Cerita Pendek & Novel Police Revenge

I was sitting at the police station. My landlord scolded me harshly and pointed at my nose. Out of nowhere, my mother called and berated me mercilessly. “Chloe went to your place and disappeared! Did you lose her?!” “I know you’ve had grudges against me and your brother all these years, but how could you take it out on your niece?” In my previous cycle, when my mother told me Chloe was missing, I panicked and searched for her everywhere. Instead of helping, my mom and brother’s entire family dragged me to court without hesitation. I could not understand it. Chloe disappeared on her way to my place. How was that my fault? I begged the police to clear my name and review all the surveillance footage in the city. But the footage showed Chloe arriving at my door that day, and I opened the door for her. After that, she was gone, as if she had vanished into thin air. I stared blankly at the footage of her hopping cheerfully into my apartment. I had no way to explain myself. My sister-in-law lost it. She was convinced I had killed Chloe and threw boiling oil at my face in a fit of rage. I ended up in the hospital. I was disfigured and completely crushed, both physically and emotionally. No matter how hard I tried, I could not recall ever opening the door for Chloe. When I opened my eyes again, I found myself back on the day Chloe disappeared.

I quit and dipped. City threw a parade. Only Jenna Blake—my oh-so-gifted junior who claimed she could "see through killers' eyes"—lost it. At her celebration banquet, she went full drama queen: "I owe everything to Kate Mercer. Please, bring her back!" I laughed. Cold. Not happening. Last time around, I was the hotshot detective. But every clue I found? She dropped it first like she read my mind. People started saying I was washed. So I went all in—three months, no sleep, cracked a massive trafficking ring. Led the raid myself. She beat me there. Again. Place was cleaned out. Boom. She's the city's golden girl. I'm the clown with no game. Pressure got ugly. My head snapped. I died chasing the last scumbag. Then—bam. I woke up. Same day. Raid morning. Round two.

During the five years I was in a vegetative state, all ten family soldiers assigned to guard me were murdered. One of them merely smoked a cigarette outside my hospital room. The next day, he was found upside down, drowned in a toilet. Another simply adjusted my pillow. The next day, he took a dive from a skyscraper rooftop. The Corleone family was in chaos, but they couldn't find a single trace of the killer. With no other choice, the ten executions, all textbook Mafia hits, became cold cases. Strangely, the very second the tenth guard's heart stopped, I opened my eyes. The first thing I did upon waking was call the FBI and turn myself in. The agents were stunned. "Miss Corleone, are you saying that while in a coma for five years, you planned and executed the murders of ten fully armed Mafia soldiers?" My fingers tapped lightly on the table, a faint smile playing on my lips. "That's right." "Being in a vegetative state only means I couldn't move." "Who ever told you that killing, something so crude, required me to get my hands dirty?"

Fed up with my neighbors constantly freeloading off my Wi-Fi, I decide to change the network name to "Invincible Wall-Piercing Baby Killer". The next day, the woman next door—pregnant with triplets—collapses outside my apartment, clutching her stomach. "Who told you to change your Wi-Fi name? Don't you know that by changing it, I'd miscarry my triplets?" The whole family has lost their minds, I tell myself. After all, how can changing the name of a Wi-Fi network possibly affect an unborn baby, let alone three of them? A week later, her burly husband shows up at the entrance of our apartment complex, eyes bloodshot. He holds three ultrasound scans in one hand and a surgical report for a miscarriage in the other. "Murderer!" he shouts at me. "Your damn Wi-Fi signal went through the walls and killed my three unborn babies!" They start livestreaming on TikTok. They weld my front door shut, then, in front of more than a million viewers, hold up an "expert report" claiming that electromagnetic radiation has caused the miscarriage. "Enjoy spending the rest of your life behind bars, murderer!" My girlfriend of five years is doxxed. She can't take the harassment anymore and jumps off a building. Although she ultimately survives, she's left in a permanent vegetative state. I become the target of a nationwide hate campaign. Not only do I lose my job, but I also have to sell my home. I'm saddled with crushing compensation that I'll be paying off for the rest of my life. To atone for my so-called crime, I work construction day and night just to support my neighbors' family. In the end, I lose my footing on the scaffolding and fall to my death. Even as I die, I still can't understand how changing the name of a Wi-Fi network can make someone miscarry. When I open my eyes again, I return to the very day it all begins.

During the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, the brakes on my brand-new car suddenly fail, causing a massive pileup. Two people die at the scene, another 24 are injured, and the total property damage runs into the millions. The authorities determine that I am entirely at fault. I desperately try to explain that the brakes had malfunctioned, but when they have the car inspected, they find absolutely nothing wrong with it. I'm stunned. When I pressed the brake pedal earlier, it simply wouldn't move. I refuse to accept it and have the car examined by several reputable automotive inspection facilities, but every single one comes back with the same conclusion—there's nothing wrong with the car. Even the state troopers and the insurance company are speechless. "Ma'am, if you're trying to commit insurance fraud, you're going about it the wrong way." "If you don't know how to drive, you shouldn't be on the interstate. Think about all the families you've destroyed. They didn't deserve any of this." In the end, I am convicted of vehicular manslaughter and sentenced to prison. To compensate the victims' families for their losses, my parents work themselves to death. When I hear the news in prison, I tie up my sheets into a noose and end my life as well. Then, when I open my eyes again, I am back at the beginning of that fateful road trip.

An hour before the SATs, our homeroom teacher suddenly had a medical emergency. Before he was rushed away, he handed the folder containing everyone's admission slips to Leo Jordan—the notorious, pretty-boy troublemaker at school. Thirty minutes before check-in closed, he still hadn't shown up. By then, the rest of us were standing outside the exam center, completely freaking out. Without that folder, none of us could get in. I rang his phone until he finally picked up. I begged him to hurry and bring the folder over. Everyone was still waiting for him outside the exam center, after all. He scoffed on the other end. "Just because you're at the top of the class doesn't mean you get to boss me around. I'm getting tattooed right now, and I'm not leaving until it's done." I nearly lost my mind. There was no time to argue. I grabbed a few guys from our class, and we ran nearly two miles to the tattoo store. By the time we got there, the artist was finally finishing the last bit of color on the huge dragon covering Leo's back. I thought, 'Thank God. We can finally grab the folder and go.' Just then, Leo stood up. He unbuckled his belt and yanked his pants down, revealing his hairy legs. "What's the rush?" he said. "We haven't even started on my legs yet." He turned back to the tattoo artist nonchalantly. "Okay, the dragon and tiger are done. The legs are next. Put Bugs Bunny on one leg and Lola Bunny on the other. They're my favorite couple."

At 11:00 AM, my husband, Silas Vexille, slowly drowned in our indoor thermal pool. At the time, I was having my usual morning tea with the other mafia wives in the estate's back garden. The pool room was directly above the garden, barely a dozen feet away. Originally, if I had gone back to the main house at 11:00 as usual, I would have had plenty of time to save him. But as fate would have it, Victoria Harrison insisted on inviting us over to her nearby home to see her new pink diamond. At 11:20 AM, my daughter April and I pushed open the doors to the pool room. By then, Silas was already gone. At the lavish funeral, I was devastated, fainting several times. The mourners murmured in sympathy. "Don Vexille and his wife always had such a beautiful marriage..." "Yeah, what is she going to do now that the Don is dead?" Silas's mother, Martha—a tough woman who ran a Texas farm alone after her divorce—flew in overnight. Under the watchful eyes of everyone present, she walked straight up to me. Her expression was stone-cold, and she spat out every word: "You are the one who murdered my son."