The penthouse towered above Manhattan like a modern fortress owned by an aging king who refused to surrender his throne. Floor-to-ceiling glass walls offered a view not of a thriving city, but of an open wound—New York, in his eyes, wasn't alive. It was a rotting carcass that hadn't stopped twitching.
Victor Serrano sat on his throne—a dark green leather armchair, glistening with the polish of time and invisible blood. One leg crossed over the other, his massive frame was encased in a green-and-black three-piece suit, tailored to perfection, wrapped like a burial shroud. A black fedora hung low over his eyes, shadowing a gaze known to appraise the price of a life in a heartbeat. A tumbler of whiskey rested heavy in his hand, droplets of condensation racing down its side. Between his fingers, a cigarette burned slowly, its ember pulsing like a dying star.
Jazz drifted from hidden speakers—Miles Davis, Blue in Green. It coiled around the room like a ghost, like the weary moan of a prostitute crying alone in a motel bathroom.
Silence.
Then—three knocks. Heavy. Measured. The sound of something inevitable.
The double doors creaked open. Matteo and Rico entered, their suits pressed, their foreheads glistening with cold sweat. Though they were Victor's personal aides, proximity never translated to intimacy. They were pieces on a board—one perhaps more fortunate than the other.
"Boss," Matteo rasped, voice cracking under pressure. "We... we have news."
Victor didn't turn his head. The whiskey glimmered in his glass, catching the dim city lights like dying fireflies. He didn't respond. He didn't need to. He had already sensed the shape of the truth long before it arrived. But sometimes, truth needed to be spoken aloud—just to carve its weight deeper into the soul.
"Angelo Corvey... is dead," Rico said, breathless, as if he had just run from something far darker than a man.
Victor remained still.
Trying to fill the growing void, Rico stepped forward and pulled a large photograph from a black folder. He placed it carefully on the glass coffee table, as though the image itself might bite. Victor picked it up without a word, his gloved fingers moving slowly—like a man unsealing an old journal that whispered things best left forgotten.
He stared.
Corvey's corpse lay sprawled across the marble floor—his head placed neatly beside his body, eyes wide in frozen shock. His chest was opened with eerie precision, ribcage parted like pages of a grotesque manuscript. And where his heart should've been… there was only an empty cavity. The heart was gone. Not torn. Taken. Removed cleanly, like a stolen crown from a fallen king.
Victor stared for a long time. Then—he laughed. A slow, low chuckle. It rumbled from deep in his gut and rolled across the room like thunder. Not joy. Not madness. Something colder. Irony. The kind that made gods weep.
"Angelo," he muttered, shaking his head. "That bastard came to me once—shoes torn, hands trembling, filled with dreams too big for his lungs. And now? He ends up like meat on a butcher's table."
He set the photo down gently, as if placing a memory to rest, and leaned back in his chair.
"Looks like nightmares know how to choose their prey."
Matteo swallowed hard. He couldn't hide the tremble in his throat. "A witness said... the killer dropped down from the roof. Fast. Silent. Like a ghost. After saving a girl Corvey had kidnapped, he... left. But not before taking the heart."
Victor finally moved. Just a tilt of his head. Eyes sharp under the brim of his fedora.
"Literally?" he asked, his voice soft but coiled tight.
"Yes, sir," Rico answered, his voice shaking now. "They said he ripped it out. No hesitation. No sound. His face... it was torn, like the skin had been stripped from his mouth. Jawbone showing. Teeth—sharp. And his eyes, sir. They were... orange. Burning. Like coals in the dark. Like something hunting."
Victor sat with that.
Then, quietly: "Was it a smile... or the face of something hell chewed up and spat back out?"
Silence. Rico trembled under Victor's stare.
"I... I don't know, sir," he whispered. "But whatever it was, it wasn't human."
The music played on. The clock ticked slowly, like a countdown to war. Finally, Victor stood. Slowly. Deliberately. Each movement like tectonic weight shifting under the surface of the earth.
He walked to the massive city map pinned across the back wall—covered in red marks, notes, and tiny colored pins that only Victor understood. He raised a hand and pressed a finger against the center of the city.
"Start in Hell's Kitchen. Move south—Lower East Side, then east to the Bronx, sweep down to Brooklyn," he said, each word like a commandment etched in stone. "I want eyes on every block. Every alley. Every subway tunnel and sewer grate."
Matteo nodded sharply. "Right away, boss."
"And not just cameras," Victor continued. "We need boots. People with instincts. People who smell blood before it's spilled. People who understand fear."
Rico stepped forward. "We could pull muscle from El Puente and—"
"No." Victor's voice cut through the room like a blade. "Those kids break windows. This is bigger. This is war. I need hunters."
He turned, walking to the red rotary phone sitting in the corner like a relic from a different age. He lifted the receiver.
The dial tone hummed, followed by a single, heavy ring.
"This is me," Victor said, voice low, coiled like a serpent ready to strike. "Call them."
Pause.
"All five."
Another pause.
"Tell them there's fresh prey in the city... and it comes with a seven-figure prize."
He hung up slowly. The room was still, but the temperature had dropped. Something ancient had stirred.
Victor turned to his aides. A thin smile curled on his lips—cold, wolfish, unforgiving.
"Let's see how long the HeartEater can keep chewing... when the wolves begin to circle."
Then he chuckled. A quiet, hollow sound. A dead echo, like the hole in Corvey's chest.
"Let's give him something he loves," Victor whispered. "Let's give him fear."