Chapter 4 Chapter Four: The Watcher

Morning comes gray, spitting rain across the city, but I barely notice the weather. I watch the screen instead—one of a dozen in my study—where Lena’s apartment building glows against the early light. My men are careful, shadows in better clothes. Her return is uneventful. The driver files his report, noting her fidgeting in the back seat, the way she checked the rearview mirror twice before they’d cleared the hotel parking lot.

She’s anxious. Good. She should be.

It never starts with violence. It starts with curiosity—what people need, what they fear, how easily they betray themselves. Years ago, I learned that obsession is just another name for seeing a person’s true shape, stripped of the lies they tell the world. Most never notice the shadow in the room until it’s too late. I am the shadow. Lena is the only one who’s made me want to step into the light.

I play the security footage back again, slow, watching for details. She hesitates in the lobby, drops her keys, stands in the threshold for a full seven seconds before she lets herself enter. Even her body knows the game has changed.

The camera in the hallway offers me a better view. I watch her walk, suitcase bumping along behind her, shoulders tight. Her boyfriend—Alex—opens the door.

He’s exactly what I expected: tall, thin, almost boyish, a mop of sandy hair sticking up like he’s just woken up, wire-rimmed glasses slipping down his nose, faded T-shirt and joggers like a uniform of soft mediocrity. His posture is the posture of a man who’s never been truly tested—comfortable, casual, blind to danger. The sort of man whose kindness is indistinguishable from passivity.

I find myself wondering what Lena sees in him. Safety, maybe. Predictability. Someone she can trust to be gentle, never ruthless. He is ordinary in every sense of the word. A placeholder, a comfort, the kind of man women choose when they’re tired of being hurt.

I watch as he hugs her, presses a kiss to her hair. He stirs a pot on the stove, makes tea. He doesn’t see the way her shoulders are tense, or the way she scans the apartment before dropping her bag. She forces a smile for him—one I recognize from the panel footage, the one she saves for colleagues, never for herself. I imagine the words: You’re home. You’re safe. I wonder if she believes him.

I open her file again. Lena Hart, age twenty-eight. Marketing strategist, sharp academic record, two short stories published under a pen name. She volunteers. She visits her parents on holidays, even though the flight is inconvenient. She pays her bills on time, tips well, and avoids drama. She is so carefully constructed, it makes me ache to see her undone.

I’ve had men describe obsession to me before. They talk about it like a sickness, an itch you can’t scratch. But I am not sick. I am awake. I see her clearly, know what she needs—what she’s afraid to want.

My phone vibrates. A message from Nico:

Building is quiet. No sign she’s noticed the camera.

I reply:

Good. Keep the car nearby. No contact.

There’s a comfort in the chain of command. Obedience, after all, is just another form of control. I lean back in my chair and watch the day unfold.

After sending orders to Nico, I check in with Vanya, who oversees the night clubs, and with two accountants laundering cash from a West End casino. Problems solved with two sentences, an insult here, a threat there. Power in this city is held quietly, by men who understand what it costs. I don’t trust anyone, not truly. Except perhaps Nico, and only because he knows what would happen if he failed me.

✧ ✧ ✧

By afternoon, she’s settling in—cleaning, organizing, trying to reclaim the shape of normal. Alex brings her dinner, keeps her busy with stories. I watch her body language: the small flinches, the way she checks her phone every time it buzzes. I imagine her heart racing when she saw my message last night.

Sweet dreams, Lena.

The burner I used for that text is already dead, crushed and scattered in a drain two neighborhoods away. But the echo of it will stay with her, nestled beneath her skin. That’s what matters.

My breakfast is untouched. I run my thumb along the rim of the coffee mug, thinking about Lena’s mouth. The camera in her building’s lobby pans every twenty seconds—enough to catch her reflection in the glass, the dip of her head as she checks her messages. She wears her hair loose today, curls brushing her jaw, and for one instant before she leaves for her walk, she looks straight into the lens. She can’t see me, but it feels like she does. My chest tightens, unfamiliar and unwelcome.

I step away from the screens only for business. My men handle a minor dispute two streets over, the kind of violence that never touches the news. My phone rings: a senator, a favor owed. I give him what he wants—just enough—and turn the conversation back to Lena. The senator’s daughter is in Lena’s yoga class. I ask after her, gather another piece of the puzzle. Every connection is a thread; I plan to pull until her whole world unravels.

As night falls, the cameras switch to grainy grayscale. Lena and Alex move through their routines. Then he touches her—slow, careful, as if she might break, and I realize with a surge of heat and anger that he’s trying to make love to her. I watch, and it feels like a dare. He doesn’t know how to handle her; his hands are too gentle, too certain that love is the same as safety. He kisses her, and she lets him, but her eyes are open, staring at the ceiling, her hands slack at her sides.

A sharp ache twists in my chest, ugly and hungry. The act itself doesn’t move me. It’s the way she gives him nothing real—no sound, no need, just the hollow echo of what he wants to believe. I feel it like a wound. She’s there with him, but she’s not his. Not truly. The sight of them together, the falseness of her pleasure, only makes me want her more—makes me want to burn down the world of ordinary men she keeps returning to.

For a moment, I let the feed play longer than I should, punishing myself with the proof that she hasn’t chosen me. Not yet. Then I kill the video, breath harsh in my throat. There are boundaries, even for me. For now.

I pace my study. The city stretches out below, gleaming and indifferent. I remind myself to be patient. The fun is in the waiting, in the way anticipation sharpens everything. But desire is a discipline, and tonight I am frayed at the edges.

Later, I watch their domestic routine. He jokes about dinner. She stirs the sauce. He kisses her temple, oblivious to the way she winces before she lets him touch her. He’s safe, he’s good, he’ll never understand what it means to need something that hurts. I want to break him—not for fun, not for cruelty, but to make her see what she’s missing.

I want her out of that apartment. Away from the comfort of ordinary men. I want her where I can reach her—where she will have no one left to run to but me.

Tomorrow, I’ll set the next stage. Another coincidence, perhaps. An invitation she cannot refuse. A threat only I can save her from.

Control is never complete until they believe there’s no escape.

Tonight, I watch her sleep, face blurred by distance and grain. I wonder if she dreams of me—if the shadows behind her eyelids are velvet, or iron.

The city moves on, but I am anchored here, a shadow among shadows. The game has started. She just doesn’t know how many moves ahead she’s already lost.

✧ ✧ ✧

I let the night bleed into morning, not sleeping, only moving through the rituals of power: signing documents, authorizing payments, settling old debts with a phone call and a veiled threat. Each action is precise, honed by years of practice. But beneath it all, there is a hum of anticipation I can’t quiet. Every hour that passes is another hour she is out of my reach. It galls me.

At sunrise, I have breakfast with two men from a rival family, each one trying to impress me with careful words and empty bravado. I let them talk, nod in all the right places, but my mind drifts.

I picture Lena in the soft blue light of morning, the way she pulls her knees to her chest when she thinks no one is watching. I want to see her like that, stripped of every pretense, vulnerable and mine.

The meeting ends with an agreement, my signature is the only thing that matters. The men leave, glancing back as if they can feel the difference between being tolerated and being owned.

Back at my office, Nico waits. He brings reports: Alex’s daily routine, Lena’s new schedule, Priya’s friendship, her family’s address. It’s all so ordinary, it should be boring. But each piece is a new lever, another string to pull.

“She left for a walk after lunch,” Nico reports. “Alone.”

I sit forward. “Where?”

“Down to the river. She stopped for coffee, sat on a bench for twenty minutes. Looked… distracted.”

I close my eyes and imagine her: Lena in the weak sunlight, gardenias a memory clinging to her skin, watching the water but thinking of me. Maybe she wonders if I’m there. Maybe she wants me to be.

“Did she notice the car?”

“Not that I could see. She kept her head down, phone out.”

I nod. “Next time, let her see you. Just a glimpse. No contact.”

Nico hesitates, then: “Yes, sir.”

I smile. Sometimes the best way to pull someone closer is to let them feel the edge of the leash.

I spend the afternoon setting the next trap. An invitation is drafted: Lena is selected to present her work at an exclusive networking dinner. The host? One of my shell companies. The time and place? Chosen for ease of surveillance, for vulnerability. An email is sent from the conference committee. I know she’ll say yes. She wants to prove she isn’t afraid. That’s the mistake everyone makes before they fall.

I run a fingertip along her file, reading every detail—her allergy to shellfish, the name of her favorite author, the color she wore the first time I saw her laugh. I make sure the restaurant will serve her favorite wine, seat her at a table where no one else can touch her. This is how control looks: invisible, total, inevitable.

In the evening, I watch her through the lens again. Alex tries to talk to her over dinner. She laughs, but it’s too loud, a brittle sound. She goes to bed early, curls away from him, staring at her phone in the dark.

I type out a message, then delete it. Not yet. I want her hungry for contact. I want her to feel the absence before the return.

At midnight, I stand by the window, city lights winking beneath me, and think of Lena in her tiny apartment, every lock and shadow and habit I already own. The world is full of doors. Some need only a gentle push.

Tomorrow, I’ll open one for her.

And when she steps through, she’ll find me waiting on the other side.