Chapter 9

The sky had darkened by the time Elena pulled into her driveway, a dull blue-gray stretching endlessly above her. Her mind was still whirling from the session with Cain. His words echoed in her skull like a haunting rhythm she couldn’t silence.

Do you dream about me? Wake up wet and trembling and ashamed?

She clenched the steering wheel until her knuckles turned white.

“No,” she whispered to no one. But the heat under her skin said otherwise.

She stepped out of the car and approached her front door, shoulders tight with exhaustion. But then she froze.

The digital lock on her door was blinking green, it was open.

She hadn’t unlocked it.

Her heartbeat surged. She hadn’t told anyone the code. Not even friends. She lived alone and liked it that way. Her body went on alert, every muscle pulled tautly. She stood there a second longer before slowly turning the knob and pushing the door open.

Her eyes swept the space cautiously.

Then her stomach dropped.

In the middle of her living room, her mother sat cross-legged on the cream velvet chair Elena had bought herself last fall. Beside her, a woman in a maid uniform was scrubbing the baseboards with a bucket and a mop.

The house smelled like bleach.

“What… the hell is this?” Elena asked, voice sharp with disbelief.

Her mother looked up with an expression of faint disgust. “Good, you’re home. This place is filthy.”

Elena stepped inside, slow and tense. “How did you get in here?”

“I had someone reset the code. I asked your father to call one of our tech people.”

“You what?”

Her mother waved a manicured hand. “You’re too busy playing psychologist with murderers to care for yourself, so I figured I’d step in before the rats moved in.”

Elena stared at her, stunned. “You broke into my home.”

“This is not a home. It’s a zoo. Look at this dust. The girl here found an entire hairball under your couch.” She wrinkled her nose in mock horror. “Do you live like this? You’re practically an animal.”

The words were flung with that cold, practiced smile her mother always wore. Each syllable is wrapped in perfume and poison.

The cleaning woman glanced at Elena and quickly lowered her head, scrubbing harder.

“I didn’t ask you to come,” Elena said, trying to keep her voice even.

“No,” her mother said, rising to her feet. “Because you’re too proud. Or too delusional. Playing at this ridiculous job like it’s something noble.”

“It is something noble.”

“You’re interviewing a murderer.” Her mother said it like she was talking about a sewage worker. “Someone who belongs in hell.”

“I’m doing research.”

“You’re wasting your life.”

Elena exhaled slowly, but her throat was tight. Her mother looked around again and clicked her tongue. “Honestly, you could have been so much more. You had every opportunity, Elena. You were supposed to take over our marketing division by now.”

There it was.

Elena swallowed. “I’m not interested.”

“Well, you should be. Because I’ve already spoken to the board. You can start on Monday. We’ll even send someone to get rid of this mess,” she gestured to Elena’s bookshelf, cluttered with psychology texts and notepads.

“I said no,” Elena snapped. “I’m not going back to your company.”

Her mother stiffened. “You’d rather play with criminals?”

“I’d rather do something that matters.”

“You’re embarrassing yourself.” Her voice turned ice-cold. “Walking around with notebooks like some obsessed intern. Talking to murderers. You’re going to ruin your name.”

“You mean your name.”

Her mother’s mouth twitched. “You’ve always been dramatic.”

Elena felt the pressure building inside her chest like a scream trying to claw its way out. She turned away from her mother and walked toward the kitchen. “You don’t get to control my life anymore.”

“You need structure, Elena. You need discipline. You need to stop chasing ghosts and focus on your future.”

“I have a future,” she hissed.

“A future with who? That criminal you visit every week? You’re becoming disgusting, Elena. You’re starting to look like you actually belong in that prison.”

The silence after those words was sharp and final.

Elena turned around, her hands shaking. “Get out.”

“You’re being irrational.”

“Get. Out. Take your cleaning woman and your bleach and go.”

Her mother studied her face for a moment. Then smiled faintly. “You always were weak.”

Elena didn’t move until the door closed behind them both.

Only then did she exhale.

Her mother’s sharp words lingered in the air long after she was gone, but Elena couldn’t breathe. She stood in the middle of her now-pristine apartment, trembling with anger and confusion, her stomach twisted in knots.

She grabbed a glass of wine, took a long sip, and then her eyes went straight to her bag on the floor.

Her blood turned to ice.

Her journal.

Her heart slammed in her chest as she dumped the contents of her bag on the floor.

Gone.

Her journal was gone.

The one where she’d written everything, her thoughts about Cain, her impressions, the moments she couldn’t say out loud. It wasn’t academic analysis, it was personal. Unfiltered. Intimate.

She closed her eyes.

She’d been in such a rush to get away from Cain earlier, from the intensity of his gaze, the way he’d gotten inside her head… she must have left it on the table.

In the interview room.

With Cain Maddox.

A wave of panic rolled over her.

Because if he opened it… if he read it...

He’d know.

Everything.