He sees you when you're sleeping

(A/N - This chapter is dedicated to Ninja covers and DizzleXD in thanks for such a kick-ass awesome book cover.) 

Prologue 

Some people have five year plans. Their little plans of action. A set amount of time to complete a set amount of goals. There's normally a trigger for the said person to start up their little plan, maybe they’ve realised just how short life is, maybe they've just found out something that they didn't want to know, or maybe they just want to prove someone wrong.

Mine wasn't motivated by either. But mine did result in me becoming lead cold case detective. Five years ago this wouldn't have been my dream job; I mean, who finds the job of looking at cold cases interesting. I would have hated it back then.

But things changed, as they tend to do. They changed when my son was murdered, and my when my wife killed herself just months after that. We tried to get back to normal after my son was murdered, but we just couldn't. Helen just couldn't cope with the fact that our youngest son had been murdered in our own house, whilst we slept next door and whilst his brother slept in the same room. She just couldn't bear that I had let it happen right under our noses. What had she married a cop for if her and her children weren't going to be protected? The fights got worse once Mark was murdered.

Everything got worse once Mark was murdered.

It was entirely my fault. The whole sick mess was my entire fault. 

But I digress; my marital issues are not the focus point here.

Mark had been killed on his favourite night of the year - Christmas Eve. He had been killed in his sleep, his throat slit. The detectives that investigated assumed the killer had done that to keep him silent. It had to be rational to them, it couldn't just be that the guy who had killed him was a sick bastard, there had to be a reason. They had followed leads for a while, as if to entertain myself and my wife, but eventually the trail had gone cold and they had stopped looking. 

The ashen face of the detective that told me they weren't going to work the case anymore will stay in my mind’s eye until the day I greet death. He didn't look any older than twenty and yet he was tasked with a man’s job. My heart would have bled for him if it hadn't of perished with my son.

They obviously hadn't looked hard enough. They were too trapped inside the box because a child had been murdered to look out of it and see the obvious. Not only had my son been killed on that fateful night five years ago, but so had ten other children. Two from each of the boroughs: two from the Bronx; two from Queens; two from Staten Island; two from Brooklyn; and finally two from Manhattan.

There were too many with the same M.O, on the same night, to be a coincidence. But they couldn't see that, they were too blind. But I wasn't blind. After all I have had five years to plan this, to get myself ready to finally get the case files and start work on solving my son’s murder.

So Mark, this is for you. This is the justice that you deserve, and I vow to you that you will be avenged.