A thin contented smile played on Vincenzo's lips as his eyes swept over the work of art he had created. He wasn't looking at bodies so much as he was admiring a canvas, a masterpiece of his own design. The vibrant crimson on the asphalt was the final, triumphant brush stroke. He turned his attention to the smoke curling from his gun's muzzle, watching it with peculiar fondness. It was the last, fleeting echo of his power, a silent conversation between him and his gun, a shared pleasure in the finality of it all.
Without a word, he holstered the gun beneath his arm, the soft scrape of metal against leather a quiet counterpoint to the highway's sudden silence. Vincenzo adjusted his jacket cuff, soothing the fabric with a meticulous grace as if his only concern was his impeccable tailoring.
***
The easy warmth in his eyes vanished, snuffed out like a candle in a sudden draft. Vincenzo's gaze went flat and colorless, an impassive pane of glass through which no human emotion could escape. Before the echo of his fake innocence had died, his fingers moved in a barely perceptible motion- single, sharp twitch. From the deeper folds of the highway and dark night, men detached themselves from the darkness, fluid and silent as spilled ink.
"Clean it up," came the command. The voice was a deep, guttural thrum that vibrated the bones of every man that was present on the highway. But it was his eyes that held them captive- pale, flat, and taking in the butchery with the indifference of a man observing a spilled cup of coffee. The words held primal weight, yet the gaze was nothing more than an empty, glass-like reflection.
***
In perfect unison, the men bow infront of Vincenzo, a snap of their heads and a quick dip of there torsos, so practiced it was almost balletic. Then, without a word, they fanned out, converging on the scattered bodies. A roll of thick plastic sheeting unspooled with a whisper. Their movements were methodical, efficient, and devoid of any emotion. They handled the corpses like bundles of laundry, not bodies, the metallic scent of blood already fading under the clinical sting of antiseptic they carried.
Vincenzo checked his watch, not out of impatience, but out of a simple, mundane habit. His hand remained steady as he tapped the ash from his cigar, the tiny gray flecks scattering onto the spotless hood of the car. The scattered forms on the asphalt were just a problem to be solved, and he trusted his crew to be thorough. The night was young, and he had car to drive.
***
He dropped the cigar, it's red tip glowing like a resentful eye on the pavement. Without breaking stride, Vincenzo planted the heel of a polished Italian shoe on its smoldering length, grinding it to ash. He then returned to his car, he stood in the humid night air. The matte-green Lamborghini felt like a tomb behind him. With detached precision, he pressed the hidden sensor beneath the car's air intake.
The scissor door rose, silent as a guillotine, revealing a high-tech interior that seemed out of place after the brutal, primitive act. Vincenzo reached in, his long arm disappearing into the dark, and retrieved a bottle of cold water. He stepped away from the immaculate car, twisted the cap, and let the steam run over his hands and his handsome face, feeling the crimson swirl, vanish down the gutter.
The water sluiced the last of the blood away, leaving his face clean, his skin pale beneath the moonlight. Vincenzo took a moment, running a hand through his damp hair and sweeping it back from his brow, as if completing a mundane grooming ritual. Only when it was neatly in place did he look up at the vast, star-peppered canvas of the sky. His blue eyes, now clear and bright, absorbed the cold light of the moon, and in their depths, there was no sign of the night's brutality. Just a perfect, handsome calm.
***
Vincenzo was feeling like a god, suspened between the frozen distance of the stars and the quiet darkness of the earth, the night air now clean and cold against his skin. A constellation held his gaze- a familiar shape, a comfortingly distant pattern. The shrill insistence of his phone ripped the cosmos apart. The sound was profane. His hand dropped the nearly empty bottle, not as a command but as an afterthought, an item of no further use. Without looking, he trusted his men, shadows in the gloom, to catch it. They did. They were efficient. They knew their place in his universe.
Vincenzo turned away to pick up the call, he was a shadow detaching itself from the light. His walk was a silent glide toward his car- his gleaming, green Lamborghini that seemed to wait for him like always. He slipped inside. Not a wasted movement.
"You're in," the voice on the other stated. No warmth. No fanfare.
He listened, his face a hard, unreadable mask. "And the test?" he asked. His voice was a flat, even line of a sound.
"Passed. Unanimously."
A pause. He hung up. No emotion registered. Not on his face, not in his posture, not in his breathing. He pressed the ignition and the supercar roared to life, a perfect, powerful machine. Just like him.
***
Vincenzo adjusted the radio dial, the static giving way to a smooth, vintage rock melody. He didn't hum along, but a subtle, almost imperceptible smile played on his lips. His fingers moved with the practiced ease of a chef preparing a familiar meal- checking the side mirror, a glance at the empty back seat, a final, lingering look at the rearview. Only then did his foot press down on the gas, and the car merged seamlessly into the wide, black expanse of the empty highway.
***
Behind the scenes~ "From the 2nd chapter"
The Author's "Cut!" was a knife slicing through the highway's tense atmosphere, but it didn't dissipated the cold.
However, Vincenzo, blinked slowly a deliberate, predatory movement, before his dark eyes swept from the camera to the crew.
In the far corner, near the craft services table, the Author, let out a shuddering breath. Next to her, James, his first victim, sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, still breathing in short, frightened bursts. The two shared a look of weary understanding.
Author murmured, her voice barely a whisper "He's still in it." James didn't reply, just watched Vincenzo took a single, slow step toward them, a faint, unsettling smile on his lips.
To be continued...🤍