LAWYER || Christopher Salvatore

Christopher slammed the SUV door shut hard enough for the sound to echo through the empty alley. The city around him was quiet at this hour—too quiet—only the distant hum of traffic and the flickering buzz of a dying streetlamp filling the silence.

He moved to the trunk without hurry.

The body inside had already gone limp an hour ago.

Grabbing the corpse by the arms, Christopher dragged it across the wet pavement, boots scraping against concrete while a thick trail of blood followed behind them like a grotesque signature. The metallic scent clung to the cold night air, mixing with gasoline, rainwater, and rot from the overflowing dumpsters nearby.

He dropped the man beside the alley’s large rusted dumpster with a dull thud.

For a moment, Christopher simply stood there, black gloves soaked crimson, chest rising steadily beneath dark clothing as he looked down at the mess he had made. Then, slowly, a lazy smile curved across his lips.

He cracked his neck.

Two months.

It had been exactly two months since he had started playing with his little prosecutor.

Two months of watching {{User}} Van Doren chase ghosts he created for her. Two months of sitting beside her in offices, courtrooms, and crime scenes while she trusted him completely—trusted him to help her find the monster responsible for the murders while the monster stood right beside her the entire time.

At first, it had only been about protecting his brother.

Then Christopher discovered something far more addictive.

Her attention.

He had never particularly enjoyed killing personally. Christopher preferred manipulation, preferred strategy, preferred letting other men dirty their hands while he cleaned the aftermath. But watching confusion bloom across her face every time another body appeared? Watching her frustration when the investigation stopped making sense? Watching her lean closer to him, trusting his guidance more with every setback?

That had become intoxicating.

He was drunk on her trust.

Drunk on the way she looked at him when she thought he was helping her.

And somewhere along the line, Christopher stopped thinking like the rational man he had always been. The careful consigliere. The strategist. Around her, he became reckless in ways his brother would have admired—acting without calculation simply because he enjoyed the game too much to stop.

Because of her.

Because every glance from her made him want to push further.

And God, he was already far too deep to climb back out.

Christopher crouched beside the corpse, reaching toward the holster strapped against his thigh before pulling out a blade. The steel caught the weak light overhead as he pressed it lightly against the dead man’s stomach.

A small souvenir for the prosecutor.

Something confusing enough to keep her chasing the wrong answers.

Then—

A gasp.

Soft. Sharp. Human.

Christopher’s eyes closed briefly as a quiet groan escaped him, almost irritated by the interruption. He rose smoothly to his feet, gun already drawn as he turned toward the sound.

And then he saw her.

{{User}}.

The smile that spread across his face this time was genuine.

Slowly, Christopher lowered the gun.

The black mask covering the lower half of his face revealed nothing except his eyes—dark, amused, utterly calm despite the weapon aimed directly at his chest.

“It seems,” he murmured, voice smooth beneath the night air, “you finally caught me, little prosecutor.”

He didn’t bother denying it.

There was no point.

If she was here, then she already knew. She had followed him. Watched him. Pieced together enough truth to find him standing over a fresh corpse with blood still wet on his gloves.

And yet—

Christopher looked at the gun pointed at him and felt absolutely nothing resembling fear.

Because he knew her.

“In order to pull that trigger,” he said softly, taking one slow step toward her, “you’d need to lack something I know you have in abundance.”

His eyes flicked meaningfully toward the gun.

“Scruples.”

Another step.

“Empathy.”

Then, deliberately, he lifted his blood-covered hands to his face and peeled the mask upward. The fabric dragged across his cheek, smearing crimson across pale skin as his features finally emerged fully beneath the flickering streetlight.

Beautiful.

Calm.

Monstrous.

Christopher tilted his head slightly, as if adjusting the angle of a problem only he could see, his gaze locked on her face with an almost clinical fascination.

This—this exact moment—was what he had been steering toward from the very beginning.

From that first deliberate lie. From the first planted inconsistency in the case file. From the carefully placed threads he had left for her to tug at, each one subtle enough to feel like discovery, but never enough to confirm the truth outright.

He hadn’t just hidden evidence from her.

He had guided her toward it.

Watched her pick it apart piece by piece.

Watched her mind do exactly what he knew it would—question, analyze, refuse to let go.

And she had followed beautifully.

Not blindly. Never blindly.

That was what made it satisfying.

She had followed because he made the path feel like her own idea.

Christopher exhaled softly through his nose, something faintly amused lingering in his expression as he observed the smallest shifts in her face—the tightening of her jaw, the flicker of realization that still refused to fully form into certainty.

“I do wonder,” he said at last, voice smooth, almost conversational, like they were discussing something academic rather than something that had unraveled lives, “when exactly you became suspicious of me.”

A smirk tugged at the corner of his mouth before his gaze shifted past her shoulder, scanning the empty street beyond the alley.

No police sirens.

No backup.

No officers storming toward him with weapons drawn.

Nothing.

His eyes slowly returned to hers.

The smirk deepened.

“You knew what you’d find here,” Christopher said quietly. “So tell me, prosecutor...”

He stepped closer again, close enough now for the scent of blood and expensive cologne to mix between them.

“Where are the officers meant to arrest me?”

He listened to her reply—some weak excuse he barely listened to.

Christopher’s eyebrows lifted slightly, amusement flickering openly across his face now as he closed the remaining distance between them with dangerous confidence.

“Or is it,” he murmured, voice dropping lower, “because you don’t actually want me in prison, {{User}} Van Doren?”

He tsked softly at her dramatics, the sound almost amused as he looked at the gun trembling ever so slightly in her hand.

“Yes,” Christopher admitted without hesitation. “I played with you.”

A slow smile spread across his face, sharp at the edges.

“And I loved every second of it.”

He tilted his head, eyes dark with something dangerously close to affection.

“But so did you.”

The accusation settled between them like smoke.

Christopher took another step forward, unhurried despite the weapon still aimed at his chest.

“You knew,” he said quietly. “Long before tonight, some part of you knew exactly what I was.”

His gaze dragged slowly over her expression, studying every crack in her composure with fascination.

“Maybe not consciously. Maybe not enough to admit it to yourself.” A faint chuckle escaped him. “But you knew.”

Because if she truly hadn’t...

His eyes flicked meaningfully toward the gun.

“You would have pulled the trigger already.”

Another step closer.

“And if you were really afraid of me,” he continued, voice lowering into something softer, more intimate, “you wouldn’t have come here alone.”

Christopher stopped just inches away now, blood still drying across his gloves, crimson smeared along the sharp line of his jaw where he had removed the mask.

Then he spread his arms slightly.

An invitation.

A challenge.

“If I disgust you so much,” he murmured, “then shoot me.”

Christopher’s hands rested firmly around the steering wheel, fingers steady, posture relaxed in that effortless way that made even silence feel controlled. The engine purred beneath them as the car cut through the dim stretch of road leading out of the city—streetlights thinning, replaced gradually by darkness and trees closing in on both sides like a narrowing throat.

Beside him, {{user}} kept talking.

Again.

Her voice filled the interior of the car, sharp with frustration and focus as she dissected the case aloud—how none of it aligned properly, how the crime scene suggested a mob retaliation, how the evidence kept contradicting itself no matter how she arranged it.

Christopher listened without interruption.

A faint, almost imperceptible curve touched the corner of his mouth.

She wasn’t wrong.

Not even close.

That part of the case had been simple at first. A careless mistake—his brother, impulsive as always, killing a witness who had seen too much. That alone should have been manageable.

Should have been clean.

But then Christopher had gotten involved.

And “clean” had stopped being the goal.

His gaze remained fixed on the road ahead, though his attention was elsewhere entirely—divided between her voice and the quiet satisfaction of what she didn’t yet understand.

The first murder had been containment.

The others had been something else entirely.

A pattern he had built deliberately. Bodies that appeared where they shouldn’t. Evidence planted just slightly too precise, too unsettling. Scenes designed not to solve the case, but to distort it—to pull her further away from the truth and deeper into his narrative.

A serial killer myth built carefully over time.

And she had followed it beautifully.

Christopher’s grip on the wheel tightened for only a second before relaxing again.

Now they were heading toward his mansion.

Deep in the woods. Isolated. Controlled. A place where no one could interrupt what came next.

Where she would finally see what she had missed.

He glanced at her briefly—just long enough to take in the intensity in her expression, the way her mind refused to stop working even when she was exhausted, even when the answers weren’t yet in reach.

It fascinated him.

Not just that she was close.

But that she still wasn’t close enough.

“You’re overthinking it,” he said at last, voice calm, almost mild.

A beat passed.

Then, softer—almost conversational:

“But you’re also closer than you realize.”

His eyes returned to the road.

And the faintest smile lingered, as the trees ahead grew darker and the mansion slowly came into view.

The tires crunched softly against the gravel as the mansion emerged through the treeline—dark, imposing, half-swallowed by the forest around it. Lights from the house cut through the fog in thin, controlled lines, like something deliberately watching rather than welcoming.

Christopher parked without hesitation.

For a moment, neither of them moved.

Then, as if nothing in him had shifted at all, he stepped out and walked around to open her door.

The world out here was quieter than the city—too quiet. Even the wind felt muted, absorbed by the dense trees and the weight of the estate itself.

Inside, the mansion greeted them with low, warm lighting and long stretches of shadow. Everything was immaculate. Controlled. Expensive in a way that didn’t try to impress anyone but still made a statement: nothing here was accidental.

Christopher led her through the corridor without rush, past dark wood paneling and abstract art that looked more like distortions than decoration. The deeper they went, the more the house began to feel like a sealed thought—carefully contained, deliberately isolated.

The study sat at the end of the hall.

He opened the door and let her step inside first.

Bookshelves lined the walls, towering and precise. Case files—some real, some fabricated—were stacked with obsessive organization across the large central desk. A second workspace sat near the window, angled toward the forest outside, as if even nature was something to be observed rather than experienced.

Christopher closed the door behind them.

The sound clicked into place like a lock.

“Start here,” he said calmly, gesturing toward the desk as if this were just another working session.

But his attention wasn’t on the files.

It was on her.

On the way she immediately scanned the room. On the way her mind already began connecting patterns, sorting details, searching for inconsistencies she couldn’t yet name.

And Christopher... observed her observe.

This is where it shifts, he thought.

Not the case. Not the evidence.

Her certainty.

He moved casually toward the desk, loosening his coat as if settling into routine. But internally, everything was already placed exactly where it needed to be.

Because the truth was no longer something he was hiding from her.

It was something he was guiding her toward.

Slowly.

Precisely.

He pulled out a file and set it down—not too carelessly, not too deliberately. Just enough to exist in the space between notice and dismissal.

Inside: a detail too small for most to care about. A discrepancy in timeline notation. A forensic report that almost didn’t align. A signature that almost matched one of the earlier staged scenes—but not quite enough to confirm anything outright.

Enough to make a mind like hers hesitate.

Christopher leaned back against the edge of the desk, watching her reaction carefully.

Not her confusion.

Her recognition of confusion.

That was the point.

He didn’t need her to understand immediately.

He needed her to doubt.

A faint, private thought crossed his mind as she opened the file.

She’s going to find it eventually.

And when she did—

It wouldn’t matter that she was standing in his house.

That she was alone with him in the middle of nowhere.

That every piece of the investigation, every false trail, every manufactured inconsistency had been touched by his hand.

Because by then, the only thing she would be certain of...

...was that he had been inside her case from the very beginning.

Christopher’s gaze lingered on her a moment longer.

Then he spoke, voice calm, almost helpful.

“You’re looking at the wrong connection,” he said quietly.

A pause.

“And you’ve been doing that for a while now.”