Chapter 35
Her
The message is still glowing on my screen when the second notification vibrates through my hand, sharp and intrusive in the quiet room.
Only minutes ago the air had been thick with heat and breath and skin, but now it feels different, colder, thinner, as if something invisible has slipped inside the walls.
I am still sitting on the edge of the bed, the sheets twisted beneath me, my body heavy and sensitive from him, when the image loads slowly on my phone. It is a photograph. Taken from outside.
Grainy but clear enough to recognize him immediately. His tall frame, the mask, the unmistakable shape of him stepping through my front door earlier tonight.
The angle is distant, hidden, deliberate. Someone stood outside my house long enough to capture that moment. Someone patient.
Beneath the image, the message appears. ‘You shouldn’t be trusting men who hide their faces.’
For a long second I do not breathe. The words seem to press against my ribs from the inside. My mind tries to deny it, tries to find a simpler explanation, but there isn’t one. He was here. Watching. Close enough to see everything.
"He’s been outside." I say, staring at the screen. "This was taken tonight. While you were walking in."
"Let me see."
I hand him the phone. My fingers feel colder than they should.
He studies the photograph in silence. His posture remains perfectly composed, shoulders relaxed, breathing even. If he feels anger or surprise, it does not reach his body.
He absorbs the information the way someone reads a weather report. Calmly, analytically, without emotional waste.
"That doesn’t disturb you?" I ask after a moment, watching him carefully. "He was close enough to photograph you. He’s not guessing anymore. He’s documenting."
"It confirms something." He replies.
"Confirms what?"
"That he’s impatient."
His thumb moves across the screen. Slow. Deliberate. Not the movements of someone reacting emotionally. The movements of someone thinking.
"What are you doing?" I ask.
He doesn’t answer. He continues for a few more seconds, then hands the phone back to me.
I look at it immediately. The conversation is unchanged. No reply sent. No new message. No visible difference at all.
"You didn’t respond." I say carefully. "So what did you do?"
He looks at me. "You don’t need to worry about it."
"That’s not an answer."
"It’s the only one you’re getting."
His tone isn’t cold. It isn’t harsh. It’s final.
I hold his gaze for a few seconds longer. "He’s escalating." I say. "He’s not just threatening me anymore. He’s showing me how close he is."
"Yes."
"And you’re not disturbed by that."
"No."
The certainty in his voice unsettles me more than fear would have.
"He could be outside right now." I say. "Watching the windows. Watching you."
"If he is," he replies evenly, "then he made a mistake."
There is no arrogance in the statement. Just quiet confidence.
My pulse is still fast, but it no longer feels chaotic. It feels focused. "He wants me to feel exposed. He wants me to think he can reach inside my house whenever he wants."
"Yes."
"And now he knows about you."
"That was inevitable."
I swallow slowly. "If he sees you as a threat, he might try to remove you first."
The faintest shift passes through him then, not fear, not concern. Something closer to interest.
"He can try." He says.
"That isn’t a game."
"No." He agrees calmly. "It isn’t."
He moves closer, not crowding me, just enough that I feel the steady warmth of his presence again. There is something unsettling about how composed he remains while I can still feel adrenaline lingering in my veins.
"You think fear protects you." He says quietly. "It doesn’t. It makes you reactive. He wants you reactive."
I force myself to inhale slowly. Exhale.
"He ruins people." I say after a moment. "He spreads videos. Edits them. Twists stories. He destroys reputations without ever stepping into the light himself. He enjoys watching the fallout."
"And you believe I don’t understand that?" He asks.
The question is not defensive. It is measured.
"I know everything about you, Iris."
The words settle between us like something heavy and irreversible. For a second, my chest tightens, not from fear, but from exposure. There is something deeply unsettling about hearing that sentence spoken out loud.
Not because it surprises me. Somewhere inside, I have always known he watches, observes, collects. But hearing him confirm it strips away the illusion of privacy completely. Everything. That means the university. The video.
I glance at the iris flower resting on my nightstand. Dried but delicate. Out of place in a room that suddenly feels like a battlefield.
"You know about that." I say quietly. It isn’t a question.
"Yes." No hesitation.
A strange mix of emotions rises inside me. Shame, sharp and old. Anger, buried but not gone. And beneath both of them, something unexpected. Relief.
He knows. And he does not look at me differently. He does not soften his tone. He does not pity me. He does not judge me.
Most people, when they found out, tilted their heads slightly. Lowered their voices. Treated me like something fragile or something tainted. He does neither.
"You know what he did to me." I say slowly. "How he circulated it. How he stayed anonymous while I carried the consequences."
"Yes."
"And you still stand here."
"I do."
His voice is steady. Unmoved by scandal. Unmoved by shame. That steadiness does something dangerous to me.
Because if he knows the worst moment of my life, the most humiliating, exposed, powerless chapter, and it doesn’t change how he sees me… then he has stripped the stalker of his greatest weapon.
At the same time, the realization is terrifying. If he knows everything, then there is nothing hidden from him. No version of me left untouched.
"You say you know everything." I murmur. "That means you saw how it destroyed me."
"I saw how you survived it." He corrects quietly.
A few minutes pass before I speak again. The room is quiet except for the faint hum of the city outside.
"I remember." I say.
The drunk man in the alley who grabbed me. Mike at work who spread rumors until I couldn’t walk through the office without whispers. Justin at the club who thought a crowded room meant no consequences.
They are gone. Each of them ended with an iris left nearby. His mark. Quiet. Intentional.
"You removed them." I say, meeting his gaze through the mask. "Every one of them."
"I handled them."
"For me?"
His head tilts slightly, as if the question itself is unnecessary. "They made you suffer."
"That wasn’t what I asked."
A pause settles between us. He doesn’t look away.
"I don’t tolerate men who mistake access for ownership." He says calmly. "They crossed a line."
"And that’s enough for you?"
"It is."
His answers are controlled, precise. He doesn’t claim heroism. He doesn’t frame it as sacrifice. He states it as principle.
I study him carefully. "You didn’t hesitate?"
"No."
There is no warmth in the answer. No romance. Just acknowledgment.
"And you’ll remove this one too?"
"If necessary."
The simplicity of it steadies me in a way it probably shouldn’t.
He steps back slightly then, creating space without breaking the connection entirely.
"Lock every door." He says. "Check every window. Do not open the door for anyone. Not for a neighbor. Not for a familiar voice. If something feels wrong, it is."
"You’re leaving?"
"For now."
"But you’ll still be watching?"
"Yes."
The certainty in that single word settles into my chest like something solid. Reliable. Dangerous, but reliable.
He walks toward the door with the same unhurried calm he has maintained since the message appeared. Nothing in his movements suggests urgency or panic. It is as though tonight did not surprise him. Only confirmed an expectation.
"He wants you afraid." He says before stepping out. "Don’t give him that."
Then he leaves. The soft click of the door closing behind him echoes louder than it should.
The flat feels different without him inside it. Larger, but also more exposed. I stand slowly and move through each room, locking everything again even though I know it is already secured.
The front door. The windows. The balcony latch. I pull the curtains tight and stand there for a moment, listening to the faint hum of the city outside.
I open the camera feed on my phone and turn it on. The hallway is empty. No shadows lingering. No obvious movement.
Another message arrives after half an hour. ‘You think he can remove everyone?’
My breath stills for a second. He is watching. But this time, instead of panic flooding me completely, something else settles beneath it. Something colder. More deliberate.
Maybe the stalker believes he is the one controlling the board. Maybe he doesn’t realize there is another predator already in play.
I sit back down on the edge of the bed, the phone resting loosely in my hand. I am afraid. But I am no longer powerless. And that changes the shape of fear entirely.