’t and I won’t. I promise.”

“Where’re the copies, Rachel? Did you already give them away? Did you give them away already?” Ben spoke in a voice Aaron had never heard before. His tone was cold and menacing, with the promise of evil.

“No, Ben, I didn’t.”

“Jackson, I think we need to show Rachel how serious we are.”

At that, Jackson moved lightning fast and grabbed his mother. She cried out and Aaron again restrained himself.

By then he was shaking, seething with anger and rage. He wanted to help, he wanted to do something. It was torture just watching and he didn’t think he could take any more of it.

He watched Jackson hold his mother down and grip her hands. He took her left hand and secured the metal object over her ring finger. It was some sort of cutter, like something a plumber would use to cut metal pipping. Aaron remembered seeing something like it at school, but never thought Jackson could have intended to use it on her.

Before Aaron could even think, Jackson clicked down on the cutter and snapped off his mother’s finger. The scream that ripped from her throat was piercing and ran through his soul. Blood spurted from her hand but it didn’t bother Jackson. He just held her as if nothing was happening and secured the cutter to the next finger on her hand, snapping it off as if it was nothing.

It was shock, now, that paralyzed Aaron. Shock. He’d always remember that feeling of displacement. As if what he was watching never actually took place. As if it was a dream, a nightmare.

“Okay Rachel, you see we aren’t joking. So, tell me the truth. Who’d you tell?” Ben said to her.

“No one. Please just let me go.”

Ben looked at her for a few intense seconds, like he was deciding what to do with her.

“Okay.”

Relief had washed over Aaron at the thought of them letting her go. He’d started processing in his mind what he had to do. The hospital would be the first stop the minute they left so he could get her fingers reattached. Then they’d both go to his grandmother’s. They didn’t need to stay in L.A. for anything. He thought he could change schools, or hell, work and take care of her.

Ben stood up and Jackson released his mother.

“I swear I won’t say anything,” his mother said, gripping her hand to her chest; blood continued to gush out.

“No you won’t, Rachel,” Ben said with a smile. It was the look on Ben’s face that held Aaron’s attention. It held his mother’s as well. “Jackson, do me the honors.”

Aaron’s heart jumped into his throat as Jackson produced a small hand gun from his back pocket and held it to his mother.

“Please have mercy.” She screamed. “Please. I have a child.”

“You should have thought of your child when you started sticking your nose where it didn’t belong,” Ben snarled.

“No, please. I swear I won’t say anything. Please just let me go. My boy needs me.”

Tears rolled down Aaron’s cheeks as he watched, completely horrified. Horrified and terrified. The ache in his heart was indescribable.

“Yes, he probably does.”

“Ben, please. You have a son the same age as mine. All my boy has is me. All he has is me. Please, please. Have mercy. I promise I won’t say anything.”

Her words trailed away in his mind. All he could see was Ben’s reaction. Aaron watched him. Ben looked at Jackson and smiled, then he returned the focus to his mother.

“Rachel, I have too much at stake to just let you go. My family, yes indeed, and my job. You could destroy me with all that you know. I can’t take that risk.” Ben spoke as if he were talking about something as simple as the weather. “You know just a bit too much for my liking.”

When his mother looked over to where Aaron was hiding, bile rose into his throat and burned his heart. It was like he just knew what was going to happen next and felt that that split second was their last moment together.

The horror of the thought snapped him into action. Screw the promise, he had to do something.

He pushed against the hatch door at the same time that Jackson pulled back the revolver.

His mother saw him and screamed, “No!” It was a resounding, high-pitched sound that ripped through every fiber in his being and froze him in place at the same time that the gun went off.

She screamed again, even as the bullet pierced her heart and her eyes held him in place, begging him to go back in hiding.

“No! Don’t do it!” It was her final scream and warning to him as Jackson fired the gun again. This time shooting her straight in her head.

Her eyes never left Aaron’s. They pleaded with him, even as the life left her body, to stay back. To stay hidden. It was her last motherly act.

It highlighted the promise he made to her in his mind, and at that moment he abandoned the promise he made to his father. The promise to take care of her.

Aaron shook, his head feeling light as the air left his lungs. There was blood everywhere. Everywhere.

“Throw her into the sea,” Ben ordered and walked out.

The sea. That cruel place, that wilderness where she would be lost forever.

It must have been instinct that moved him as Jackson looked around and Aaron lowered back the hatch door. It must have been instinct and adrenaline that took over his body and mind because an intense grief and despair wracked him from deep within and all he wanted to do was scream and cry. Scream and cry. Scream until there was nothing left of him. Scream until his voice left, and dissolved in the wind.

They killed his mother. His mother who was his everything, his mother who meant more to him than life.

They killed his precious mother.

And he had to sit there and listen to Jackson gather her up and take her away.

She was never found, never laid to rest properly, just no more.

Through the screaming and crying, neither Ben nor Jackson noted that in those final moments she wasn’t talking to either of them. They’d stopped listening and indulged on the evil that drove them to kill for what they wanted.

Aaron waited until Jackson left, and for hours after, before he came out of hiding. Moonlight lit what it could of the barn inside. It bounced off one single object on the floor. His mother’s wedding band. It was just visible through the clumps of hay on the ground. That was all that was left of her.

They’d taken her car, so he had to walk.

Feeling like he could barely walk, Aaron went to the nearest police station that same night and tried to tell the officers what had happened. Cleverly, he never revealed who he was. He even tried to hide his appearance by pulling his hair forward into his face so that it just about covered his eyes. Then he just said he’d seen what happened and wanted to report it.

However, the minute they heard the name Vanderville, the police didn’t believe him. He was in that station for hours, the rest of the night. It was when he saw Ben Vanderville come into the station and exchange warm greetings with the same officer Aaron had reported him to that he knew that telling the police was fruitless. It was the first time that his eyes were opened to corruption. Much more than witnessing his mother’s murder. Aaron fled before either the officer or Ben could see him.

After that he headed to his grandmother’s and told her everything. While there, he looked in his mother’s handbag and saw all the evidence and copies of everything Ben had referred to when he questioned his mother. When Aaron read it all he saw the reason for her death. Everything in her bag could definitely destroy Ben, indeed, in a handful of seconds.

When his grandmother tried to report what happened and get an investigation underway, she was suddenly committed to a mental institution.

His grandmother had been sane, healthy, a complete health freak. Only one person could have put her there. Benjamin Vanderville.

Then Aaron found out Ben was looking for him. He didn’t know if Ben figured out that Aaron must have seen the incident or what, but he took off from there. Changed his name, changed his whole identity, and planned his revenge. He’d looked in on Ben and his family over the years as he played different roles in their lives, completely unknown to them. Sometimes he scared himself at how he’d developed the talent to conceal himself and manipulate people.

During his time of observing he’d come to know two things. The first was that Benjamin was greedy for power and would do anything to protect his interest and prospect for more power. Aaron’s mother was killed because she posed a threat to him.

The second thing was that Ben loved his children. His wife he used because of her status, and like a fool she stayed with him, so in Aaron’s eyes she was no different. His children, Wade and Taylor, were his everything, however. He might not have been a good father, but the love was there. Losing them, their love, their respect, their lives, would destroy Ben.

Aaron still had his mother’s handbag to this day, with everything intact, waiting to be unleashed to the world, along with everything else he’d gathered over the years. Ben Vanderville was afraid of being destroyed back then, but what he didn’t realize was that destruction was upon him the minute Jackson had cut off his mother’s finger.

Aaron. Yes, he would be Aaron again. It seemed fitting to deal this last act as Aaron. It was his birth name. The name his mother gave him, naming him after his grandfather.

He’d promised his mother the day she died that he’d stay hidden, that whatever happened he’d stay hidden. He had, over the years, but not to protect himself. He’d stayed hidden, waiting for the right moment to strike and bring down justice on Benjamin Vanderville.

Right now, he was exacting the promise he’d made to his father. He was going to take care of his mother. He’d felt like a failure to her in life, but he wouldn’t fail her in death.

He straightened up and looked over at Jackson sitting on the chair across from him. The man widened his eyes and looked at him as he moved to him. The missing finger on his hand looked like it was starting to fester and the man looked sick. Green and clammy, sweat was dripping from him as if it was Caribbean-hot in the room. He didn’t look like he’d have long left. Maybe another week or so. He’d lost a lot of blood when Aaron chopped off his finger.

Jackson mumbled something through the duct tape Aaron had placed over his mouth. Aaron laughed at the sight of him. Helplessly tied to a chair with his nine fingers.

“That hand of yours looks just terrible,” Aaron cooed, looking at it. It looked really gross. Perfect for sending to Ben.

The finger he’d sent to Regina was to scare her. He thought he’d repay the sentiment Jackson had delivered his mother, but Aaron was going to do much more than that.

Just like his mother, Jackson had been reported missing. Missing. That was what everyone thought. That Rachel Dean had just gone missing. Look up missing persons now on the police database and that is all it would say, along with the date she was last seen.

There wasn’t really an investigation, no inquiry after he filled his report, just nothing. All corruption spreading from the state’s attorney’s office right through to the police.

Matters were in his hands now and he’d make every last one of them pay. It was so good he got to start with Jackson.

Aaron hummed to the tune of The Beach Boys “California Girls” and grabbed the meat cleaver from the kitchen counter. He’d sharpened it earlier.

Jackson struggled against the cords that bound him to the chair and tears ran down his cheeks.

It’s funny, Aaron thought he’d looked so much scarier all those years ago. With his gun and rough-edged attitude and personality. Aaron had nightmares of this man for years after the incident.

Every night he saw the whole scene unfold before him as if sleep was a doorway to the memory stored in his mind.

Weeks ago, when he found Jackson helping out at a support group for young women who were runaways, the image came to mind and he knew the whole helping thing had to be some kind of a farce. Of course, he couldn’t have been more right. The night Aaron got him, he’d found Jackson trying to force himself on a girl who couldn’t have been older than sixteen.

He’d always been told that the wicked eventually did themselves in. That was exactly what happened there. But he was there to save the day, to some extent. He saved the girl, tackled Jackson, and brought him here.

Brought him here to kill him. Slowly and purposefully.

As he raised the meat clever, Jackson screamed against the tape. The sound was muffled but seemed to echo from him when Aaron brought it down and chopped off the blood-festered hand.

He watched Jackson writhe and squirm with the pain and agony and he felt nothing. In the background, the news reporter continued to talk about Wade’s arrest. They’d just released Merissa’s name.

Jackson squirmed until he passed out. It was probably from all the blood loss.

Aaron released a breath and rested against the wall, half watching him and the TV.

He was definitely going to enjoy this next phase.

It was time to finish this game. Time for revenge, time for justice.

When he was through, everyone would know the real Ben Vanderville, and he and his family would be more than destroyed.

He’d obliterate them.