The relentless pulse of the Las Vegas Strip thrummed outside the hotel room window, painting the walls in shifting hues of neon. Inside, Travis Ration hunched over a desk, the sterile glow of the lamp illuminating the first page of an autopsy report. Linda. Blonde. Like the rest. Another missing woman, now found, another life extinguished.

“Hey man, ready to go?” Mason Clark, new to Aegis, popped his head in, quickly followed by Ethan Turner, Travis’s best friend. Ethan groaned at the sight of the report. “I thought you were going to take a break from this.”

Travis didn’t look up. “I said I was taking a break from work.” His pen scratched notes, marking the chilling differences in this victim's case. Something had gone wrong for the killer this time. Linda hadn't been kept as long as the others.

“What are you doing?” Mason peered over his shoulder, only to snatch the report, then drop it with a gasp. “What the hell? Why do you have pictures of a dead woman?”

Travis snatched back the folder, his gaze hard. “None of your damn business.” He knew what Mason was thinking. They’d all seen death, but this was different. This was his personal fight. This was the darkness he’d dedicated his life to eradicating, a shadow that stretched back to the day his own family was butchered by a man just like this. He would find this one. He always did.