Chapter Nine - Eden
My morning starts the way it always does: too much caffeine, too little sleep, and a computer screen that feels brighter than it should. The research center hums with soft conversation and the clacking of keyboards.
People gather in small clusters over behavioral charts and case studies. It should be grounding. Familiar. Safe.
It isn’t.
My thoughts drift again and again to Simon. Every time I blink, I see the precise way he looked at me at the café. Warm voice. Cold eyes. A strange tension behind every polite word. Something about him feels both inviting and dangerous, like touching something sharp just to see if it cuts.
I shake the thought away, trying to focus on the work in front of me. A presentation on observational bias should hold my attention. It doesn’t. The cursor blinks at the top of the page, waiting for me to type something thoughtful, but my chest tightens instead.
I open a new tab.
I tell myself it’s for peace of mind. Or curiosity. Or anything except what it really is: fear mixed with fascination.
I type his name slowly.
Simon Sharov.
The search results load. Articles. Public records.
A few business listings with vague descriptions.
He is not a visible man. Lukyan Sharov, however, is.
His name appears everywhere—wealth, power, allegations, tabloid rumors.
Then I see a picture from a gala. Lukyan in a tailored suit, arm around a woman, smile sharp.
Beside him stands a man in a dark coat.
Simon.
My heart drops so hard I grip the desk. The image is clearer than the memories I have of him. That same controlled expression. That same posture. The faint scar near his temple. A face I shouldn’t be able to trace with such certainty, but somehow I can.
I click the photo.
Underneath it, Lukyan’s name is bold, followed by a short biography. I scroll. Clara’s article flashes in my memory. Her curiosity about Lukyan. Her insistence that something darker lay beneath the wealth and glamour. Then she vanished.
I keep scrolling.
No mention of Simon in the article. Nothing explaining why he was there. Nothing about their relationship beyond the word cousin. My breathing grows tight. I click on another link. Another image. Another.
Simon appears in three separate photos—always in the background, always still, always watching something off-camera.
My pulse becomes something sharp.
I stand abruptly, snapping my laptop shut. I need air. I need space. I need distance from the screen and the truth it’s showing me.
People look up when my chair scrapes the floor. I mumble something about a headache and head for the exit. My hands shake as I swipe my badge at the security door. The building’s fluorescent lights feel too harsh. The hallway seems too long.
When I step outside, the feeling hits instantly. I’m being watched.
It presses between my shoulders like a palm guiding me forward. I turn my head casually, pretending to check the time, but no one stands close enough to explain the sensation. Students chatter near the bus stop. Cars move down the street. A cyclist weaves between traffic.
Normal. Ordinary.
It doesn’t matter. The tension doesn’t loosen.
I choose a new path. Away from the usual route home. I walk through a busy plaza, weaving between tables and people. Crowded places feel safer. Less vulnerable. I keep my shoulders relaxed, my pace even, but my breath hitches every time someone steps too close.
I take a sharp turn toward a shopping street. Shops glow with warm lights. A group of teenagers laugh near a storefront. A delivery driver unloads boxes. Everything looks harmless.
The anxiety in my stomach grows anyway.
I switch direction again. I change tempo. I pretend to window-shop. I cross the street without waiting for the signal. Anything to break a pattern someone could follow. My heartbeat climbs steadily into something frantic.
When I reach a quieter stretch of sidewalk, the city noise thins. Streetlights cast long shadows across the pavement. The wind shifts, carrying the smell of diesel and distant food carts.
A van rolls up beside me.
At first, I don’t react. Delivery vans pass through here often. But this one slows too much. Moves too close. The rear door slides open.
I freeze for a split second—just long enough to see a pair of gloved hands reach out.
I try to scream.
It barely leaves my throat before someone clamps a hand over my mouth and yanks me sideways. My feet leave the ground. The world snaps into motion. My bag falls. My notebook skitters across the sidewalk.
The van door slams shut behind me.
Darkness. Rough hands. Breath hot against my cheek. A sharp smell of leather and sweat. Arms pin my shoulders. Someone grabs my legs, forcing me down against the metal floor.
I thrash, twisting, clawing at anything I can reach. My nails scrape across fabric. A man swears. Another grabs my wrists and wrenches them behind my back. Pain bursts up my arms.
I try to kick again, but they’re too strong. My heel clips someone’s shin. Someone else hits the side of my jaw hard enough to make my head snap.
“Hold her,” a voice growls. “She’s fighting.”
A rough cloth presses against my cheek, trying to muffle any sound I manage to push out. The van lurches forward.
My thoughts spiral.
Human trafficking. Organ harvesting. Revenge. Retaliation.
The man from the alley. Simon. Simon’s world. Clara’s disappearance. The murder. My name on some unknown list.
My chest tightens so violently I can’t breathe. Panic tears at my lungs. Every instinct screams that this is the end, that no one knows where I am, that no one will find me.
I kick again. Someone curses. A cold metal weapon glints near my face; gun, knife, I can’t tell. My heart slams painfully against my ribs.
My breath becomes sharp, broken, uneven.
I am alone. I am trapped. I am disappearing into the dark.
The van slows before I even register the shift. My lungs burn from shallow, panicked breaths, and every muscle in my body feels coiled tight, ready to snap. Someone grips the back of my coat and yanks me upright. Another man curses under his breath as he steadies me.
Metal screeches. The doors swing open.
Cold air rushes in. It’s damp and heavy, tinged with oil and dust. A warehouse.
Wide, echoing, lit by flickering overhead lamps that cast long shadows across concrete floors.
My feet stumble when they drag me out, shoes scraping, knees buckling from the rough handling and the fear spiraling through me.
Simon stands in the center of the warehouse—alone, still, deliberate. His sleeves are rolled up to his forearms, revealing strong, controlled lines of muscle. His posture is relaxed in a way that feels impossibly dangerous, like he owns every inch of this room, every breath in it.
His face—cold. Carved from something harder than stone. No warmth or softness. Only calculation sharpened into something lethal.
My breath catches painfully.
The men holding me stop a few feet away, keeping their grips tight. They wait—silent, respectful, tense—like soldiers awaiting a command.
Simon doesn’t look at them.
He looks at me.
A slow sweep of his eyes—head to toe, pausing just long enough to make my skin prickle with something between fear and disbelief.
He steps closer with that same unnerving calm, the sound of his shoes echoing off the high ceiling.
The overhead lights skim across his features, deepening every sharp angle of his jaw.
He lifts his hand. A flick of his fingers—barely a gesture.
The men release me instantly, stepping back like shadows dispersing on command. My legs shake. I nearly collapse but catch myself with both hands braced against my knees. My heart slams so violently it hurts.
He sent them away. He wanted me alone. That realization is a cold spike through my ribs.
Simon waits until the men retreat toward the van, stationing themselves near the entrance. Not watching me—watching him. As if he is the only threat in the room. As if he is the only person whose reactions matter.
My mouth feels dry. My pulse is unsteady, a frantic pulse beneath my skin. Something inside me wants to scream, but fear has locked my throat tight.
I force my voice out anyway. “What—why…” I swallow hard and lift my head, meeting his eyes, even though every instinct tells me not to. “Simon, what the hell is this? Why did you—why did you do this to me?”
His expression doesn’t shift.
He walks toward me with slow, measured steps, stopping close enough that I have to tilt my head up to keep looking at him. The warehouse feels suddenly smaller. Colder. More dangerous.
“You walked too close to something you shouldn’t have,” he says.
His voice is low. Controlled. Deadly in its simplicity.
My stomach drops.
“That’s it?” I whisper, disbelief strangling the words. “I walked too close? I was just… Simon, why didn’t you just talk to me? Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I did warn you.” His eyes narrow in a way that makes the temperature feel lower. “You didn’t listen.”
My jaw clenches. “You’re the one who followed me.”
“I watched,” he corrects calmly. “I protect what interests me.”
The words hit like ice.
My breath catches. “This is not protection,” I say, voice cracking. “This is kidnapping.”
His gaze doesn’t waver. “This is prevention.”
“Prevention of what?” I take a shaky step backward, the warehouse wall looming behind me. “I haven’t done anything.”
“You almost did.”
The words cut through me like a blade. My mind flashes back to the police station—the hesitation at the door, the brief thought of stepping inside. He knew. He saw. He logged every moment.
His anger isn’t loud, but it’s there—in the tension of his jaw, in the slight tightening of his posture.
“You went to the police,” he continues. “Even if you didn’t speak, even if you didn’t enter—your intentions matter.”
I shake my head, heart pounding hard enough to drown out everything else. “I didn’t say anything. I didn’t file anything. I didn’t even go inside.”
“You thought about it,” he answers softly. “You weren’t supposed to.”
A wave of cold washes through me, numbing my fingers. “You’re acting like I’m the threat. You’re the one—” I falter, breath shuddering. “You’re the one who murdered someone.”
The second the words leave my mouth, the air changes.
Simon doesn’t flinch. His face doesn’t shift. Something behind his eyes darkens—an acknowledgment. A silent, undeniable truth.
He steps closer.
I press my back against the wall.
“You saw what I needed you to see,” he says quietly. “Apparently, you didn’t see enough to understand.”
“I saw enough,” I whisper.
His gaze lowers—slowly, deliberately—then rises again. “You saw a moment,” he says. “Not the meaning.”
My throat tightens painfully. “Meaning doesn’t change the fact that you killed someone.”
“Meaning changes everything, Eden.”
He says my name like a warning. Like a tether. Like something he refuses to let go of.
My entire body is trembling now. Fear sharpens into something cold, something primal. I want to run, but my legs won’t move. I want to scream, but sound won’t form.
“Why am I here?” I choke out. “What are you going to do to me?”
Simon’s voice softens—not kind, not gentle. “You almost stepped into a world you don’t belong to,” he says. “I’m giving you one chance not to take the next step.”
The meaning hits me like a blow.
My knees weaken.
Simon watches every tremor, every breath, every fear tightening my shoulders. He absorbs it all with a focus that feels like a predator studying prey—not to devour, but to decide what to do with it.
The truth settles with unmistakable clarity.
Simon is the man from the alley, and I am alone with him.