The coffee shop buzzed softly with morning energy: whirring grinders, baristas calling out orders, the low hum of early conversations.

  Seraphine pushed the glass door open, a bell chiming overhead, and slipped into the familiar warmth.

  She carried her usual armor: a psychology book tucked under her arm, expression unreadable, smile polite enough to pass as human.

  When she scanned the tables, she paused.

  There— in the shadowed corner near the window— sat Elias Rivas.

  Head bowed, brows furrowed, nose practically touching the page of his book.

  A man usually made of clipped words and clenched focus now looked… absorbed. Almost boyish.

  Seraphine drifted over silently and waited.

  It took him a full five seconds to sense her shadow.

  He flinched when he finally looked up.

  “Oh—Seraphine.” Surprise flickered in his eyes, quickly smoothed over. “Didn’t see you.”

  She smiled lightly. “May I?”

  He gestured to the seat across from him. “Of course.”

  She sat gracefully, placing her book down.

  But her attention snagged on the paperback he tried to slide toward his elbow: The Psychopath’s Mask: Inside the Remorseless Mind.

  Elias noticed her eyes and flushed. Not visibly, but enough for her trained gaze to catch.

  He cleared his throat and attempted to cover the cover with his hand— as if he were hiding a dirty magazine.

  Seraphine chuckled softly. “Don’t stop on my account.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  He blinked.

  She motioned gently to the book. “If it helps your case, keep reading.”

  Elias hesitated, then let out a slow breath and placed the book on the table again.

  “It’s… research,” he admitted. “A little light reading.”

  Seraphine arched an eyebrow. “That’s your idea of light?”

  He huffed a reluctant laugh.

  For a moment, they just sipped coffee— two people who theoretically had nothing in common, yet somehow kept crossing each other’s paths.

  Then Elias leaned back slightly, studying her.

  “You’re a psychology student,” he said. “Tell me—what’s your take on psychopathy?”

  The hint of challenge in his voice was subtle. But she heard it.

  Seraphine’s lips curled. “Well,” she said slowly, “psychopathy is less about madness… and more about wiring.”

  He nodded, curious. “Lack of empathy. Shallow affect. Manipulation.”

  “Yes,” she agreed lightly. “And many aren’t violent at all.”

  Elias tapped his book. “But some are.”

  Seraphine swirled her spoon in her cup. “And some only become violent when the world has already cornered them.”

  He paused. Something in that sentence snagged him by the throat.

  “Are you suggesting circumstances—create monsters?”

  Seraphine tilted her head, considering. “No. I’m suggesting circumstances reveal them.”

  Elias stared down at the table for a beat.

  She let silence settle like dust, then gently nudged:

  “You’re following a psychopath, aren’t you?”

  His eyes lifted sharply. He didn’t deny it. But he didn’t want to be the one to say it out loud.

  He nodded once.

  “And,” she continued softly, “you think she’s killing because she wants to?”

  Elias looked at his coffee as though it might offer answers.

  “I don’t know what she wants,” he admitted. “But I know what she does.”

  He exhaled heavily. “And so far… all her victims are predators.”

  Seraphine leaned back. “Predators,” she echoed. Savoring the word.

  He nodded grimly. “Men who… hurt women. Students. Strangers.”

  Her eyes deepened—not sad, not angry— just dark.

  “And you still call them victims?”

  Elias stiffened.

  He opened his mouth— to defend the law, to say murder is murder, to frame the world in tidy lines— But the words wouldn’t come.

  Because suddenly, the lines weren’t tidy anymore.

  He thought of: the crying women in the precinct, the erased files, the anonymous complaints, the me with clean records and dirty hands.

  Seraphine watched the war inside him.

  He closed his mouth slowly.

  No answer.

  The silence between them grew— not awkward, not empty—

  Heavy. Like a secret neither was ready to speak aloud.

  Seraphine set her empty cup down. “Sometimes,” she murmured, “a victim is just someone who finally got what he deserved.”

  Elias swallowed.

  He didn’t agree. He didn’t disagree.

  He just looked at her— really looked—

  And for the first time, felt the edges of something he hadn’t dared to name: fear.

  Seraphine stood and smoothed her dress. “See you around, detective.”

  Elias watched her leave, his fingers frozen on the spine of his book.

  The words he couldn’t say rattled inside him— What if the monster I’m hunting is right in front of me?