I dreamed of fire that night.
Not the kind that burns forests or consumes homes—but the kind that lives in a man’s eyes when he wants to ruin you, not out of hatred… but obsession.
Asher.
I woke with a start, sheets tangled around me, heart pounding like I had been running for miles. My apartment above the facility felt colder than usual, the walls pressing in tighter than they had any right to. It was as if even this place, this carefully built sanctuary, was beginning to turn on me.
It had only been four days since I stepped into his cell. Since I looked him in the eye and told him he was never getting out.
And yet, he was already inside my head again.
I saw him in reflections that weren’t mine. Heard his voice in the silence between words. Smelled the phantom scent of him—clove, p
