He allowed the jewelry to slide through his fingers. Cool, lovely, scintillating gems flashing with brilliance and fire. Diamonds. He'd bought her only the best. Because she was the best.

She had dressed so carefully to please him that night, the night of their tenth anniversary: clinging emerald silk and every diamond he'd ever given her. Coming down the stairs, she'd taken his breath away. After ten years she still did that and would, he knew, even should they live to be a hundred.

He'd bought the ring to slide on her finger when she said, "Yes," and made him complete. The bracelet when she made him a husband of one year. The necklace when she made him a father. The diamond spray brooch just because she made him what he was.

He lifted the longest strand, wrapping it over and over around and between his fingers. So much fire and brilliance, but nothing to match the fire in her heart and the brilliance of the soul shining from her eyes. His other half, she was.

And what was he to do now without her? How would he live? Walk, talk, breathe? He shuddered, writhed in despair.

He'd only left her that night long enough to go back into the restaurant to get her bag, a soft, shiny wisp of a thing, silver lame to blend with her jewels. He'd already called for their car when she'd realized she'd forgotten it on the table and so she'd waited while he ran inside. Minutes. Mere minutes. Screams. He heard them still.

He dropped the jewels to his desk; saw them reflected in the mahogany, leaned forward to cover his ears. It did no good. They were inside his head, the screams forever echoing and driving him slowly into madness. The madness of his memories. He had no idea how he'd got back to her, no memory of it. On his knees at her side, he'd screamed, wailed, held her throat closed where the blood welled.

On the sidewalk, two homeless bums held down one man until the thief was handcuffed and taken away. Attempted kidnapping, they said. One caught, two escaped.

In the ambulance he held her hand with the broken fingers and stared at the bloody knife in the zip lock bag swinging in the officer's hand. The officer told him they'd have to retain her jewelry for evidence. The officer repeated it twice until he realized the officer needed some kind of acknowledgement from him. He nodded and the officer finally left him alone.

She tried to speak, but no words would come. She tried anyway until her eyes closed and the EMT's pushed him away. She'd not been able to tell him, but he knew. He knew because he knew her. And so, as she lay in a coma, he went hunting.

Two months it took to find the two homeless bums. Three months to find the two would-be kidnappers who got away. The homeless bums were homeless no more and were now the best employees he'd ever had. He didn't like to think about the other two. Not that he'd change what he'd done if he could. To batter and slash a woman for a few gems could not be forgiven and she would never know.

He'd had to bring back the old skills, the old ways. They had never gone away, really, he'd just kept them hidden. The dark part of him had no place in his clean new life, until then. He used the old network, far more efficient and encompassing than any Police force. No questions were asked. They looked after their own, and he was still one of them and would be until the day he died.

The kidnappers were identified. Scum. Jackals that preyed on the weak and young. An abuser and a rapist. The system had taken them in for these crimes and then spat them out into the world to continue. He'd spent a lot of time manouvering them into the right position. It worked. He leaned back on his chair, face granite hard, new lines etched in his face as he remembered.

He had not taken pleasure in it and had given them their chance. In that empty, locked warehouse. Two onto one. He told them who he was and that he was there to kill them. And that they had to fight. Had to fight a real man, a proper MAN, not broken excuses for men as they were. The abuser, with the weightlifters build, had come first. The look of fear on the abusers face, when he smiled his wolf smile and let all the civilisation slip away, would be forever locked away in the dark place in his soul. He rendered him, red of tooth and claw. Let him lay where he fell and went for the rapist. Whining and pleading did not work. That old beast was truly slipped. He hurt the rapist so terribly, and, as they lay there, still alive, he spoke to them. Spoke to them of eternal damnation and the torments they would soon be suffering. He was cruel and he was the old him. Then he killed them, whispering all the while, looking into their eyes as he extinguished two imposters of men.

Eight months now. He'd stayed busy, but it wasn't enough. Would never be enough. Standing, he lifted the sparkling jewels; and, allowing them to slide into his pocket, he left for the hospital.

Leaning over her there, he talked to her, telling her of his love, reminding her of the occasion that had prompted each gift as he slipped each piece of jewelry into place around her neck, her wrist, her finger, her chest. Calling her to him.

In the shadows two silent men stood guard. No longer homeless, they watched over the man and woman even as the man's head dropped forward to rest against the mattress, far beyond tears. Two men who saw something they never thought they'd see. The woman's hand lifting and settling on the man's dark head, her fingers slipping into his hair, her voice a whisper of sound as she said his name. Her eyes opened and it was then they saw what had held the man to the point of obsession. Love.