Maria checked her silver watch for the time as she stood in her hallway, dressed to the nines. Eddie Daniels was rarely late, whereas Maria herself was rarely on time. Tonight, however, she couldn't afford to be late. Tonight, everything must go without a hitch, because tonight was the night.

Eddie was to pick her up at 8:30pm, sharp. They were to go to dinner, first of all. Eddie was a curious dining companion for a young mafiosi like Maria, as Eddie was an FBN agent. Not just any FBN agent, however; Eddie Daniels had the highest jail rate in Chicago. He was stationed in North Side, and it seemed like every damn day that he was part of some bust on someone or other. The truly beautiful thing was that he hadn't yet figured out that Maria was a leader in the mob that he so despised - that was the true beauty of being an unlikely and relatively young face.

Since the day she'd moved to North Side and realized that her family, the people that she loved above anybody else in the world, were in Daniels' cross-hairs, Maria had been working towards a single task. Stop Eddie Daniels. Find out what the FBN know. Figure out how to break them. Ensure that they never managed to so much as look at the Made members of North Side every again. To this end, she'd sought out Daniels in a bar after work and in the weeks since, the two had been out on quite a number of dates, with Maria playing the part of doting date spectacularly.

Tonight, however, she'd had enough of the games. Tonight, she would end the charade, end Daniels and put an end to the FBN targeting her family once and for all.

Tonight's the night.

With the thought of what was coming, the thought of what was being planned for the troublesome agent, Dexter's pulse was racing. Light sweat formed on his brow. Pure, unadulterated excitement. He must keep himself from becoming too excited and keep himself perfect. He was an artist of death. 

Tonight's the night.

Somewhere deep, the depths of Dexter's blackened soul, the blood excited him. Watching someone squirm under his knife, as their precious life drains slowly with each pulsing beat, excited him more than anything else. It was almost as if the knife had power over him, bringing him under its spell. 

Dexter had felt the tingling happiness as soon as he and Maria had began to discuss the prospect of another kill, another notch on his belt. His relationship with the stunning Maria had stretched for many years -- early on, they had established that it was probably best he keep his..addiction in check. He craved the kill. It just wouldn't do for him to satisfy his urges every time they surfaced, leaving a trail of thousands of bodies. 

Maria had contacted Dexter previously about an FBN agent that didn't know his place. Daniels, she had called him. Dexter would never be able to draw Daniels away from his protection in order to take care of him himself. A beautiful woman though...that would do the trick, and Dexter knew just the woman. They had planned for weeks, and arranged every detail. 

Now, finally, tonight was the night..

"Five minute warning!" Maria murmured to herself as she put the finishing touches to her outfit.

She smoothed down the black silk of her halter tied dress, brushed another coating of mascara over her long, black eye lashes, and swiped her red lipstick across her lips quickly. A quick re-arrangement of her hair in the hallway mirror saw her give a self satisfied nod. She was ready to go. As she slid her feet into a pair of inappropriately high black heels, she gave a silent prayer of thanks for Dexter. There was no way in hell she'd be able to wear shoes like this or risk a silk dress if she was the one doing the killings.

Maria knew her role well. Years and years of friendship with Dexter had the two partners in crime, or at least a double act to be feared. This wasn't the first hit they'd carried out together and Maria knew it wouldn't be the last. Dexter had a taste for death and violence that was quickly bringing him to stardom within their circles, and Maria played the accomplice to perfection. Tonight would be no different, she knew. When she brought Daniels to Dexter, he would be ready, both to kill and to enjoy every moment of killing. Tonight, after all, was the night.

Three hard knocks on the door startled Maria just slightly, breaking her train of thought. Taking a deep breath, Maria smiled, and opened the door, feigning delight at the sight of Daniels and the single red rose he had brought for her. As she placed the rose in a vase on her hallway sideboard and picked up her purse, a thought crossed her mind that brought a true smile to her face - the rose that Eddie had brought her would look wonderful on his grave.

After pleasantries had been exchanged, the Daniels led Maria to his car, holding open the door for her as she sat down in the passenger seat, carefully arranging her dress to ensure a good flash of thigh and an excellent eyeful of clevage for Eddie as he drove to the small Italian in South Side where the two planned to enjoy a meal. Maria wanted Daniels unable to take his eye off her, unwilling to leave her side and desperate for her. It would make it all the easier to suggest a romantic walk and lead him straight to Dexter later that evening.

She checked her watch once more - 8:35pm. Dexter would be setting up by now, ensuring his knife was perfectly sharp and that the location was secure. He was a fantastically methodical angel of death. She smiled once more. The charade would be over in just a few short hours. 'Tonight's the night', she thought to herself.

As always, everything was in perfect order and ready. Before leaving to meet Maria, Dexter checks over the kill room once more. Every inch of the room was covered in plastic to trap every ounce of the precious red life that would drain slowly from his victim. The bed had straps attached to the four legs underneath to restrain the subject, and one was placed across the top to secure the head. Organized on the nightstand were Dexter's knives, all sharpened and eager. Satisfied, Dexter walked outside and locked the door to the motel room.
 
On the short walk to the car, Dexter glanced at his watch and noted that it was 9:45. Perfect timing. It was almost time to meet Maria and Daniels. Daniels couldn't possibly have any idea what was coming. At least, Dexter hoped not -- it made it that much more enjoyable to see the sheer terror displayed on the faces of his victims when they woke up on his table.

Dexter had parked the car two blocks away from the Italian restaurant that Maria had picked for her dinner with Daniels. Dexter wondered if Daniels was naively enjoying his last supper. The irony made him smile. Dexter was now sat on a bench just down the street from the restaurant, waiting. Any minute now, Maria and Daniels should be walking out. Maria will have seductively convinced him at this point to walk with her. Let's take a shortcut, she would say, down the alley next to the restaurant. Just two blocks down and across a street was a park that she thoroughly enjoyed. Daniels would of course happily oblige, if for nothing else to spend time with the beautiful woman. Hoping to get lucky would be the last conscious mistake he would ever make.

A few minutes later, Dexter saw Daniels and Maria exit the resteraunt. Maria was doing an excellent job of convincing Daniels she was tipsy, making Daniels comfortable in the fact that he was stumbling all over himself. Between her long legs, short dress, and playful eyes, Daniels was inescapably hooked. Perfect.

Dexter moved down the alleyway. He had a few minutes before the couple made their way to the shortcut to the park, and he needed to be set. Dexter found a perfectly recessed doorway and stepped inside. He slid his hand inside his jacket pocket and removed a hypodermic syringe. Dexter paused, and listened. The loud drunk conversation was now making it's way down the alley. As his victim approached, Dexter pulled a small vial from his pocket with a potent barbiturate and filled the syringe with it. Replacing the vial in his pocket and testing the syringe, Dexter waited. Tonight's the night.

Maria was smiling her way through dinner, which was, admittedly, some of the best Italian food available in Chicago. In her 'courtship' with Daniels, there'd been times - brief, fleeting, but still, times - when she'd almost thought that she might actually quite like him. If it wasn't for the fact that he was an FBN agent seeking to harm members of her family, as well as a complete sleazebag who was out chasing young, Italian skirt while his wife and three young children back home thought he was out on a bust. The way Maria saw it, she was doing them a favor. The wife would one day find a man who appreciated her, who treated her right. Who knew - maybe she'd cross over the line and make her next husband one of the bad guys. 

Maria's main goal through dinner was to keep the wine flowing, and flowing it was. The young waiter had poured out the last of their second bottle whilst they were in the middle of their main course, and she'd managed to convince Daniels, with a little fluttering of the eyelashes and a gentle caress of the hand, to order another bottle of red. Daniels was fast approaching the point of inebriation and as far as he knew, Maria was similarly intoxicated, if not more. Maria hadn't troubled herself to mention over the course of the relationship that she'd grown up spending her summers at her uncles Tuscan vineyards. One of her jobs, along with her cousins, had been quality control management, and she'd developed quite a tolerance to wine over the years. It was a gift she used to her advantage; she'd go glass for glass with anybody, but invariably they'd be breaking down and spilling their secrets before she'd even so much as stumbled. 

Checking her watch, she saw the time. 10:20. 'Fuck it!', she'd thought to herself. She had around ten minutes to get Daniels out of the restaurant and deliver him to Dexter before she was officially running late, and she knew how Dexter liked to run his kills to time. Prior preparation and planning prevents piss poor performance, as the saying went, and in this case, would prevent getting caught. As soon as Daniels didn't arrive home that evening, his wife would raise the alarm, and although Maria knew she was reasonably safe - Daniels wouldn't even have told his partner that he was out with Maria, as his partner was the sister of his wife and he couldn't risk news of his infidelity reaching those ears - she had to protect Dexter too. 

Leaning across the table, she allowed the alluring scent of her perfume to drift across while she showed an ample helping of cleavage. Looking up at Daniels though her long, thick eyelashes, she murmured to him in an accent much thicker than her own light Italian melody, "Lets get out of here, Eddie. We will skip dessert and go for a walk, together, yes?", before biting her lip lightly.

It barely took a second before Eddie jumped to his feet - which was somewhat of a shame to Maria, as she was to have the New York style cheesecake for dessert, and the restaurant was one of the only places she'd yet found outside of New York that made it just perfectly. Maybe she could convince Dexter to come back later on with her so that she could indulge in it. 

Once they got outside of the restaurant, Eddie, stumbling and holding on to Maria's hand like a vice, started to lead her across the road. Maria, stumbling for effect, to not let Daniels in on the game, to not arouse his suspicions, stopped him.

"Nono, I know a shortcut, walk with me. There is a park, just a short walk, a very short walk. It is so beautiful and so romantic in the evening...".

With his eyes firmly on Maria's long legs, Daniels willingly allowed himself to be lead into the alleyway down the side of the restaurant. Maria's heart started racing. She knew that soon, she would hear the familiar voice and the familiar words and that it would all soon be over. Tonight's the night, she reminded herself.

Hidden in complete darkness inside the shadowed doorway, Dexter watched as Maria and Daniels moved past him. His heart beat quickly with anticipation, excitement for the coming kill. Syringe hidden from sight up his left sleeve, Dexter silently steps out a few feet behind the couple. "Tonight's the night," his deep voice visibly startles Daniels and Maria both. They turn. "I didn't mean to frighten you, I just thought I recognized....it is you! Mr. Eddie Daniels!" Dexter spent a minute raging about the famous crime fighter that Daniels imagined himself as. Daniels, meanwhile, is so inebriated that he's completely incapable of realizing what is happening, or that this is just too much of a coincidence. Dexter extends his right arm, wanting to shake the hand of such a legendary fed. As Daniels grasps Dexter's hand, Dexter's face goes slack. In one smooth movement, Dexter pulls Daniel's arm down to his own right pocket, throwing Daniels off balance. As Daniels falls foward, Dexter comes upward with his syringe now in his left hand, burying it deep into the man's neck and injecting his venom. Daniels starts to open his mouth in horror, but no words come out. Dexter places his finger over the man's mouth, shushing him as he would a child. As the barbituates take full effect and his body goes limp, Dexter catches him and moves him into the doorway where he had been hidden. 

Acting like nothing had happened, Maria and Dexter walked hand in hand just like Maria and Daniels had, drawing no attention at all. It was a simple task from here to drive into the alley, collect Daniels, and set him up in the room Dexter had prepared earlier. 

Tonight's the night.

Maria had watched dispassionately as Dexter had driven the syringe of barbiturates into Daniel's neck. The first time she'd seen a man felled by the drugs, it had shocked her. Scared her even, maybe, as she'd seen the quickness of the drug in controlling the body. The drugs Dexter had put into Daniels were strong enough to fell a horse or a cow if the need arose; she knew this, because every time Dexter's stockpiles ran low, the two would hit up a veterinary practice or a large farm and refill the inventory. 

As Dexter led her by the hand to the place where the car was, Maria couldn't help but flash her mind back to their first kill together. Dexter had been practiced in the art of bringing death for quite some time before Maria had been let in on the secret. The two had been childhood friends, raised closely after the tragic death of Dexter's mother. She'd never known what had happened to his mother, actually. She'd asked, a few times, but Dexter just closed up when she did. She remembered running home one night, crying her eyes out. She'd been dating some local dirt bag and he'd cheated on her, broken her heart and then, to add insult to the injury, had left her in the pouring rain and hit her with his car as he drove off. Dexter had caught her limping home and, once he'd gotten the story out of her, had come up with a plan. Dexter didn't kill at random. He killed those who deserved to die and he did it methodically. 

Maria squeezed his hand lightly to get his attention. 

"Tonight's the night. Is it all set up and ready?"

Neither had spoken on the car ride back to the out-of-the-way motel where Dexter had chosen to set up his kill room. Part of Dexter's sacred ritual was silence, to enjoy the moment. Wordlessly, they moved Daniel's limp body from the car into the bed room. Slowly, methodically, Dexter each of Daniels' feet to the corners of the bed. Once the arms were tied securely by Daniels side, Dexter gingerly strapped down Daniels' head with two thick leather straps, one across the chin and one across the forehead. With passionate precision, Dexter laid out his knives on the bedside table. As slowly as the labored breaths coming from the unconscious body on the bed, Dexter walked to the front door and took off his jacket, hanging it on the rack. Next, he removed his shoulder holsters and hung them up as well. The finely oiled killing machines would do him no good now. They didn't bring him satisfaction, they didn't quench his thirst. 

Dexter no longer needed to explain to Maria what to do once the deed was done. They only had to be so careful, after all. The plastic was to make it easy to dispose of the body and the blood, but little caution was required after that, and Maria was very careful. She was the perfect accomplice.

Daniels stirred.

Dexter's heart skipped a beat, and his stomach turned a quarter before settling back. His normal steel nerves were on edge, rippling with excitement. Heart beating, he moved to the side of the bed. "Hello, Eddie." The conversation was short, as Dexter explained to him why he was here. The conversation was always short. Dexter would explain, the victim would beg, and Dexter always answered the same way.

With malevolent satisfaction, Dexter wordlessly answers their pleas by slicing open their cheek, just below the eye, and collecting a small vial of blood. Once that is done, the pleas increas. With a sinister half smile, Dexter places his hand on Daniels' forehead and looks longingly into his eyes. An instant later, his knife plunges straight into the mans heart. The euphoric feeling feels Dexter as he claims another life.

As they made their way to the motel room that Dexter had set up as a kill room, Maria fiddled with the dials on the radio. As she flicked from station to station, she looked up. 

"Hey, Dex, did you eat dinner yet? I barely ate while I was out with this guy, I was too busy keeping his glass full. And I have a real hankering for cheesecake..."

Dexter barely grunted in reply. Maria wasn't overly surprised - once Dexter was 'in the zone', he didn't respond too much. 

As the car pulled up at the motel, Maria reached into the back seat and retrieved her jacket, pulling it on and zipping it up. Although she was sure that the motel was far enough out of town that nobody could possibly recognize her, she pulled the hood up over her head. You never knew who might be lurking around, and there were plenty of guys who would be indulging in some time with the 'professionals' on any given evening. 

They pulled Daniels, still unconscious, from the car and carried him into the room Dexter had prepared. As Dexter worked to get Daniels 'set up' into the position that he would meet his maker from, Maria perched herself on the edge of a dresser and light a cigarette, flicking the ash into a vase of carnations. Dexter didn't have to say a word to her through this part; Maria knew her role well, and right now, it was to let Dexter get on with the job of killing. 

As Daniels started to come around, the serenity of the room was broken by his desperate pleading. In the space of a couple of minutes, he'd invoked his wife, his kids, how he was a family man; the works. It both amused and disgusted Maria in equal measure. A family man, a loving husband and father, a man who had barely been able to tear his gaze from Maria's cleavage throughout dinner and a man who had followed her like a little lost puppy to his eventual fate because he thought it might lead to him getting lucky. Maria made a point of standing up to stub out her cigarette and then walking over, stroking the uncut side of Daniels' face gently. 

"Hey, Eddie. I do hope you're comfortable down there. Now, I know you're a family man, sweetie, such a good family man. I know you thought about your wife all the way through dinner, I know you would've thought about her every single minute that you and I were together. So, what if we send your wife a gift, hey Eddie? What if we cut your ring finger off and leave it out for her to find in the morning?"

Eddie's face froze in fear, as he realized that every single step he had taken with Maria over the last few weeks had been into this trap, that the thoughts of calling the young woman his girlfriend had lead him to his fate. Maria smiled, and retook her seat as Dexter got down to business.

He was surprisingly quick, was Dexter. He'd gotten faster over the years, his technique more defined. He'd become quite the artist. As the lights dimmed from Daniels' eyes, Maria checked her watch. There were only a couple more hours of darkness remaining and Maria knew that cleaning up the room quickly and ensuring that nobody would be able to tell of the carnage that had just taken place could take a little while, and they had to be back in the city before anybody could miss them. 

The pair worked quickly and quietly to clean up the plastic and to bag up the lifeless corpse of the FBN's former golden boy. Maria had decided against removing his ring finger, but she did slip his wedding ring into his pocket. She'd mail it back to his wife. The woman deserved to know the truth.