Chapter Text
Sergio is going to be so displeased with him. His forehead will scrunch, he’ll flap his hands and witter on about how he thought Andrés had moved past these tendencies.
And in his defence, Andrés generally has. But, when one’s personal liberty is on the line, need’s must.
It’s a practised technique. Women, due to their overwhelming maternal urges, are naturally predisposed to care for a man they consider to be vulnerable. They are overcome with the desire to swaddle and coo. They’ll brush the hair off his forehead and do everything they can to make their man happy. Give a woman a hint of weakness, and she pounces on you like a fucking lactating tiger. Normally Andrés doesn’t need to stoop this low. He is an attractive man, and even though he dyes his hair more frequently than he used to, his power and charisma has not waned over the years or numerous divorces. But today? Today, Andrés is going to take every inch he can get. Sergio’s hypothetical annoyance be damned.
The CNI woman has been pacing around the glass-walled office for nigh on half an hour.
Although she had pulled the blinds across, obscuring the rest of the floor from view - save for the scant millimetres between each panel - the blazing light of the sunset burns her shadow across the beige swathes of fabric as she circles back and forth.
Andrés is poised. Folders and books piled up in his arms - the file on top laying open - he waits down the corridor for her musings to wind to an end, for her to step towards the door.
It takes another seven minutes and Andrés’ arms are settling into a deep ache, but finally the silhouette scoops up its bag from the desk and makes its way towards the office door. Show time . Andrés snaps his head down, staring intently at the papers under his nose in the perfect image of a man wound deep in thought as he strides towards the opening door.
A collision.
Andrés’ files go flying. The woman, a red-head, stumbles into the doorframe. Andrés bounces backwards, ankle twisting beneath him.
“Ow,” he says, scrabbling at the wall as he desperately flails for balance.
“I’m so sorry! I should have looked where I was going. Here, let me-” the woman says sincerely as she scrambles forward to pull his papers into a pile.
Cracking a lopsided smile, Andrés says, “On the contrary, I should have been more aware of my surroundings,” before sighing. “My my, I’ll never get this lot back in order.” It’s a lie of course, he has every folder, paper, and paragraph memorised but this woman doesn’t need to know that. Instead he waits for her eyes to scan across the pages she is stacking into a rough pile.
“This is El verdugo de las calles case,” the agent states. Her ginger ponytail brushes the back of her neck as it swings. A lover’s caress.
Andrés grimaces, “Alas it is. But please don’t go about spreading that awful nickname, I’ve been fighting half the department to not call him that as it is.”
She sits back on her haunches and looks at Andrés shrewdly. “You’re Dr De Fonollosa, aren’t you?”
“Guilty as charged.” A pause, and Andrés fights the urge to pout. The woman hadn’t laughed at his little joke; Palermo would have.
Instead, she pulls herself upright and sticks out a hand, “Agent Tatiana Masé of the CNI.” She hesitates for a moment before settling on, “I’m sorry about your father.”
Andrés looks down at the mess of papers still littering the carpet. “We weren’t close,” he says, smile tight, chin down. It’s vague enough to allow him space to play the grieving son, but equally sufficient to answer any oncoming niceties.
Tatiana hovers, awkward, unsettled. The hush between them is pregnant with thought, before Andrés breaks it with a clearing of his throat. “I understand you’ll need to walk through the case with me sometime soon, but given the rather austere welcome a CNI agent tends to receive, I thought it may be nicer to have our discussion over dinner. Not the most pleasant dining conversation, of course, but at least a restaurant may offer you a chance to relax before you dive into work tomorrow.”
“That would be lovely,” Tatiana says with a smile. “Does eight sound okay? I spotted a particularly lovely place by my hotel, if you’re interested?”
Andrés has lived in Madrid for ten years, and is proud to know it’s winding streets, and pockets of finery hidden amongst the tourist fare. He could create a culinary guide that would lead you from one cuisine to the next, all the while highlighting restaurants and cafes of particular artistic or architectural merit, he knows everything-
“That sounds delightful,” he says instead, and flashes her a roguish grin. Tatiana’s smile grows and Andrés’ has her in the palm of his hand. “Please, let me finish tidying here, don’t let me keep you after what I assume has been quite an arduous day.”
Tatiana ducks her head in thanks, and after a quick reassurance from him, she winds her way away from him, her heels clopping against the carpet like a show-horse.
Andrés’ smile drops.
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Tatiana is an ideal woman - smart as a whip, beautiful as a Grecian goddess, and as eager to get into the case as a whelp on his first hunt. Her skin is creamy fair, hair a rich russet, and her red lips pull into eager smiles. And Andrés is so very tempted by her.
She’d be the perfect bauble to hang off his arm at fancy functions in the evenings, and she’d be ripe for a good fucking in the early morning.
But Andrés has a job to do.
He titillates her through the evening as they sip on cava and suckle at shrimps, their discussion of the case carefully moving from Andrés’ position as criminal psychologist, to the grander ideas of hunting a serial killer - the chase, the pursuit, the blissful ecstasy of the capture. It’s a delight to see her expound on the extreme lengths she’d go to close this case. In any other scenario, she’d surely be successful.
Time creeps on and Andrés grows bored.
Passing his card to the waiter, Andrés offers to walk Tatiana home - the scant two blocks away that it is. She is, of course, touched, and leans heavily into his side as they walk arm in arm.
They draw to a stop in front of the revolving doors of her hotel, Andrés sliding around so they’re face to face now, shielding her from the evening chill.
Andrés tells her that tonight has been a delight.
He isn’t surprised when she leans in to kiss him, soft and hesitant.
She pulls back just as quickly, but leaves her face hovering a few centimetres apart from his, sharing the same air. His expression must be off, smile an inch too forced, as she says, “I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have-”
He’s quick to reassure her, hushing and murmuring a gentle “It’s okay, my dear.”
“I just - I like you Andrés, and if you ever find that you’re ready for a relationship, I’d be more than interested.” Her voice is collected, gently steady in the way one speaks to a spooked colt, and Andrés frowns. Where has this passivity, this delicacy come from?
It clicks.
“You think he raped me.”
“It was a possibility, considering you were drugged out of your mind.” The woman is unrepentant. Who does she think she is?
“You know that’s not how he operates,” Andrés hisses. “There is no evidence of sexual misconduct with any of his victims, and decidedly not with me.”
She lifts her hands in the air, conciliatory. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have assumed, I-” And Tatiana witters on with apologies and placations and Andrés is decidedly not listening.
He needs to get back on track.
“Hush, Tatiana, it’s okay, I promise,” he says, catching her gaze with his own, locking her back into his orbit. “You didn’t mean anything by it, and I’m not offended. But I think-” he interrupts himself to twist a quick look at his watch, “it is perhaps time for us to bid our goodnights, no?”
“I do have an early start in the morning,” she agrees, the frown across her forehead softening. She tucks a lock of fiery hair behind her right ear.
Andrés tucks a piece of hair behind her left ear to match. “And I’d hate for you to be tired tomorrow because of little old me.”
She smiles, a bright, toothy thing and places her hand on his arm, fingers wrapped gently around in a small squeeze. “Be safe getting home.”
With that he leaves. Collar turned up against the biting evening air, hands in his pockets, and strides across the dark Madrid streets.
He’s three blocks from home when a hand snaps around his wrist and pulls him into an alley.
“And good evening to you too,” Andrés says, as a latex-gloved hand steers him gently towards a wall and a blindfold slips over his eyes.
Andrés turns around to face his assailant in the pressing dark and is spun hard against the rough brick wall, hard enough to bruise, hard enough that a puff of breath escapes him as a forearm braces his chest against the wall.
“ Who is she .” It’s not a question.
“Palermo,” Andrés coos, “she’s no one. A CNI officer who I’m trying to get off my case.” He wishes he weren’t blindfolded. Wishes he could see if his words had hit their intended target. But he’s not. And he’ll take what he can get.
“How am I meant to leave you alone when you seduce everyone you meet?” El verdugo de las calles says.
He resists the urge to pout. “I was not seducing her, I was charming her. I can hardly control her raging hormones now, can I?” Andrés ever so slowly lays his hand over the one bunching his suit lapels. “You have to go my dear, we’re too obvious here.”
“I’m not leaving,” Palermo says, his hand trembling underneath Andrés’.
“Palermo. You know I’m a suspect now. If they've any sense, they’ll take me off the case tomorrow. We need her.”
There is a gentle swipe of hair tickling his forehead for a moment. As if the killer is bending his forehead towards Andrés’ own, hovering in the gap between them.
“What are you thinking?” Andrés murmurs.
Palermo lets out a sigh. “Just working out if I need to kill her now or later.”
“Don’t you dare,” Andrés snaps, and it earns him a slam against the wall, but he isn’t going to let that stop him. Not when his beautiful killer is about to do something so monumentally stupid. “You do that and you tip the whole weight of the CNI on us. And then that’s it. The game’s over, it all ends. The CNI finds you and you get locked up or shot, and I am not having that. So you do not lay a finger on that woman. Do you understand?”
A single latex-clad finger strokes Andrés’ jaw, slides across his chin. “She can’t have you.”
“I know, cariño-” but he is interrupted.
The killer’s thumb presses against his lips and he shuts up accordingly. “It’s not the fact that she’s a CNI agent that makes me want to break into her room and rip her throat out, Andrés. I don’t like when people get within ten feet of you, let alone dare to touch you. She doesn’t even know how lucky she is to have you look at her.”
“You think I wouldn’t rather see your face?” Andrés says sharply. “If you took off this damned blindfold we wouldn’t have this problem-”
“We can’t,” Palermo warns.
“I know we fucking can’t. But you are mine. Mine. And I won’t let anyone take you away from me just because you can’t control your temper.”
“None of those fascist pigs could touch me,” Palermo says, anger and passion and beautiful, beautiful power colouring his words. “I’m a fucking genius.”
“My genius.” Andrés wrenches forward, a crash of lips and teeth and unrestrained desperation, swallowing Palermo’s whimpers and keening moans.
Andrés cradles the murderer’s head in his hands, stroking the back of his neck. With each swipe of his thumb, Palermo melts and Andrés can’t restrain himself from spinning them around and pressing him hard against that brick wall. He crowds into his space, his leg pressed in between Palermo’s, drinking in the absolutely filthy noises the killer makes as he dissolves bonelessly against him.
“I need to have you,” he murmurs into Palermo’s neck, breathing in the tang of his skin, enraptured at the way he can feel each of his trembling gasps.
Palermo pushes Andrés away. The night air is cold. “You can’t.”
“Touch me then, for fuck’s sake.” Andrés' heart threatens to rupture through his ribcage as he feels a hand yanking at the fly of his slacks, before he had even barely finished speaking.
A hissed curse as Palermo fumbles about, and then Andrés’ slacks are hauled open, a hand diving down the band of his underwear. Andrés groans at the firm contact, the possessive way Palermo slides a hand around him.
Something is different. Andrés stills, suddenly, even as the sensation of Palermo’s touch ripples through him.
Palermo isn’t wearing his glove.
A slew of curses and compliments, every blasphemous phrase under the sun spills out of Andrés’ mouth, as he delights in the feeling of bare skin against him.
A proof, indisputable, that Palermo is truly real. Alive. Human.
“What do you want?” Andrés asks, a smile curving his lips as he pants with every sinful twist of Palermo’s hand on his cock.
He doesn’t answer.
Andrés reaches out with one blind hand and finds Palermo’s chin. He’s clean-shaven. “You took a glove off for me, now tell me what you want.”
He’s quite impressed with himself for being even vaguely comprehensible through his panting and gasping for air as Palermo’s ruthless hand curls around him, stroke after torturous stroke.
“You want to know what I want? I want to see your eyes when you come. I want to watch you wake up, your spark of hazing recognition as you see me, and then I’ll keep you breathless and ecstatic in our bed, hour after hour after hour,” Palermo says, and all Andrés can do is gasp for air, unable to think, unable to breathe as Palermo’s bare hand ravages him.
Our bed.
He is wrecked. They are wrecked. Their breath mingles in the frigid air as Andrés comes with a few trembling thrusts, body trembling with pleasure. Palermo groans his name into the dark and Andrés would do anything to hear those words over and over again. His own private symphony. Palermo is utterly destroyed and Andrés revels in it.
They stand, pressed together in the Madrid alleyway for an immeasurable moment, kissing with slow, hazy movements in a bleary desperation to stay touching for as long as possible. Andrés curls his hand from where it rests at Palermo’s hip, to skate along the planes of flesh under his jacket. Goosebumps have never felt so pretty. Andrés’ hand dances higher up Palermo’s side, until he reaches a long puckered line, lying across his hip bone. Palermo jerks back, drenching Andrés in the cold evening air and leaving his hand grasping at nothing.
But Andrés barely notices the cold. The feel of that jagged scar sends a coarse, burning anger through his body.
“Tell me the one who did that to you is already dead.”
Palermo huffs a quiet breath. “He can be next on the list, if you want.”
“You know what I want,” Andrés says, keeping his voice gentle, not too wheedling, wrestling the frustration down deep and away from his vocal cords.
“And you know that you can’t have it,” Palermo says, unyielding. He takes Andrés by the shoulders and spins him slowly back to face the wall. After a moment, Andrés feels a pair of lips press at the back of his neck. “Be careful walking home.”
The blindfold slips off his eyes, and a wall of pale bricks is all he sees. He doesn’t turn around. Instead, he stares at each brick’s imperfections with a dead gaze until he is certain Palermo - the killer, the torturer, the mutilator, the man who upended Andrés’ life so completely - has truly gone.
It takes him a moment to remember to walk home.
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Police chief vows to close the case on Madrid’s unsolved murders attributed to el verdugo de las calles
Madrid Police Commissioner Cesar Gandia says he “will not rest” until the serial killer (or killers) are brought to justice for the murders of at least four people.
Marta De La Cruz - Sunday 17 December 17:53
The new Madrid police chief has vowed to close the case on the murders of el verdugo de las calles - the serial killer that has gripped the country in fascinated terrror since October this year.
Newly appointed Police Commissioner Cesar Gandia told reporters earlier that he “will not rest” until the killer or killers of at least four people are brought to justice.
“I want to make a commitment to the people of Madrid, of Spain, and the victims’ family members,” Gandia, a former special ops agent and member of the Ejército de Tierra, said during his first briefing in his new role as police chief to the Madrid metropolitan area.
“We will not rest, and we will make sure we do everything we can to hold them accountable. I will personally ensure that the perpetrator of these monstrous deeds will be suitably punished.”
El verdugo de las calles’ various murders have been occupying much press and police time as of late, following the first discovery of a victim’s body in October of this year. Francisco Lopez de Alda, a 66-year old realtor, was found dead and mutilated in his family home following a 112 call from the man’s neighbours.
The victim’s family were found unharmed in their bathroom after being drugged and bound by the perpetrator.
An independent autopsy commissioned by Sr Lopez de Alda’s family ruled that he died by suffocation and grievous bodily wounds.
Within a matter of days, a second victim was reported following the same modus operandi of death as the first, leading to rumours of a serial killer prowling the streets of Madrid.
The brutal manner of the deaths, and the perpetrator having carved the names of crimes into the victims’ skin lead to the killer’s nickname of el verdugo de las calles .
The newly-appointed commissioner said that, with “a set of fresh eyes”, he has faith that he can get the case “across the finish line”.
“From what I’ve seen so far, there’s some strong leads that are putting us in a great place to solve this case,” he said.
“I will be working with the country’s top forensic minds to get this case cracked wide open and the perpetrator behind bars.”
Related Topics
Madrid Crime Policía Municipal Madrid