Rain tapped against the cracked window like a slow clock counting down. Elias watched the man in the chair — wrists bound, lip bleeding, pupils shaking.
"Three questions," Elias said quietly. "That's all you get."
The man nodded, trembling.
"Question one: What's the worst thing you've ever done?"
A sob. A confession.
"Question two: Who did you do it for?"
Another sob. Another lie.
Elias tilted his head, almost tenderly. He crouched to eye level.
"Now… question three."
The man froze — every victim did. Elias's voice softened, reverent.
"Do you believe you deserve to live?"
The silence that followed decided everything
The rain had stopped, but the city still smelled like it — wet asphalt and regret. Detective Marin Cross stood outside the cordoned-off warehouse, the crime scene tape flapping in the morning wind like a torn banner.
Another body. Another execution.
She flipped through her notebook, eyes tracing the same words she'd written too many times before: Three questions. One answer decides.
"Same pattern," said her partner, Detective Avery. "Single shot to the head. No signs of struggle. Just like the others."
Marin crouched beside the body — male, mid-thirties, hands bound. Clean kill. No hesitation.
"Any witnesses?"
"None that are still breathing."
Marin ran her gloved fingers along the floor until she found it — a tiny indentation in the dust, the size of a coin. A footprint, but too deliberate, too placed.
She took a slow breath. "He was here."
Avery sighed. "You sound sure."
"I am sure." She stood, brushing off her knees. "Elias Vale. The Interrogator."
She said the name like a curse — or maybe a promise.
Avery watched her a moment. "You ever think maybe he's not real? Just a story for bad men to scare each other with?"
Marin's gaze hardened. "He's real. And when I find him, I'm going to ask him my three questions."
She turned toward the sunrise, her badge catching the first streak of light, gold and fleeting.
High above the city, in a penthouse that looked down on everything and everyone, Elias waited by the window. His reflection in the glass looked calm — too calm.
Behind him, a man poured whiskey into two glasses. He was older, sharply dressed, his eyes pale and calculating.
"You're becoming predictable, Elias," the man said. "Same ritual. Same message. People are starting to notice."
Elias didn't turn. "Fear works better when it has rules."
The man smiled thinly. "Until someone learns to play by them."
He handed Elias a glass. Elias didn't take it.
"You're not paid to make statements," the man continued. "You're paid to clean up problems. The last one was messy."
"It was honest," Elias replied.
Silence stretched. The older man studied him — almost fatherly, but with the kind of affection that could kill.
"One day, Elias, your questions will turn back on you."
Elias finally took the glass, staring into the amber liquid like it might have answers.
"Maybe that's the point," he said.
The penthouse lights had dimmed to a golden hush. Elias's employer — known only as Mr. Crane — leaned back in his chair, a satisfied smile curving beneath his glass of whiskey.
"You've done well, Elias. The city's filth is thinning. Even monsters have begun to whisper your name with fear. You deserve… a price."
At a signal from Crane's hand, two women entered the room — beautiful, poised, but hollow-eyed, like porcelain statues that had forgotten what warmth felt like. They moved toward Elias with trained grace, soft laughter filling the air.
Elias didn't move. His hands rested on his knees, still and deliberate.
Crane chuckled. "You could learn to enjoy life again, you know. You're not a machine."
Elias's gaze stayed fixed on the city below — streets glowing like veins under dark skin. "Machines are honest," he said quietly.
Crane raised a brow. "And you're not?"
"Honesty dies with love," Elias murmured. "And I buried mine a long time ago."
Crane's smile faded for a moment. Then, with a sigh, he stood and straightened his tie.
"Find it again, Elias. Love, I mean. It's the only thing that keeps a man from turning into the thing he kills."
He left the penthouse, the echo of his shoes fading into the marble corridor. The two women hesitated, glancing between each other and Elias.
"Go," he said, voice low. They didn't question him — they slipped out silently, leaving only the hum of the city and the faint scent of Crane's cologne.
Elias sat alone, staring at the untouched whiskey.
"Love doesn't save people," he whispered to no one. "It just makes dying slower."
The precinct buzzed with its usual chaos — phones ringing, papers rustling, someone shouting about coffee. Marin Cross walked through it like a storm in human form, dropping a folder onto Captain Lorne's desk.
"Another one. Same pattern. Bound hands, single shot. He's getting closer."
Lorne didn't even look up from his paperwork. "Cross, we've talked about this. There is no Interrogator. You're chasing fairytales spun by gang informants who want attention."
Marin's jaw tightened. "Fairytales don't leave bodies."
"Enough." Lorne leaned back, rubbing his temples. "You're a good detective, but obsession makes bad cops. I'm pulling you off this case."
Marin's eyes burned. "You can't do that."
"I just did."
She slammed her palms on his desk. "He killed my father, Captain. You think I'm going to stop now?"
The room went silent. A few officers looked up, then quickly looked away.
Lorne's voice softened, almost pitying. "Marin… your father's case was closed. No evidence, no suspect. You can't spend your life chasing ghosts."
Marin's stare didn't waver. "Then I'll chase his ghost until I find the man who made it."
She turned and walked out before he could answer, her badge catching the dull light like a scar. Outside, she paused on the station steps, the city stretching before her — the same city that had taken everything.
"Three questions," she whispered to herself. "He asked my father three questions."
And now she would spend her life answering them — with a bullet if she had to.
The city was quiet for once — the kind of quiet that felt wrong, like a held breath before a scream.
Elias stood by the window, phone pressed to his ear.
"It's me," he said simply.
"You don't call," a woman's voice replied — low, smooth, carrying the weariness of someone who had stopped expecting sincerity.
"I don't need to," he said. "You always come."
She arrived twenty minutes later. Lucia Vale, no relation by blood, but perhaps by damage. The moment she stepped through the door, the air seemed to shift — softer, heavier. She dropped her coat, eyes meeting his.
For a long moment, neither spoke. Then she crossed the room and kissed him — not like a lover, but like someone reaching for warmth in a blizzard. Elias didn't resist. He held her face, his hands trembling just once before steadying.
When they broke apart, she smiled faintly. "You always taste like silence."
He looked at her, something like pity flickering behind his eyes.
"You know the world too well, Lucia," he said quietly. "You trade touch for money and pretend it's mercy. But mercy doesn't live here."
Her expression didn't change. "And you trade lives for peace. Tell me which is worse."
They stood there — two people who had forgotten what love felt like, but remembered the shapes it used to take. What followed wasn't passion, not really. It was need — the desperate, hollow kind that fills a void only long enough to remind you it's still there.
When it was over, they lay in silence, the city's neon glow spilling through the blinds in broken stripes of color. Elias stared at the ceiling.
"Does it ever stop hurting?" Lucia asked softly.
Elias turned his head toward her, eyes distant. "No. You just get better at hiding the wound."
She reached for his hand, but he was already pulling away — sitting up, reaching for his shirt.
"You should go," he said.
Lucia studied him for a moment, then gathered her things. "One day, someone's going to love you enough to make you afraid again."
Elias didn't answer. He just stared out the window, watching the reflection of a man who didn't believe in love — or maybe was terrified that he still did.
Lucia paused at the door, fingers tracing the handle like she was testing her will. The silence between them stretched thin — fragile, almost breaking.
"You really want me to go?" she asked.
Elias didn't answer. His gaze stayed fixed on the rain-streaked window, but something in his shoulders gave him away — a quiet tremor, a moment of weakness.
Lucia turned back toward him, the heels of her boots echoing softly on the marble. When she reached him, she rested her forehead against his chest. He didn't move at first — then his hand lifted, hesitated, and finally settled at the small of her back.
Neither spoke. The city hummed outside, indifferent, but in that small pocket of silence, two broken souls remembered what warmth felt like — even if it was borrowed, even if it couldn't last.
Elias closed his eyes and whispered, almost to himself:
"Sometimes pretending is the only peace we get."
Lucia looked up at him, her voice trembling just slightly.
"Then let's pretend a little longer."
He drew her closer, the world outside dissolving into shadow and heartbeat.
The rain had started again by the time Marin got home. The apartment was dim, the air filled with the faint smell of coffee and the warmth of someone waiting.
Ethan, her fiancé, sat on the couch, a book open but unread in his lap. He looked up the moment she entered.
"You're late again," he said softly.
Marin dropped her coat, exhaustion written in every movement. "We found another body."
Ethan set the book aside, concern clouding his features. "Was it him?"
Marin sat beside him, shaking her head. "I lost him again. Every time I think I'm close, he just… disappears."
Ethan pulled her into his arms, her head resting against his chest. "You've been chasing a ghost for three years, Marin. Maybe it's time to let it go."
She clutched his shirt tighter, her voice breaking.
"He killed my father, Ethan. I can't stop. Not until I look him in the eyes."
Tears slipped down her cheek, silent and hot. Ethan kissed her forehead.
"Then we'll find him. Together."
Marin smiled through the tears, small and tired.
"You always say 'we,' but it's just me in the dark every night."
He held her tighter, resting his chin on her hair. "Then I'll be your light, even if you never see me."
For a long moment, they stayed like that — two people trying to build love in the shadow of vengeance.
Outside, thunder rolled again — and somewhere across the city, Elias Vale closed his eyes, holding another woman in silence.
Neither of them knew it yet, but their worlds were already turning toward collision.