The alarm clock showed 3:17 AM when Dan opened his eyes. He did not need to turn it off. It had not rung in weeks. Sleep came in small pieces now, broken fragments that never lasted long enough.
He sat up and looked around the empty bedroom. The other side of the bed remained untouched. The pillow still had the small dent where Elena's head used to rest.
He did not wash the pillowcase. It still smelled like her shampoo, but the scent grew weaker each day.
He walked to the kitchen in darkness.
His feet knew the way.
The house was silent except for his footsteps on the wooden floor. No cartoons played on the television. No homework papers scattered on the dining table. No lunch boxes to prepare.
The kitchen light hurt his eyes when he turned it on. Dirty dishes filled the sink. Mail piled on the counter. Bills. Sympathy cards. A letter from the school about grief counseling for children who lost classmates.
He turned the light off and sat in darkness.
The silence crushed him more than any noise could.
---
Five weeks ago, the house buzzed with life.
Elena cooked breakfast while the twins, Lily and Lucas, argued about whose turn it was to feed their pet rabbit. Their son Ben practiced soccer kicks in the backyard, occasionally hitting the side of the house despite repeated warnings.
"Honey, tell your son to stop before he breaks another window," Elena had said, flipping pancakes with one hand and checking her phone with the other.
"Before work? That is your son until I finish my coffee," he had replied. They both laughed.
Such a normal morning.
Dan kissed them all goodbye before he left for work at the district attorney's office. The big Castillo case waited for him. The biggest drug operation the city had ever seen.
His career case. The one that would make his name.
"Be careful," Elena had said, her eyes serious for a moment. "These people are dangerous."
"The law is more dangerous," he had answered with the confidence of a man who believed in justice.
---
The house was quiet when he returned home that night. Too quiet.
No television sounds. No children running to greet him. No smell of dinner cooking.
The front door stood open just an inch. A small detail that stopped his world.
He pushed the door open slowly. The hallway light flickered. Red droplets marked a path on the white tile floor.
"Elena?" His voice sounded small in the silence. "Kids?"
The living room told the story before his mind could accept it.
The white couch turned red. Elena's body slumped against it, her eyes open but seeing nothing. The twins lay near the television, small hands still reaching for each other. Ben by the back door, as if he had tried to run.
Dan did not scream. His throat closed. His legs gave out. He fell to his knees and stayed there until police sirens wailed outside.
Later, the medical examiner said they died quickly. As if that mattered. As if any death could be merciful when it came to children.
The message was clear. Three bullets for three children. One for his wife. None for him. Living with this pain was his punishment for taking on the Castillo case.
---
"We are doing everything we can," Police Chief Rivera said three days later. His office smelled like coffee and air freshener.
Too clean. Too normal.
Dan sat across from him, hands folded tightly to keep them from shaking. "You know who did this."
Rivera shuffled papers on his desk. "We have suspects, but no solid evidence yet."
"Victor Castillo ordered the hit. We both know it."
The chief looked at the window instead of at Dan. "Castillo was in custody when it happened."
"He has people everywhere. You know how he works."
Rivera sighed. "Dan, you need time to grieve. Take leave. Let us handle the investigation."
"Like you handled the Rodriguez case? Or the MJ witnesses who suddenly changed their stories?" He leaned forward. "How much did he pay you?"
The chief's face hardened. "That is enough. You are not thinking clearly."
"I see more clearly than ever," he said.
He stood up and walked to the door. "Everyone has a price. What was yours? What was my family worth?"
Officers in the hallway avoided his eyes as he walked out. People he had worked with for years. People who had come to his backyard barbecues. People who had held his children.
None of them would meet his gaze now.
---
Dan spent three weeks gathering information. Evidence that would never make it into court. Names. Addresses. Security details. Bank accounts.
His dining room wall became a map of connections. Red string linked photos to locations. Black marker circled the most important targets.
The prosecutor became the hunter.
He burned his law degree in the kitchen sink. Fifteen years of belief in a system that failed when he needed it most.
The flames took it all.
He did not recognize himself in the mirror anymore. His face looked hollow. His eyes belonged to someone else.
Someone without limits. Without mercy.
He loaded the guns on his bed. Each bullet had a name. Each weapon a purpose.
The first was the easiest. A man who called himself Knife, found drinking in a bar on the east side. The actual killer, based on the distinctive knife marks found on Elena's arms.
"You look familiar," Knife had said when Dan sat beside him. "Do I know you?"
"You knew my family," he answered.
Recognition dawned in the man's eyes too late. The knife that had killed Elena now rested between his ribs, pushed in during a brief moment when the bartender turned away.
Dan was blocks away before anyone discovered the body.
The second was the man who gave the orders. Castillo's right hand, Diego. He lived in a penthouse with four bodyguards and security cameras.
None of it saved him when Dan came through the service entrance dressed as maintenance staff. The silencer kept the neighbors from hearing the five shots.
The bodies dropped one by one. The list grew shorter.
Each death should have brought relief. Instead, Dan felt nothing. A hollow space expanded inside him where his heart used to be.
---
Now he stood in the shadows across from Victor Castillo's mansion. The man himself, finally released on bail despite Dan's former office fighting against it.
Guards patrolled the perimeter. Dogs roamed the yard. Lights illuminated every approach.
It did not matter. Nothing mattered except finishing what he started.
He checked his watch. The power would cut in exactly two minutes. A final favor from a court clerk who once owed him for a dismissed DUI.
His body ached from previous fights. Blood seeped through bandages wrapped around his ribs where a bullet had grazed him two nights ago. His left eye remained swollen shut from a guard's lucky punch.
The mansion plunged into darkness right on schedule.
He moved forward, night vision goggles showing him the way. The first guard never saw him coming. The second managed to fire a shot that missed by inches.
Alarms blared too late. Dan was already inside, moving room by room. Each space cleared. Each guard eliminated.
He found Castillo in the master bedroom, frantically loading a shotgun with shaking hands.
"Who is there?" Castillo shouted into the darkness. "Do you know who I am? I can pay you whatever they are paying you. Double it!"
Dan stepped into the dim emergency lighting. "You cannot pay this debt."
Recognition dawned on Castillo's face. "The prosecutor. Listen, I had nothing to do with your family. That was not my order."
"You own everything that happens in this city," he said. His voice sounded distant to his own ears. "Every death. Every deal. That makes them your responsibility."
"Please. I have children too."
"Not anymore," he said as he raised his gun.
The shot echoed through the mansion.
Dan stood over the body, waiting for satisfaction that never came. The hollow space inside him remained empty.
He sat on the edge of the bed as sirens wailed in the distance. He did not run this time.
When police burst through the door minutes later, Dan still sat there, the gun resting beside him on the expensive bedspread.
"Daniel Henza," Chief Rivera said, his voice tight. "Put your hands where I can see them."
He looked up slowly. "Justice is served."
"This is not justice," Rivera said, handcuffs ready. "This is murder."
"What is the difference?" He asked.
He tried to stand but could not. The room spun around him.
For the first time, Rivera noticed the blood pooling on the floor beneath Dan.
"He is hit! Get medical in here now!"
Dan touched his side. His hand came away dark and wet. When had he been shot? The guard in the hallway. The bullet he thought had missed.
"No," he said. "No doctors."
His vision blurred at the edges. The pain hit him all at once, as if his body finally remembered to feel. He fell sideways onto the bed.
"Stay with us, Daniel," Rivera said, pressing his jacket against the wound. "The ambulance is three minutes out."
He smiled. A strange calm washed over him. "Tell them not to hurry."
The faces of his family appeared before him. Not as they were in death, but alive. Smiling. Waiting for him to come home.
"I am coming," he whispered.
His eyes closed. The sounds around him faded. The last thing he heard was Rivera shouting for the paramedics to hurry.
Then silence.
Darkness.
[Soul Evaluation Complete]
[Candidate: Daniel Henza]
[Justice Rating: 97/100]
[Vengeance Rating: 100/100]
[Potential: Exceptional]
[Initializing Justice System...]