Prologue: No More Love On The Run

Unknown Location, Boating Docks, South Side, Baltiney, New York...

 Slow and methodical footsteps from dark shiny dress shoes moved with purpose as they crossed the loud creaking aged wood of the surrounding docks, the scent of open water and old wood filled the air with the slight hint of expensive perfume and the lingering stench of teenage body spray. The dress shoes continued to move, stepping out from the shadows of the abandoned boating house. The walls of the aged structure rattled with the intensity of a low wind brought on by the waves from the surrounding water as many a left-behind boat bobbed up and down amid the dark churning waters. There had been a chill in the air and the stench of death and blood as the lone figure dressed rather nicely in a gray business suit with the inclusion of fancy dark dress shoes. The figure had belonged to a lone tall darkly tanned and rather poised man with a noticeable goatee and long dark hair that draped past his rather broad shoulders. He had been thin as far as his physical build had been concerned and his height towering as he moved slowly stalking about the boat house, black leather gloves covering his large hands and a lone kitchen butcher's knife clasped firmly within his left hand. 

The lone well-dressed man moved with all of the stiff rigidity of a hunter poised to stalk and strike at his prey. He seemed to be in his element given the almost giddy expression that filed across his surprisingly handsome face. The tightly gripped knife had been stained with the thickness of crimson along the shiny metal tip, indicating that the apparent methodical hunter had indeed found at least one aspect of prey to sink his weapon into. 

He had not been alone in the boathouse, as his apparent new line of prey had been, in fact as he moved and his position had been given away by the creaking of the aged wooden boards beneath his well-dressed feet, there had been tucked in the furthermost corner of the boathouse, two lone women who had been attempting with every fiber of their collective being to avoid his keen detection. 

Unrelenting fear coursed through the bodies of two panicked women, one blonde with piercing baby blue eyes appearing to be in her early forties dressed in a black blouse, a white blazer, and black slacks with rather comfortable black dress shoes. The second woman had been a decade younger with terrified dark brown eyes and something of a twisted grimace filed across her lovely face. Her long brown hair had been wild and rising and falling with each step as the lone man continued his relentless search for them. To them, he had been little more than a monster, his unsatiable thirst for blood had left them trembling in the wake of his chaotic path of destruction and bloodshed. 

He had been a man obsessed but not so much with bloodshed as he had been seemingly taken with the lovely blonde woman with blue eyes that had been the center of his rather twisted and unseemly world. The brunette huddled beside the blonde had been half her apparent age and of no real interest to the lone figure stalking about the docks aside from her being the one to earn his ire in the first place due to her constant interference in his relationship with the blonde, the blonde, who had held his rather twisted and dark heart from the moment they met and never seemed to let go no matter the distance nor the passage of time. 

He had loved her, truly loved her and all he had wished to do was explain to her that he would never hurt her in a million years but the brunette had been adamant about him being a danger to her and everyone around her, it had been almost amusing the audacity of the accusation, he had been perfectly capable of living a conventional life and had strived to do so before the nosy brunette interfering in it with her constant threats and meddling. 

The blonde had been as terrified of him as the brunette once everything had been said and done, the silver wedding band and enormous diamond engagement ring no longer a token of his love for her, just a symbol of control in her mind as she huddled with the brunette desperate for any means of escape from the monster that had emerged from the shadows of the man she had once loved and trusted with her very life. 

The rocking of the boats on the surrounding waterfront and the creaking of the old wooden planks had been maddening as much as the painstaking effort to hold back their agony in the form of screams and rapid breaths knowing all too well that he'd be able to hear them. The sound of forced silence had been thankfully broken as the blonde's ears picked up the sound of sirens in the distance. The police had been on their way, heading toward their location in force by the level of noise. 

The blonde had been trying her best to reconcile with the man she had known and been married to for a good number of years, who had taken care of her more often than himself, the father of her five young sons had been the same monster standing about with a blood-stained knife and stalking her as if she'd been prey and he a predator ready to sink his teeth into her at the first sign of her appearance before him. 

It had been difficult to fight back the encroaching tears that began to swell in the wells of her blue eyes as she continued to huddle amid the darkness and bobbing boats left behind in the boating house once all the chaos ensued in the wake of the lone man showing up and driving his butcher's knife into a good deal of the staff. Their bodies dropped in a good deal of numbers as blood had been spilled in this place once dedicated to summer fun and memories of happiness. 

Tears had been streaming down the pale cheeks of the young brunette as well knowing all too well that the monster who had been tracking them had meant to kill her most of all for all of the trouble she had caused him with her reappearance in his life in the first place. She had never known anyone to hold such hatred behind their eyes as she had him and looking upon him sent chills down her spine as if he had not truly been human, as if he had not been the same man that changed her diapers for years and taught her to walk and talk from the moment she came from her mother's womb, as if he had not been the same man that dressed her wounds and told her bedtime stories to ward off monsters that kept her awake in the dark. 

It had been an altogether harrowing experience to know that the monster stalking her in a bid to end her life had been the one to defend it with his own more often than not since the day she had been born. All she had wished for was answers, any answers as to what happened that had been so terrible that it forced a drastic enough change from the caring and kind man she once knew to make him into the bloodthirsty monster that sought to see her dead, the one that she feared more than anything in the world.

In their panic, they had not known he'd been but a hair's breadth away from them as soon as a swarm of officers had burst into the boating house with guns at the ready. It had been enough for the two women to get to their feet revealing their hiding place as the giddy dark eyes of the monster had been fixated upon them. 

"IT'S OVER, DROP YOUR WEAPON!" demanded the lead detective who had taken charge of this apparent case from the beginning while aiming his gun at the knife-wielding man clad in a rather impressive expensive gray suit. 

He had ignored the words of the detective, his dark hate filed eyes fixated upon the brunette who could not resist cowering in fear from his twisted rage filed gaze alone. The blonde stood her ground despite the ample amount of concern that filed across her lovely face. 

The crazed man looked upon the blonde their eyes locking as his stare shifted from pure hatred to one of sadness and longing. There had been a glimpse of a soul behind the darkness as he stood still clutching the knife, as the blonde continued to meet his gaze no longer fearful as concern had won over. 

"Don't do this," she said not taking her eyes off him, her sultry voice breaking from the strain of sorrow and anxiousness alike. "We can get you help, just do as he says and put the knife down."

The crazed man's face twisted in a grimace as tears began to stream down his cheeks. He continued to grip the knife with his left hand tighter as he stood between the object of his obsession and the many gun-drawn officers that had taken an interest in his so-called "crimes". 

"Please just put the knife down!" shouted the blonde knowing all too well that he wouldn't listen to her. 

The crazed man simply stood staring at her gripping the knife all the more. 

"For me, please just put it down, let them help you." she insisted. 

Sensing that his imminent death would cause her a good deal of pain, he dropped the knife onto the docks the echo of the clinking of the metal against the wood resounded in the boat house. The blonde let out a sigh of relief as the officers rushed him and tackled him to the ground pinning him face-first against the hardwood planks beneath them. He didn't put up a fight as they cuffed him, his gaze never leaving the blonde who had not taken her eyes off him at all as more tears streamed down his cheeks. 

The blonde seemed grateful that he had survived the encounter despite her fear of him. He stared at her in silence as they dragged him away. The brunette had burst into tears of her own after holding them back for so long. She had no doubt in her mind that either he was going to kill her if he caught her or the officers were going to kill him and despite her fear of him, she had not wanted that at all. 

She'd been forever grateful to the blonde who had come to her rescue and finally ended the long confrontation with a more favorable outcome. 

The blonde stood alone amid the boating house as the brunette took her leave still shaken from the encounter to give her statement to the police on the scene. More tears streamed down the pale cheeks of the lone blonde as she looked down at her wedding ring and engagement band. There had to be a reason for the madness, something no one had bothered to look into, there had been no other way to explain how the man she loved and fathered her children could have been capable of such twisted darkness, he had never even been the confrontation type always looking for peaceful solutions to help people, it had been his profession for a good number of years, no one had seen this coming not even him. 

The hot tears continued to cascade down the blonde's pale face as she continued to reflect on all the time he'd spent with her and the children, where were the signs, the implications, she had nothing to go on in terms of understanding where her world started to unravel and knew even less about when it happened to his. 

SEVERAL YEARS PRIOR.....