*FEW MINUTES EARLIER IN CELL*
The cell did not smell like blood.
That was the first thing Vincenzo noticed.
It smelled like disinfectant. Cheap bleach. Old metal. A place scrubbed so often it had forgotten what it was meant to hold.
He sat on the bench with his back straight, hands resting loosely on his knees, wrists still faintly red where the cuffs had been removed earlier. The fluorescent light above him flickered—not dramatically, not ominously, just enough to be annoying. The kind of flicker people stopped noticing after a while.
Vincenzo noticed everything.
Not because he was calculating.
Because there was nothing else to do.
A crack ran diagonally across the concrete floor, starting near the drain and disappearing under the wall. He had been looking at it for several minutes now, wondering vaguely whether it had been there for years or if it was new. Someone had tried to patch it once. Poorly.
They really should fix that, he thought.
Outside the bars, the hallway was quiet. Too quiet.
Police stations were never this quiet. Even at night, there were always footsteps, radios, doors opening and closing. Human noise. The building breathing.
This felt like the building was holding its breath.
Then the footsteps came.
Not one pair.
Many.
Heavy. Synchronized. Purposeful.
They didn't echo like casual patrols. They hit the floor in rhythm, boots landing with intent, the sound growing louder far too quickly. Vincenzo lifted his gaze from the crack and turned his head slightly toward the corridor.
The footsteps stopped.
Right outside his cell.
There was a pause.
Then the lock turned.
The sound was sharp. Final. Too deliberate.
The door swung open.
Six officers stepped inside at once.
All of them were police. Uniforms. Badges. Standard issue. Nothing visually wrong — and yet everything about them was wrong.
Their eyes gleamed.
Not with fear. Not with anger.
With anticipation.
They spread out without being told, instinctively forming a semicircle around him. One blocked the door. Two stood just inside the bars. Another positioned himself behind Vincenzo's left shoulder. Too close.
Their hands hovered near their belts, not resting naturally, not relaxed. Fingers flexed once. Then again.
The lead officer stepped forward. Mid-forties. Sergeant stripes. Jaw clenched so tightly the muscle jumped when he spoke.
"Moretti."
Vincenzo looked up.
"Stand up."
He didn't ask why.
He stood.
The officers stiffened instantly — shoulders tightening, weight shifting, a ripple of readiness passing through them like electricity. One of them swallowed audibly.
Interesting, Vincenzo thought.
The sergeant cleared his throat. "You're being transferred."
"Transferred?" Vincenzo repeated mildly.
The word echoed oddly in the small space.
"For witness protection," the sergeant said quickly, too quickly. "Mateo's situation has escalated."
There it was.
That name again.
Vincenzo tilted his head a fraction. "Escalated how?"
The sergeant didn't answer immediately.
A younger officer to the right glanced away. Another's jaw tightened. The one behind Vincenzo adjusted his stance, boots scraping the floor.
Finally: "You don't need to know."
That confirmed it.
Something was wrong.
Not danger — danger was obvious. This was… impatience. Hunger. The kind of energy people had when they thought something was about to end.
The sergeant stepped closer. "Hands behind your back."
Vincenzo complied.
Cold metal closed around his wrists again. The cuffs clicked tighter than necessary. One officer tugged them experimentally, testing.
They're nervous, Vincenzo realized.
That didn't make sense.
He was already in custody.
Unless…
"We're moving you to a more secure location," the sergeant continued, voice loud, rehearsed. "This is for the witness's safety."
"For his safety," Vincenzo repeated calmly.
"Yes."
"And mine?"
The sergeant's lips twitched.
"You'll be fine."
That wasn't reassurance. That was dismissal.
They moved him quickly. Too quickly.
Down side corridors — not the main hall. Lights dimmer. Cameras fewer. A route chosen not for protocol, but for convenience. The younger officer's radio crackled once, then went silent. No one spoke into it.
As they walked, Vincenzo noticed small things.
A door left ajar that should've been locked.
A guard who looked surprised to see them.
Another who looked away entirely.
This isn't standard, he thought.
But his face remained blank. Calm. Almost bored.
Which only made the officers grip him harder.
One muttered under his breath, "Unbelievable…"
Another replied quietly, "Don't talk. Just move."
They stopped in front of a steel exit door.
Not the transport garage.
The side exit.
Vincenzo looked at it, then at the sergeant.
"This leads outside."
The sergeant met his gaze for the first time.
"Yes."
"Isn't the press—"
"Move."
The door opened.
Cold air rushed in.
Noise followed.
Not sirens.
Not engines.
Voices.
Thousands of them.
The sound hit like a wall.
Vincenzo stepped forward.
And the world exploded.
-------
At first, no one understood what they were seeing.
The side exit of the precinct wasn't meant for spectacle. No podium. No press banner. No prepared statement. Just a narrow strip of concrete between steel barricades and a service road choked with police vehicles.
The officers emerged first.
Six of them, moving fast, tense, forming a tight shape around something unseen.
The crowd was still focused elsewhere.
Most eyes were locked on the main entrance — the place where monsters were supposed to appear. Reporters clustered there, microphones ready, cameramen rehearsing angles, producers shouting into headsets about lighting and framing. The chants rolled in uneven waves:
"Justice! Justice!"
"Bring him out!"
"Let us see the devil!"
Then someone noticed movement.
A ripple passed through the outer edge of the crowd — not sound, not words, just a subtle shift in attention. Heads turned. Phones rose. A photographer on a ladder froze mid-adjustment, lens snapping toward the side.
A whisper cut through the noise.
"That's him."
Not shouted.
Not screamed.
Spoken with certainty.
The whisper spread faster than fire.
"That's him."
"That's Moretti."
"He's right there."
The sound of the crowd changed.
It didn't get louder immediately.
It thickened.
Like thousands of people inhaling at the same time.
Vincenzo stepped fully into the open.
The first thing most people noticed was how… normal he looked.
That confused them.
No wild eyes.
No snarling grin.
No resistance.
Just a man in cuffs, black coat neat, posture straight, walking because he was being told to walk.
That confusion lasted less than a second.
Then memory rushed in to fill the gap.
Faces twisted.
Hands shook.
A woman near the front screamed his name like it was a curse pulled from her lungs.
"VINCENZO MORETTI!"
That did it.
The crowd detonated.
The sound that followed wasn't anger.
It was release.
Years of fear, grief, rumor, hatred — all of it collapsing into a single, deafening roar.
"You fucking monster!"
"Killer!"
"DEVIL!"
Phones surged into the air. Camera flashes exploded in frantic, uneven bursts, turning the night into a stuttering nightmare of white light and shadow. Reporters broke formation instantly, abandoning prepared questions, shoving microphones forward like weapons.
"Mr. Moretti! Look here!"
"Is it true you filmed them while they were still alive?!"
"Do you deny the allegations of cannibalism?!"
"Did you torture children?!"
Words overlapped, piled on top of one another, collapsing into noise — but the meaning was unmistakable.
The stories poured out of the crowd without invitation.
A man sobbing and shouting in the same breath:
"He took my brother! Strung him up and peeled him alive — I SAW THE VIDEO!"
A woman clawing at the barricade:
"My daughter was twelve! Twelve! They said you fed her pieces to your dogs!"
Another voice, hoarse with years of screaming into silence:
"They found my husband in parts! Parts! Each one mailed to us over weeks!"
Accusations didn't wait to be verified.
They didn't need to.
The city had already decided what kind of man stood there.
And the man did nothing to stop it.
Vincenzo walked.
That was all.
His eyes didn't dart.
His jaw didn't tighten.
He didn't flinch when someone hurled a bottle that shattered inches from his feet.
To the crowd, that calm wasn't innocence.
It was proof.
"LOOK AT HIM!" someone screamed. "HE DOESN'T EVEN CARE!"
"HE LIKES IT!"
"He's done this before — watching people beg!"
Rocks came next.
Not thrown with aim.
Thrown with need.
One skipped off the pavement. Another clipped a police shield. A third flew wide, spinning uselessly into the darkness.
None touched him.
That detail did not go unnoticed.
"He didn't even move…"
"Did you see that?"
"Like it couldn't reach him…"
More cameras zoomed in.
More hands reached.
Police tightened formation, shields lifting, batons half-raised, but even they hesitated — because the man in the center wasn't reacting like someone being attacked.
He looked like someone being observed.
A reporter shoved herself dangerously close, voice shaking with adrenaline.
"Vincenzo Moretti! The public wants answers! Did you order the Santaro massacre?! Did you drag their leader into the park and execute him as a warning?!"
Silence.
Another shouted over her.
"WHAT ABOUT THE VIDEOS?! The ones showing victims alive while being mutilated?! Do you deny they exist?!"
Nothing.
The silence wasn't empty.
It pressed back.
People leaned in without realizing it. The crowd's fury sharpened, turning focused, almost reverent in its hatred.
A man near the barricade dropped to his knees, screaming upward.
"My wife begged for hours! They made me listen to her scream before they sent the footage!"
Spit flew.
Tears fell.
Hands shook.
Vincenzo's expression didn't change.
To the world, that meant one thing.
He knows.
Police pushed harder now, trying to move him toward the transport vehicle. The officers' faces were rigid, strained, but even they cast sideways glances at him — quick, uncertain looks that betrayed something deeper than duty.
One officer muttered under his breath, "Jesus Christ…"
Another whispered, "How is he this calm?"
The media caught that too.
Headlines were already forming.
EMOTIONLESS DEVIL WALKS AMID THE SCREAMS
NO REMORSE IN THE EYES OF A MONSTER
Vincenzo didn't hear the headlines.
He heard the crowd.
Not the words.
The weight.
And still — still — he walked as if nothing in the world was heavier than the cuffs on his wrists.
Then the sound shifted again.
This time, it wasn't rage.
It was recognition.
A different ripple passed through the mass.
Cameras pivoted.
People turned.
Police shouted.
And Cathy stepped forward.