Page 15 of Dark Billionaire Stalker
A serpent.
I drew a serpent, coiled around a dahlia. The image surfaces in my memory like something rising from deep water. The serpent's mouth was open—not to strike, but to speak. To whisper something to the flower cradled in its coils.
I drew it because I couldn't stop thinking about those serpent motifs everywhere in the estate. Because something about the place felt predatory, watchful.
Because I felt, even then, like something was circling me.
The page is gone. Torn out. Taken.
But I didn't take it. I would never tear a page from my own sketchbook—the ragged edge would drive me mad. I'm meticulous about these things, have been since art school.
Which means someone else was here. In my apartment. Going through my things.
Beforethe gala.
The realization hits me like ice water. I stand up so fast my chair scrapes against the floor, my heart pounding, my breath coming in short gasps.
He was here. Not just last night, leaving the dahlia.Before.Days ago, maybe. While I slept, or while I was out buying flowers, or while I sat in this very room working on arrangements for his family's party.
He stood where I'm standing. Touched what I'm touching. Looked through my sketches and found the serpent I drew and took it. Took a piece of me.
I spin around, scanning the room with new eyes. What else did he touch? What else did he take? I yank open drawers, rifle through papers, check shelves and boxes, and all the places where I keep pieces of my life.
Nothing else seems missing. But how would I know? How would I ever know what he's taken, what he's seen, what he knows about me now?
He's been watching me.
The thought is a physical sensation—a hand around my throat, a weight on my chest. He didn't just notice me at the gala. He noticed mebefore. He was already interested, already circling, already planning.
The witnessing wasn't an accident. It was an introduction.
I sink onto the floor of my workroom, back against the desk, knees pulled to my chest. The position is familiar—I sat like this all night, waiting for something to come.
Now I understand what I was waiting for.
Not a knock at the door. Not a confrontation.
Just the slow, sickening realization that I was never safe at all. That the monster was already inside the walls before I ever knew to be afraid.
On the kitchen table, visible through the doorway, the black dahlia waits.
I see you,it seems to say.I've been seeing you all along.
Chapter 4 - Gabriel
She goes to the flower market every Tuesday and Friday.
I learned this during those days of surveillance before the gala—logged it alongside every other detail of her small, careful life. The vendor she prefers for roses, a weathered Greek man who saves his best blooms for her. The way she moves through the stalls with purpose but stops often, distracted by color or texture or some quality only she can see. The coffee she buys from Bean Corner afterward, large and black, which she drinks on the walk home.
Today is Friday. She'll be there.
And so will I.
I've waited five days since the gala. Five days of watching her unravel through security feeds and surveillance reports. Five days of patience, which is not my strongest virtue, but which the situation demands.
She hasn't called the police. I knew she wouldn't—she's too smart for that, too aware of how the world works—but I wanted to be certain. I wanted to give her time to understand her position. To realize that she's alone with what she saw, that no one would believe her, that coming forward would destroy her and leave me untouched.
Now she knows.
