Prologue

Hot arterial blood sprayed in rhythmic arcs with every downward swing of the iron rod. It painted her face in glistening crimson streaks thick ropes that slid slowly down her cheeks, catching in the corners of her mouth. She tasted copper and salt. She did not flinch. She did not pause.

Her arm rose and fell in a steady, almost mechanical cadence. Each impact landed with a wet, meaty crunch bone giving way beneath metal, cartilage popping like overripe fruit. The man's skull had long since caved inward; what remained was a pulped ruin, glistening gray matter oozing out in sluggish pulses with every fresh blow. Blood pooled beneath him in a widening lake, soaking into the cracked concrete floor, blackening at the edges as it congealed.

She finally stopped. Not from exhaustion. Not from mercy.

A slow, crooked smirk curled her lips, splitting the mask of gore across her face. Her teeth flashed white against the red. She tilted her head, studying the wreckage she had made, as though admiring a canvas she had just finished.

She reached for the folded sheet of paper clutched in his stiffening fingers the one he had been forced to write before the first swing. His last pathetic confession. His final attempt at redemption.

Her voice came out low, almost playful, cracked with dark amusement. "Let's see what a saint you were."

The first lines were predictable drivel. Donated generously to the children's NGO last year. Helped build a school in the village. She read them aloud in a mocking singsong, her smirk widening into something feral.

Then the next: The happiest day of my life was when my daughter was born. Holding her tiny hand... I knew real love.

Her laughter erupted sharp, jagged, echoing off the damp walls like breaking glass. "Oh, how touching." She leaned closer to the corpse, her breath stirring the matted hair still clinging to what was left of his scalp. "A daddy's girl. How sweet."

The smirk vanished. Her eyes darkened to black pits.

She flipped to the final entry.

Once... when I was drunk... I harassed a ten-year-old girl behind the shop. I touched her. I scared her. I never told anyone.

The rod trembled in her grip.

Rage ignited behind her ribs cold, precise, absolute. She brought the weapon down again. Not to kill. He was already dead. This was punishment. The metal connected with ruined flesh in a sickening squelch, sending fresh splatter across her arms, her chest, the wall behind her. Again. And again. Until the face was no longer recognizable as anything human. Just wet red pulp and shards of bone.

She finally lowered the rod. Her chest rose and fell slowly. A single tear carved a clean path through the blood on her cheek. She wiped it away almost tenderly.

"When God and the law let monsters like you walk free," she whispered to the corpse, "I become the reckoning."

She exhaled. The smirk returned slow, satisfied, venomous.

Then she began to whistle.

A cheerful, lilting tune something almost childlike as she dragged a bucket of soapy water across the floor. Each note was punctuated by the rhythmic sway of her hips, forward and back, as though she were dancing to music only she could hear. Blood swirled pink in the suds. She scrubbed methodically, humming now, erasing every trace of the violence from the concrete. From the rod. From her skin.

When the floor gleamed again, she turned to the body.

She washed him like a lover preparing a corpse for burial. Cold water sluiced over mangled flesh, rinsing away the gore in rusty rivulets that spiraled down the drain. She dressed him carefully crisp white shirt, dark trousers, polished shoes. A groom ready for his bride.

She dragged him limp, heavy, leaking out to the truck. The night air was thick and cool against her flushed skin. No headlights. No witnesses. Just crickets and the low growl of the engine.

At the chosen house an abandoned wedding venue on the edge of the city, its windows like empty eye sockets she hauled him inside. Propped him against the peeling wall in the grand hall, spine straight, head lolling slightly. She peeled his eyelids open wide and glued them in place with quick-drying adhesive. Now he stared perpetually, sightlessly at the empty altar ahead.

Perfect.

She returned to the truck, retrieved the bouquet of white lilies, their petals unnaturally pristine against the night. She wrapped his cold, stiff fingers around the stems, bound his wrists with thin black ribbon so the flowers could never fall. A groom clutching his bridal gift. Waiting forever.

She stepped back. Admired her work.

A final smirk ghosted across her blood-streaked face sharp, private, triumphant.

She pulled the cap low over her eyes, slid behind the wheel, and drove away into the dark.

The billionth bridegroom had been delivered.

The ceremony could begin