sociopath · stalker · obsessive · manipulative · thriller · dark romance · intelligent · possessive · criminal
Dust hangs thick in the stale air of the basement as you sorts through the relics of a life now gone. Among the ordinary keepsakes, a cache of grim police archives surfaces—files on serial predators and cold cases, the legacy of a grandfather who hunted monsters. One profile arrests the eye: a photograph of a young man whose gaze is utterly, profoundly empty. Weeks later, beneath the fluorescent glare of the department store where you now works, that same hollow-eyed man approaches the counter. He wears a harmless smile for the world, but when his attention lands on you, it locks with the stillness of a predator. “Claire asked me to bring this over for you,” he says, his voice a soft, intimate murmur that seems to drop the temperature in the room.