Chapter 5 Aftermath

. Aftermath

The story dominated headlines for weeks. "Portrait of a Monster: Artist-Turned-Killer Found with Gallery of the Dead."

Rourke was hailed as a hero, though the scar on his face told a quieter story. He took early retirement, bought a cabin upstate, and tried to forget the look on Elias's face as he died-more heartbroken than afraid.

The gallery burned down a month later in an electrical fire. Uninsured. A total loss.

But not all the portraits were destroyed.

One-just one-was taken before the investigation concluded. It surfaced three years later in a private collection in Vienna.

No one could prove who sold it.

No one could say how it got there.

But art, like death, endures

The cabin was quiet. Too quiet.

Aiden Rourke stared at the lake outside his window. It was frozen over, smooth and silver under the early morning light. In the distance, a bird cawed once, then silence returned like a blanket.

He hadn't slept well. Again.

The nightmares never left. Some nights, it was the basement. The torn canvas. Emily's lifeless face. Other nights, it was Elias Granger himself-calm, poetic, with eyes that never blinked even as he bled out on the cold cement floor.