Author's pov

High above the rain-slicked driveway of the precinct, where the heavy clouds hung low over the dark pine trees, Victor Calloway watched his sister.

His form was weightless, a faintly luminous haze hovering suspended in the damp evening air. He watched the red-and-blue lights of the police cruiser flash against Clara’s pale face as the officers guided her into the backseat. He felt no anger, only a hollow, aching sorrow.

The girl he had protected, the sister he had shared his home with, had traded his life for paper and stone.

Yet, as the cruiser doors slammed shut and the car pulled away into the fog, a strange quiet settled over his spirit. The truth was out. Justice had been spoken.

Victor looked up into the weeping gray sky, waiting. He expected the mist to part. He waited for the soft, radiant warmth he had always been promised. The gentle, guiding glow that would open the threshold to whatever lay beyond, offering comfort to a weary soul.

Seconds stretched into silence.

The light never came.

Instead, the cold Oregon air grew impossibly colder. The faint luminescence outlining his spectral hands began to flicker, sputtering like a dying candle flame. A suffocating stillness settled around him, silencing even the sound of the falling rain.

Then, the shadows bled upward.

It did not feel like night falling; it felt like a thick, pitch-black oil rising from the earth itself.

The darkness did not merely surround Victor, it took on weight. Dense, crushing, and abyssal, it wrapped around his light, suffocating the last lingering warmth of his existence.

Panic, sharp and absolute, tore through his spirit. He tried to scream, but a soul has no lungs to push air, no vocal cords to shatter the silence. The shadow pressed inward, sinking dark, icy tendrils straight into his core. It was not a physical pain, but a deep, unraveling terror. The horror of being slowly erased, dissolved, and drawn down into an endless, bottomless maw. The darkness wasn't just wrapping around him.

It was drinking him.

Victor’s fading light shuddered, collapsed in on itself, and was dragged violently downward into the abyss, leaving behind nothing but empty, silent rain.

In a realm divorced from time, light, and mortal comprehension, the void hummed.

The darkness had no name and no end. For centuries it had been his only companion, a crushing weight of ancient stone and colder iron that bit into his wrists and ankles.

He had been nothing more than a hollow thing, a starved echo of power, bound by blood and spite by a woman whose face he still saw every time the void pressed too close.

Then the soul arrived.

It was not much. A thin, bitter thread of human essence, freshly severed, carrying the sharp metallic tang of fear and the dull aftertaste of resentment.

But after an eternity of nothing, it was a feast. Heat flooded the hollow places inside him. Power, thin and flickering at first, then stronger, rushed through veins that had long forgotten how to carry anything but emptiness.

His eyes opened. Slowly, the fists that had remained clenched for ages began to uncurl. Fingers stiff with disuse flexed. The heavy manacles groaned. He gathered what little strength the soul had given him, braced against the floor of his prison, and jerked both arms outward with a violent snap of will.

And iron shattered. Chains fell away in broken links, clattering into the dark.

He rose, shoulders rolling, the last of the bindings crumbling from his ankles and a low, rough sound left his throat. Not quite a laugh but something darker and a faint, sinister smile curved his mouth.

“Now, at last,” he murmured, voice like stone grinding over stone. “What do you want from me, that you feed me a soul after all this time?”

He lifted one hand. The air before him tore open in a vertical slash of black light, a portal that smelled of damp earth and old blood.

Without hesitation he stepped through and the world on the other side hit him like a physical blow.

Light. Soft, artificial, blue-tinged from a small glowing rectangle on a nearby table. Strange shapes filled the space, smooth walls, fabric draped over frames, objects he had no names for. Everything was different, softer, cleaner and wrong.

He stood still for a long moment, senses stretching, tasting the air. The room was small, private, thick with the scent of a living woman and the faint chemical tang of modern things.

One slow step carried him farther inside and then another. On the bed, he saw someone sleeping.

Dark hair spilled across the pillow, hiding the face. The soft rise and fall of breathing was the only sound besides the quiet electronic tick of the device on the nightstand.

He moved closer, eyes adjusting to the dimness, and glanced at the glowing numbers of the digital clock and suddenly all the memories of the soul he ate started coming to his head and everything slowly started to make sense.

Date. Year. Centuries and the number burned through him and with that rage, cold and pure also flared in his chest.

So long. So many wasted ages locked away while the world moved on without him.

He approached the bed. With a small flick of his fingers the hair slid aside, revealing the face beneath and his breath stopped.

That face. That same face.

The same high cheekbones. The same shape of mouth. The same luscious lips.

The same bloodline stamped into every feature.

The woman who had bound him. The one he had hated with every fragment of his being while the chains held him.

He reached for her throat, already tasting the freedom that would come when her life ended and the last of the old blood-binding finally shattered.

His fingers were a breath away when his gaze snagged on the small plastic i-card resting on the second pillow.

He paused and lifted it.

Name: Maya Vance.

Date of birth: modern. Only a few decades past.

A short, scornful breath left him. Of course. She had simply changed her appearance, changed her name, and wandered the mortal world for centuries while he rotted. Clever. Cruel.

He dropped the card and closed his hand around her neck.

The moment skin met skin, the world inverted.

Images slammed into him. A childhood of rain-soaked Oregon streets. A mother’s sudden absence. Years of unanswered questions. Failed jobs. Mockery at a police desk. The Calloway house. The brass urn. The confession. The bruise on her forehead. Dinner eaten in front of a photograph. Loneliness so deep it had its own gravity.

Not her.

The same blood, yes. The same shape of face. But the soul inside was different. Younger. Unaware. Untainted by the ancient bargain.

He smirked, the expression sharp and cold, and drew his hand back.

“You are not her,” he murmured under his breath.

Yet the hunger remained.

Centuries of starvation did not vanish simply because the face was wrong. The soul he had tasted earlier had only sharpened the edge.

This woman carried the bloodline. She smelled of it and she was warm, soft, alive in a way nothing in his prison had ever been.

His fingers returned to the pulse at her throat, lighter this time. He traced the line of it, then continued downward. The thick comforter was an inconvenience. He pushed it aside with the same slow movement of his hand, revealing the simple black nightgown that ended mid-thigh. Soft and almost transparent fabric and nothing underneath.

He inhaled the scent of her skin, sleep-warm and faintly sweet, hit him harder than the soul had. His control frayed.

He parted her legs with quiet insistence and settled between them. Only the thin barrier of the nightgown remained. He lifted the hem with deliberate slowness, baring her completely to the cool air of the room and to his gaze.

Centuries of hunger stared back at him from the soft, vulnerable flesh between her thighs, flushed, unguarded, already glistening faintly from whatever dream held her.

He lowered his head and claimed her. There was no gentleness in the first contact.

His mouth claimed her with the raw, possessive need of something that had starved in darkness for ages.

Broad, heavy strokes of his tongue dragged through every fold, slow and thorough, tasting the sharp metallic edge of her living bloodline mixed with the sweet salt of arousal.

He licked into her as though he meant to drink the very essence of her, not merely pleasure, but the life-force humming beneath her skin.

He sealed his lips around the swollen peak of her clit and sucked hard, rhythmic, relentless, drawing on it the way a dying thing draws on the last drop of water.

A low, guttural sound rumbled in his chest, vibrating against her. The taste flooded him richer, hotter than the thin soul that had freed him.

It was the same blood that had bound him, only younger, cleaner, unaware and it had only made the ancient hunger inside him twist into something darker than simple lust.

He thrust his tongue deep, curling it against the soft inner walls, fucking her with it in long, possessive strokes while his hands locked her thighs open, fingers digging into soft flesh hard enough to leave faint marks that would bloom later or maybe not.

She made a small, restless sound in her sleep while thrashing her head to the side. Her hips shifted but he gave her no space to escape.

He held her open wider, nose pressed against her mound as he licked and sucked and claimed, alternating between flat, wet strokes that covered everything and the sharp, precise suction on her clit that made her thighs begin to tremble.

His one hand slid up beneath the nightgown, cupping her breast, thumb and forefinger closing around the peaked nipple and rolling it with deliberate pressure while his mouth never paused.

The scent of her, sleep-warm skin, the faint sweetness of her arousal, the deeper note of the bloodline filled his lungs until control frayed further.

He groaned against her, the sound rough and animal, and drank deeper. His tongue delved harder, faster, then slowed to a devastating, thorough exploration of every sensitive place, lips sealing around her clit again to suck in steady, relentless pulls that demanded her body’s response.

Her breathing fractured. The soft rhythm of sleep broke into shorter, sharper gasps. Her hips began to roll against his mouth, chasing the pressure he forced upon her.

He gave her no mercy, no pause, no gentleness. He licked and sucked and claimed with the focused intensity of a creature that had waited centuries for something this warm, this alive, this close to the one who had once chained him.

The wet sounds of his mouth on her filled the quiet room obscene, rhythmic and hungry.

Her body seized. Thighs clamped hard around his head. A broken, half-asleep cry tore from her throat as the orgasm ripped through her.

He stayed with her through every spasm, tongue gentling only enough to draw out each last tremor, lapping up the flood of her release with slow, thorough strokes, swallowing every drop as though it were the first real sustenance he had known in an age.

He did not stop until the aftershocks faded and her body went soft and trembling beneath him again.

Only then did he lift his head and wipe his mouth with the back of one hand, eyes still black with residual hunger as he looked down at the woman whose body still shivered faintly beneath him.

“You not only just look like her,” he said, voice low and rough, “you taste like her as well. But you are not her and perhaps you never can be.”

The red digits on the bedside clock clicked over to 2:00 AM.

A sharp, icy breath ghosted across the shell of Maya’s ear. “You shouldn’t have been there.”

Her eyes flew open. She sat bolt upright, heart hammering, the room pitch black around her.

“Shit,” she whispered, voice raw when she looked down between her legs. “Shit.”

She scrambled out of bed, nightgown sticking uncomfortably to damp skin, and nearly ran for the bathroom, certain it had only been a dream. A vivid, humiliating, soaking wet dream brought on by exhaustion and the residual adrenaline of the case.

But only if she knew that it wasn't.

In the deepest shadow by the window, unseen and unmoving, he watched her go.

Maya stood over the washbasin in her bathroom, splashing cold water against her face. Her skin still felt feverish, as if smoke were rising from her cheeks. She didn't reach for the face towel hanging right in front of her; she let the water linger, hoping it would offer some relief. The droplets trickled down her chin, tracing a path along her neck before disappearing somewhere beneath the neckline of her nightgown.

Gathering her damp hair into a loose bun, she looked up and caught her reflection in the mirror. Her cheeks were genuinely flushed. Her breathing had finally started to steady. Resting both palms flat against the edges of the washbasin, she leaned in closer to study herself in the glass.

Her eyes widened in a sudden wave of disbelief.

"Oh, God... what a filthy dream."

She stepped back slightly. Just the sheer intensity of that dream had left her in such a state that she hadn't just sprinted to the bathroom; she’d had to frantically clean herself, she was dripping down her thighs.

She could still feel the phantom pressure of heavy hands gripping her waist, as if the man from her dream was still holding her. For a split second, a sudden shiver of electricity rippled through her body. It felt as though he were standing right behind her, his chest brushing against her back, his hot breath playing against the sensitive skin of her neck.

She remembered those eyes. Pressed right against her core, his face half-hidden as his mouth worked, buried between her thighs, those eyes had stared up at her.

Eyes burning with a ravenous hunger, an absolute obsession. Without a single shred of hesitation, without the smallest margin for letting her go. She had never seen such raw, primal intensity in a man’s gaze before.

It was something entirely otherworldly, impossible to put into words. Never in her life had she felt anyone look at her like that, as if every passing second was weaving an inescapable leash around her, putting her very thoughts in chains. If she had actually been living through that moment in reality, saying the word "no" or even thinking it, would have been rendered entirely impossible.

It was rather terrifying to imagine that a man might possibly have such a hold on her someday.

She could almost feel the phantom stroke of his tongue against her core all over again. Her stomach tightened in a sudden, breathless spasm.

Before she even realized it, her breath had caught entirely in her chest, trapped by the sheer vividness of the memory. She remembered every single detail as if she had lived through it just moments ago.

She squeezed her eyes shut, trying to banish the imagery from her mind, and only let out a shaky breath when her vision was safely swallowed by darkness.

"Having stray thoughts is one thing, but a dream like this... one that leaves this kind of an impact? I've never had dreams like this before."

She let her head drop, her gaze drifting downward until it locked onto her thighs. She hadn't noticed it until now, but as her eyes caught a stray lock of hair trembling against her forehead, she realized her entire body was faintly shaking.

Snatching the face towel from the wall rack, she scrubbed at her face and let out a long, shuddering sigh. As the breath left her lungs, her shoulders slumped.

"Well. At least it's better than those terrifying nightmares."

She turned with the intention of heading to the wardrobe to pull out a fresh set of clothes and change right back in the bathroom, but she stopped dead in her tracks as her phone buzzed loudly from the bedside table in the bedroom.

She paused halfway across the room. Her eyes drifted past the phone to the digital clock glowing beside it.

5:00 AM.

This early? Well, getting a call at dawn wasn't entirely out of the question. If the department caught wind of a fresh crime scene, it was standard procedure.

She walked over, picked up the phone, pressed it to her ear, and sat heavily on the edge of the bed.

"Hello, this is Detective Maya Vance."

"Maya, get down to the precinct. The Sergeant wants everyone in."

Hearing those words, whatever lingering sluggishness was left in Maya’s body vanished instantly.

As soon as Maya arrived at the office, the first person she ran into was Mrs. Flores.

"Good morning, Mrs. Flores," Maya greeted her. The moment Mrs. Flores saw her, she hurried over and, under the guise of casual conversation, steered Maya toward the coffee machine.

"Morning, sweetheart. Are you well?"

"I am, thank you. And you?"

"As good as this coffee machine can be, I suppose. But here's the thing," Mrs. Flores said, switching on the coffee machine and placing a paper cup beneath the dispenser to pour a strong shot of black coffee for both of them.

After a brief pause, Mrs. Flores looked at Maya with heavy seriousness. "The woman you arrested... she's dead."

Maya took a sharp step back, the news hitting her with the force of a physical blow. She couldn't believe it; her eyebrows knit together in confusion.

"What? You mean Mrs. Calloway?"

Flores handed one paper cup to Maya, brought the other to her lips, and nodded silently.

"This morning."

"Did you happen to see her body?"

Flores gulped down a bitter, strong sip of black coffee, while Maya held onto her paper cup as if it weighed a ton.

Flores nodded again, her eyes sweeping over Maya from head to toe. She was the only person in the entire office who shared this kind of candid, unfiltered rapport with Maya, meaning there was no doubt between them regarding trust or truth.

Yet today, it was entirely clear from Maya's expression that she didn't believe the story for a single second.

"From afar, though. Open-and-shut case, they're saying. She was found holding a sharpened-edged spoon in her right hand. Left wrist slit, multiple stab wounds on her body. Apparently, a significant amount of scratches were found on her cell wall. Must have been from sharpening that spoon."

Flores recounted every detail she could remember from what she had heard.

Maya pulled her gaze away and fixed it on the notice board across the room.

"Bullshit. That woman! The very woman who killed her own brother and could've possibly hurt me as well… she cannot commit suicide," Maya snapped irritably.

She finally brought the paper cup to her lips, but the moment the coffee touched her tongue, her face locked up in unbearable bitterness. Wiping her mouth, she immediately set the cup down on the countertop a few feet away from the machine.

"Why can't she?"

"Why would she, Mrs. Flores?"

"Oh, come on. Everything she worked so hard for, everything she killed her own brother for, slipped right through her fingers at the very last second. The shock must have shattered her."

"No, no, Mrs. Flores. Accepting that in my mind is just as impossible as swallowing this coffee," Maya muttered gravely, staring down at the tips of her shoes for a long moment. "Who studied the case?"

"Who else? Marcus’ golden boy, Ryan."

Just then, a young office assistant walked into the room, and the two women instantly fell silent. The girl went straight to work making coffee. Her primary job around the precinct being to brew drinks for agents or run out to pick up food deliveries whenever someone was hungry.

While she worked, Maya’s mind raced in a hundred directions, while Mrs. Flores occasionally glanced up from her coffee cup with a knowing look.

The moment the girl picked up the finished mug of coffee to deliver it, Maya intercepted her from behind.

"Hey," she stopped her, stepping forward with measured steps and an innocent, blinding smile. "Whose coffee is that?"

"Mr. Ryan's. Why?"

Maya’s smile widened even further. Before the girl could process what was happening, Maya plucked the cup right out of her hands.

"I'll take it. His desk is right next to mine anyway. I've got this."

The girl stared at her in utter bewilderment, her eyes darting repeatedly to Maya's hands. "Are you... sure?"

"Oh, we're great friends! Didn't you notice how he's always breaking my chops? That's just what best buds do. You go on, don't worry about it."

By the time Maya finished talking, she had already slipped out of the room, leaving Mrs. Flores hiding a quiet smile. Maya always had her own unconventional ways of getting things done.

Using the coffee delivery as an excuse had a distinct purpose. Maya lingered around Ryan’s desk under the guise of casual, friendly banter, forcing herself to tolerate his obnoxious rambling because every minute she kept him talking bought her precious seconds to cast sharp, covert glances at the open file and photographs scattered across his desk.

The photos confirmed everything Mrs. Flores had described: a close-up of a severed wrist, and a metal spoon ground down and battered at the handle until its edge was razor-sharp.

Even so, Maya felt a knot of pure unease twisting in her stomach. She didn't care about Ryan's chatter anymore. Mid-sentence, she turned sharply on her heel and walked away.

"Hey, I thought we were going to drink coffee together!" Ryan called out.

"Another time, Ryan!" Maya waved a hand dismissively over her shoulder.

As a junior detective, she knew Shaw would never grant her permission to poke around this case, let alone let her inspect Clara's body or examine the holding cell.

If she wanted answers, she was going to have to sneak into the morgue herself.

Maya grabbed her car keys and hurried out of the office. No one had dumped any extra work on her just yet, making this the absolute perfect moment to slip away. If anyone asked, she already had her excuses lined up and ready.

As she drew closer to the main gate, the rising murmur of voices caught her attention. She noticed the guards blocking someone from entering.

Still, Maya had her own mission to focus on. Paying them little mind, she slipped past them from behind.

A young man was drenched in grief just as deep as hers, begging with desperate tears for a way in.

"Listen officer, just once. Let me go inside. My uncle died. His case was being handled by someone from here. I need to see them, please."

The officers wouldn't listen. At last, they had to resort to force, shoving the young man hard enough that he stumbled backward and his glasses flew off, landing on the pavement a few feet away.

Steadying himself, head hanging low, with damp eyelashes, he stepped forward to pick up his glasses when he saw Maya's retreating figure at some distance. His dark hair danced softly in the wind.

He recognized her instantly.

A fresh wave of determination sparked across his face. He quickly scooped up his glasses, slid them on, and hurried after her.

"Excuse me! Madam!"

Maya had already reached her car by then. Maya clicked the key fob to unlock the doors, pulled the driver's side open, slid inside, and slammed the door shut.

Before the engine could roar to life, however, someone started pounding on her car window with the manic speed of a machine-gun volley.

Maya jolted in sheer terror, instinctively ducking and hiding her face inside the collar of her coat.

When she didn't feel the terrifying impact of bullets tearing through the glass, she cautiously poked her head out from her coat, only to find a young man practically plastered against the driver's side window, his mouth moving in frantic, silent syllables like a goldfish in a panic.

Maya shifted awkwardly in her seat, trying to compose herself. Her gaze locked onto his face, and her breath hitched, catching sharply in her chest.

He had thick, dark black hair swept back in a striking wave across his forehead, and sharp, piercing blue eyes that looked like deep oceans. His face was drop-dead gorgeous. His skin was so pale he looked like a porcelain doll brought to life.

For a second, Maya’s exhausted brain completely stalled.

"God... I thought I was about to die... but if death is going to show up looking this handsome, what's really the harm?"

Muttering under her breath to gather her remaining nerve, she shoved the car door open.

Unfortunately, the young man had been leaning his entire body weight against the glass. The sudden absence of the window caused him to pitch backward instantly, tumbling head-first right onto the pavement with an undignified gasp.

"Whoa—oof!"

He flailed wildly to steady himself. His glasses slid completely down the bridge of his nose, resting precariously on the tip, while a heavy lock of dark hair fell messily across his forehead. He froze, blinking blindly at her chest before scrambling forward in a frantic, blushing mess.

Maya crossed her arms tightly over her chest, not moving an inch. Taking a slow, seething breath as she glared up at him from head to toe. His glasses sat on his sharp nose bridge lope-sided.

"Look, who even are you? Why are you beating up my car like that?" Maya snapped, letting loose whatever frustration was boiling inside her. "Listen, I know journalists like you wander around here all the time. But please, we don't have any headlines to serve you. Go somewhere else."

Yet, the raw innocence and breathless panic stamped across the young man's face instantly made her feel a twinge of guilt for her sharp tone.

But the words he was about to drop next were going to send a whirlwind of dizzying colors flashing across Maya's face.

"I am not some journalist, Miss Vance... it couldn't have been a suicide. Someone murdered her. You were the one handling my uncle's case, right?"

The second those words hit the air, Maya's irritation vanished into thin air. Without wasting a single microsecond, she violently shoved her car door wide open and stepped out onto the pavement.

"Mr. Victor Calloway and his sister who died this morning,"

Standing square in front of the stranger, she pinned him with a sharp, piercing, hyper-suspicious gaze from head to toe. The hard lines of her brow and the intense glare in her eyes made it clear she wasn't in the mood for any more games or lies.

"Wait, how do you know?" Maya narrowed her eyes, her voice dripping with sharp disbelief. "They didn't have any relatives. Not even a single child... So who the hell are you?"

The young man swallowed hard, taking a steadying breath before meeting her gaze without a flinch.

"Yes, they didn't have any other family left," he whispered, his voice weighted with a quiet, devastating pain. "But he always had me."

Hearing that, Maya’s head spun violently. Heavy clouds rolled thick across the sky. This shocking twist blew open the door to an entirely new turn in the case.

Maya couldn't pull her gaze away from his face. She still needed to uncover the truth about Clara's death, but this bombshell had dropped out of nowhere. Maya found it impossible to believe his claims.

"Look, you... are you lying? Do you think you can pull a stunt like this to sneak into the office and sniff out a juicy blog post? Marcus won't give you anything other than a pat on the back for a story like this."

The boy's eyes were reddening with tears. He took a steadying breath, pulling his gaze away from Maya for a fleeting second. Then, looking back up at her, he tried to make her understand once more.

"Look, I told you, didn't I? I am not a journalist,"

Maya's patience was wearing thin.

"You are wasting my time."

"I am her nephew!" the boy interrupted, emphasizing every single word.

"Oh really? When were you even born? Just now?"

"The brother and sister who died had no one else in this entire world besides each other. So where on earth did a nephew suddenly pop up from?" Maya glared at him with sharp eyes and stepped closer.

If she stood here wasting any more time with him, this crucial opportunity would slip right through her fingers.

And if she didn't find out the truth about this, the restlessness would never let her live in peace. Her nights would be plagued by endless insomnia. Maya was not about to let that happen.

Just then, she noticed thick tears welling up in the boy's eyes, spilling over to wet his cheeks.

Maya walked over to her car's back door and grabbed a bottle of water. She placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, gave him a softer look, and tried to hand the bottle to him. He was crying like a child, refusing to even lift his head to look at her.

"Look... whoever you are, please don't cry. I have to go somewhere right now. Take care of yourself."

Maya pulled away, quickly hopped back into her car, and drove off, leaving him behind. He stood there watching her car fade away through blurry, tear-filled eyes. His throat ached so badly from sobbing that he couldn't even manage to call out and stop her.

"Phew, finally free," Maya breathed a sigh of relief as she walked away from the area. Within a short while, she had arrived at the morgue where Clara's body was scheduled to be kept.

While she might have walked out of the office with reckless boldness, waltzing in here with that same attitude was entirely out of the question.

She had to sneak inside in absolute stealth. If anyone even caught a hint of her presence here, she would undoubtedly land herself in serious trouble.

The basement corridor of the precinct morgue was freezing, smelling faintly of industrial bleach and sterile metal. Maya slipped through the heavy swing doors like a shadow, moving quietly toward the refrigerated holding vaults.

The room was dead quiet, illuminated only by the harsh, fluorescent glow reflecting off the steel tables.

Maya's heart thudded against her ribs as she located the drawer labeled with Clara Calloway’s name.

With a quiet intake of breath, she pulled the heavy steel tray outward, sliding back the white sheet.

Clara’s face was pale, waxy, and entirely still. Maya forced herself to look past the superficial details of the report and examine the body with her own eyes.

She leaned closer, her sharp investigative instincts scanning the wounds. But the longer she looked, the tighter the knot in her chest became. Something was fundamentally, deeply wrong.

Her eyes dropped to Clara's left wrist, where the fatal cut was supposedly made. The skin around the incision was completely clean. Too clean.

There was none of the jagged, chaotic tearing or hesitation marks typical of someone frantically sawing at their own flesh with a makeshift, blunt-edged spoon. The cut was far too precise, straight, and clinical.

Then, her gaze shifted to the multiple stab wounds across Clara's torso. Maya’s breath hitched.

The angles of entry were completely unnatural for self-inflicted wounds. They were driven downward with an executioner’s precision, penetrating at awkward, downward trajectories that a person holding a weapon against their own body simply could not physically replicate.

And finally, she looked back at Clara’s right hand, which had reportedly been clenching the sharpened spoon. The fingers were rigid, but the palm and fingertips were entirely free of the severe abrasions, deep cuts, or heavy bruising that must have occurred if someone had aggressively spent hours grinding a metal spoon against a concrete cell wall.

Maya stared down at the corpse, her blood running cold.

And suddenly, a sharp, flashing memory cut through the sterile air of the morgue.

She was standing in the cold, dusty basement of the Calloway estate just days ago.

She remembered watching Clara’s hands as she nervously packed the velvet-lined boxes, she had been organizing everything with her left hand. Not her right. And when Clara had finally snapped, losing her temper and lunging forward with blind, terrifying fury, she had raised her left hand to shove Maya back.

Clara Calloway was fiercely, unmistakably left-handed.

Maya’s breath caught in her throat as the pieces violently snapped together in her mind.

According to the official police report, Clara had supposedly used a makeshift, sharpened spoon clutched in her right hand to repeatedly stab herself and slice her own wrist.

A wave of cold disbelief washed over Maya. A left-handed woman, someone who instinctively ate, wrote, and fought with her left hand, supposedly spent hours grinding a metal spoon against a concrete wall with her non-dominant hand, only to commit suicide by awkwardly stabbing herself at impossible angles with her right?

It was physically absurd. It was an insult to basic logic.

Such an obvious, glaring clue had been staring the entire department right in the face, yet because the coroner, Ryan, and the rest of the senior detectives had already written Clara off as a guilty, unhinged murderer who cracked under pressure, no one cared enough to consider it. They wanted an open-and-shut suicide so they could close the book and go home.

Maya gently pulled the white sheet back over Clara’s face, her heart hammering a frantic, furious rhythm against her ribs.

The department thought they were dealing with a tragic, closed-loop suicide. But standing in the freezing dark of the morgue, Maya knew the chilling reality:

Clara Calloway hadn't taken her own life. She had been brutally silenced. And whoever had staged her murder was out. Free.

Someone who had broken into her cell, murdered her in cold blood, and staged the scene to look like a desperate, guilt-ridden suicide. Maya realized with a jolt of pure dread.

“That means… The stranger outside the precinct hadn't been lying. It wasn't a suicide. Someone murdered her. But, how on earth did he already know?”