The precinct at night always smelled of stale coffee and damp paper. It was a smell that clung to the walls, to the desks, even to the uniforms of men who went home after their shifts. Tonight, the odor carried something heavier. Tension.
Detective Daniel Kane stood with his palms pressed flat on the scarred wooden table in the squad room. The fluorescent lights above flickered intermittently, buzzing like angry insects. He didn't flinch. He was too busy staring at the file that had just landed on his desk like a lit fuse.
"The uploader is in our custody," he repeated, his voice low, even, but sharp enough to slice the silence. His words echoed through the room, heavy as lead. "Which means we've got a target painted on this building. And every single one of you should feel it pressing on the back of your skull."
No one argued.
Lena Hart, perched at her workstation, typed furiously. The glow of her laptop screen painted her pale face in blue, highlighting the deep shadows under her eyes. She didn't even look up when she spoke. "It's not a target anymore. It's a beacon. And the entire city's already staring at it. I've got chatter in backroom forums, encrypted boards, even taxi radios. Someone leaked. Somebody sold. And now…" Her fingers froze mid-keystroke. "…now it's everywhere."
Daniel's jaw tightened. He'd known it before she said it. Portovelo was a city that breathed rumor the way men breathed air. He turned his gaze to Alex Reed, who leaned back in his chair, long legs stretched, but his fingers restless against his thigh.
Alex exhaled sharply. "Then let's not fool ourselves. The Morettis won't ignore this. They don't let loose ends breathe. And this—" He jerked his chin at the folder on the desk. "—this uploader? He's not just a loose end. He's a living nail waiting for the hammer."
Ethan Cole shifted in his seat, adjusting his glasses. His voice was calm, quiet, analytical, as though he were reading an autopsy report. "If they move, it won't be for show. It'll be efficient. Silent. You'll only know it happened because nothing is left. If he comes himself—"
"Don't," Marcus Vale interrupted. His tone carried the weight of decades. He was the oldest in the room, gray at the temples, posture still straight, eyes like flint. "Don't dress him up like some phantom story you tell in back alleys. We're police. We deal in facts."
Daniel's lips curled into a humorless smile. "And the fact is, Marcus, half this city believes he's untouchable. That's enough to paralyze witnesses, to silence victims, to bury leads before we touch them. Fear is a fact here."
A clock ticked loudly in the background, each second dragging like a heartbeat under pressure.
From down the corridor, muffled voices carried — the sound of the uploader's shallow sobs and the occasional bark of a uniform trying to calm him. He had been dragged in hours ago, wrists cuffed, face pale, sweat pouring down his temples. At first he had begged for protection, then for release, then simply for mercy. His voice had cracked until it was hoarse. Now it was a low, broken rhythm: mutters of regret, disbelief, prayers.
Daniel gestured toward the noise. "That right there? That's what happens when people realize information isn't just information anymore. It's a death sentence. And we're babysitting a dead man who hasn't dropped yet."
Lena finally tore her eyes from the screen, her expression sharp, her voice like glass. "So the question is, do we let him drop here, or do we fight the storm when it comes knocking?"
Alex leaned forward, palms pressed together, his voice low, almost bitter. "Fight? Against what? Against who? This isn't a gang with street pistols. This is Moretti. Him. The monster they whisper about in dockside bars, the one who started at fifteen and made corpses vanish like chalk in rain. You think locks and guards stop someone who's been rewriting the city's fear map for six years?"
Ethan cleared his throat. "You sound like the city. Parroting rumor doesn't make it real."
"No," Alex snapped back, "but the blood in alleyways does. The widows do. The empty seats at dinner tables do. Rumor doesn't feed itself, Ethan. Something made it grow. Something we keep failing to catch."
Silence fell again, heavier than before.
Marcus rose slowly from his chair, crossing the room to stand by the barred window. Outside, the streets lay empty, washed in weak orange light. He spoke without turning around. "I've buried friends who believed monsters were just stories. If even half of what's said about that boy is true… then facts or not, we're in over our heads."
His words hung there, like smoke refusing to dissipate.
---
Down the corridor, the uploader screamed. Not loud, not strong. It was the scream of a man who already knew he was lost.
Lena's eyes flicked toward the sound, then back to Daniel. "What do we do with him?"
Daniel's stare hardened. "We hold him. We squeeze him. And we pray the devil doesn't knock before sunrise."
The clock ticked again.
The room felt smaller.
And in every corner of Portovelo, men and women were whispering a single question:
When will the monster move?