"You…really hate him, don't you? Because he traumatized me when he killed my parents?" Hazel asked vulnerably.
Among other things. Will had resented Charlie for letting him starve long before he committed his crime against her. But she could never know that. She had to think this was solely about her.
"Obviously. He's a monster," Will hissed.
He was so furious that he was shaking. Again. He had to keep holding his wife though. It was the only way he could calm down in such a state.
She noticed, since she reached for his face to comfort him. Always so sweet!
"Hey, it's okay. You don't need to be this upset for me. I don't want you to be in pain on my behalf. I'm used to dealing with things on my own."
Will wasn't only upset for Hazel. He was upset for himself. That he would never truly be able to escape his past, no matter how hard he tried. As long as Charlie existed in human memory, Will would never be free.
Charlie needed to die. Will may not be able to go to the prison himself, but paying someone to kill an unpopular inmate anonymously should work. Charlie had been a stain on this world for too long already.
And if Will was going to do what he needed to do to punish Abramson for his stupidity, it would be better to have Charlie out of the way. He had brought this on Will. It was only fitting that Charlie be punished for his stupidity too.
His sins were greater than Abramsons. Besides, no one would miss Charlie. The world would be better off without him.
Hazel would be happy to hear he was dead. The same wouldn't be true if Will killed Abramson, since he probably had family who would be affected by his murder. She wouldn't like that, even though she hated the man for dredging up old pain.
Okay. Will had a sense of direction. He just needed to come up with a concrete plan.
He held her hand in place and inhaled and exhaled deeply to calm himself. "You shouldn't be. You never have to deal with anything on your own again. Like I said, let me take care of this. Let's go home for now."
He briefly kissed her to restore his equilibrium further before driving home. Then he had to go back to holding her to calm down completely.
He was still furious, but also deep in thought about how to make his plans come together. Killing Charlie needed to look random, but suing Abramson? That had to be even more meticulous. Because Will had to do it in his original identity.
Billy Thornton had plenty of reason to sue. That book was full of libel. His name had been dragged through the mud, solely for being related to a serial killer. If he was still living under his real name, that would have caused him a lot of problems. All he had to do was make it look like he still was.
Finding his old social security number would be easy enough through hacking. He would simply have to create a fake driver's license and paper trail to make it look like he had been living quietly in the middle of nowhere since the hospital burned down. He would need facial prostheses and a wig so he wouldn't look like himself too.
None of this could be traced back to William Sheffield. If Hazel ever found out the truth, she wouldn't love him anymore.
He could pretend he had tracked down Billy Thornton and convinced him to sue so she wouldn't have to be involved if she found out details about the lawsuit later on. He could cover his bases, like he always did.
As soon as she went to sleep that night, he got to work. There was a lot to do for this plan.
He was able to get Charlie's hit taken care of before everything was in place for his fake former identity. It was made to look like it happened in a regular prison fight.
The money wasn't traceable either, since it had been sent directly to the inmate's wife on the outside in cash, rather than wire transfer. She would hide it for him until he got out and could use it. By then, no one would be investigating the death of someone nobody wanted alive anyway.
Will did wish Charlie's death had been more painful and that he had been able to do it personally, but unfortunately, that wasn't an option. Now that he was dead, Will could put the next part of his plan in action.
The fake Billy Thornton identity he made had settled down in southern Nevada after running away. He had supposedly ended up in foster care there. That would be impossible for Abramson to verify, since files on minors were sealed unless there was a court order to open them. He didn't have that sort of power.
Since the Bay Area Blade was pretty much only known in the Bay Area during the time of the killings, Will could have supposedly had a normal-ish life in a different state where no one would know where he was. Until the book came out and his name and picture were shared with the masses.
He paid off some fake witnesses for his supposed life there too. Anyone could be bought at the right price, especially the desperate.
With that, the trap was set. Now all Will had to do was hire a lawyer in Las Vegas to build a case for defamation and emotional distress. He didn't like working through the legal system, but his alias was airtight. His years in the ring had helped him with that. He could make any alias look perfect.
His goal was to get the remaining stock of the book destroyed. He had looked it up. That could happen, since it was harder to get retractions from books than articles.
Once that was done, both he and Hazel would be as free from their pasts as they could get. Then they would be able to continue living happily together as they had been. They had to. He had worked too hard to get here to let anything mess it up for him!